This is a magazine I created working with a student from BA Make-up for Media and Performance - Natalie Coles, and a student from Photography - Stephanie Bull.
- Yes, I was covered in silver glitter..
georgepugsonzzonked: Here is my groups design for the First Things First Manifesto.
We have created a simple design, that really just gets to the point.
Our main idea behind the design, Is that it is okay to design commerically, but don’t make
things out to be, what they are not, and also to design with our worlds current climate in mind.
What our design is really trying to demonstrate is.
For example :
Should we be advertising big 4x4 Cars that guzzle a stupid amount of fuel, even though we are running out of fossil fuels.
For this project we had to listen to four designers being interviewed on Type Radio, and read a copy of a written interview.
To give myself more of an idea of how the industry works, I decided to choose one name and go ahead with that one designer, as if given a brief from a client.
After reading the interview, it was apparent that his main interest was performing arts and movement within design. I decided this would be a good concept to follow through with.
My first attempt was trying to show the similarities between graphic designers and performers but it wasnít successful. It lacked movement which is what I wanted to achieve so ended up scrapping the design quite quickly. I struggled for a while with idea generation, so I tried thinking about images that express motion, did a little research and smoke seemed to work well. It has a constant fluidity which is hard to capture in anything else. I downloaded some photoshop brushes and began experimenting.
I started out by using a lot of colour, basing on CMYK. I was happy with the motion that I managed to portray, however the layout I had chosen didnít include enough text. Another problem I discovered was that when I re listened to the interview and looked at my work, I didnít feel it was relaying his personality. Philippe comes across as a more serious and pensive person, which made me rethink the bright colours, it didnít suit him. I also felt that the target audience would also be professional graphic designers or students interested in a serious career in design, so felt is should have more of a professional tone. From this I experimented with a monochrome style, it worked much better with photographed dancers instead of the photoshop brushes I used on the colour spreads.
When researching layouts I discovered that an active perimeter with artwork bleeds off the page gives a sense of motion. I wanted to work with the rule of thirds to make the spread more visually pleasing. This made the layout option very easy for me, A solid black background of two thirds for the text, and the final third occupying artwork bleeding off the page.
I decided quite early that I wanted a staple saddle stitch booklet, in terms of mass production this would be an inexpensive and quick reproduction document.
One of the main problems I experienced was unfortunately with my printer. I donít feel they took much care with my work, the crops were not even, when folded it created cracks in the ink and on one page there were ink tracks left on the page from the rollers. Another issue was that whilst at the printers we discussed paper weights of 120 for the body and 160 for the cover, but after leaving I was called and told that they did not have the paper in stock for the cover, so had to compromise for 120 throughout. I took the document back to the printer to sort out the dodgy cropping, but this resulted in them cutting into the artwork on my page. In the end I gave up with them and went to try another printer.
This project was a new adventure for me. I had never designed for editorial before and felt I lacked the skill of working with text so was very excited to start. At the beginning I found it very hard to illustrate a designer without their work and only through an interview. This was an interesting challenge which made me broaden my idea generation skills.
In previous projects I don’t think I explored many ideas before deciding on a final design. In this project I feel I have been more successful in this. Although my designs changed a few times, it was still within the same concept and they improved through further thought as I progressed in the project. I am happy with the final outcome and the development process was the reason for this. It is definitely something I will take with me in future projects as I have seen the benefits of exploring concepts now.
I feel the outcome suits well to the target audience of professionals and design students. In order to meet these requirements further I decided to put a ‘notes’ page in the back of the document for the reader.
I was very unhappy with the service and the outcome from the first printer I went to. This being said, it was my project and I don’t feel comfortable placing blame on others, I will take this as a lesson in the future to research printers at an earlier stage to make sure we have a good understanding of what is required. I have learnt that the outcome of my work is not solely down to my own preparation so a better knowledge of printing, and better communication is something I will need in the future in order to see the best of my designs.
Overall I am pleased with the tone of my document, I believe it portrays a good sense of who Apeloig is and fits the brief. The typeface I chose fits well with the illustrations and the layout is readable yet interesting. I also believe I have stayed within my original concept and have included the movement I was looking for.
The main thing I will need to take with me from this project to future projects is time management. Had I thought about things earlier on I would have saved myself a lot of stress with the printers and in turn my time would have been more productive. I also believe I relied a little too much on the computer in this project. I should have put my designs on paper first, taking less time in early stages, which I think is also connected to time management.
This project has without doubt increased my knowledge on design and working with time which has been invaluable to me. I enjoyed it from start to end and hope to work on a similar project in the future.
These are some examples of artwork bleeds and active perimeters I was looking through to help with my designs
Roberto Blake is a Graphic Designer from Brooklyn New York, with a multi-discipline skill set that allows him to design for across mediums. Roberto has recently been published in Advanced Photoshop Magazine.
“I’ve always felt it was important to be as diverse as possible, and as a creative my interest have always been broad. My skills aren’t limited to Graphic Design and Digital Art, I am also skilled in other areas such as Typography, Logo Design, and Branding. I also have extensive knowledge and experience in Print Design and Layout Design as well, and have done everything from magazine covers to billboards. With regard to my skills in Web Design, I have been developing that skill since I was very young, and first became infatuated with the web; I’ve been doing Web Design at some level for over 10 years now, starting with basic HTML before evolving to handle XHTML/CSS, Javascript, PHP, and Content Management Systems.”
His work involves illustrative movement which was very helpful when designing my own.
These are some images I came across online when looking for inspiration to make a dancer have more motion and fluidity within the image, which was something I was struggling with.
I found these magazine spread layouts eye catching as the text doesn’t follow the normal horizontal grid format. This could help me with my design as Philippe Apeloig is inspired by movement.
Philippe Apeloig video interview and talk about his work
This is the music I used for my animation. I wanted a track that portrayed a serious tone, and also matched the beat to my moving text. I found this track on creativecommons.org which included copyright. The track fitted in with the three main parts of my animation, changing the tempo and adding more sound for each section. With a bit of tweaking of my timing it worked perfectly and I am very happy with the result.
