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introduction I
never wanted to be a designer. I have zero business being here. I never felt like I had an artistic bone in my body. I was supposed to be a journalist. Maybe a photographer? Oh I know…a photojournalist. Yep that’s it. Somewhere between interning at City Paper and sitting here at the last minute typing this out to you, I fell in love with graphic design—specifically typography. This isn’t some surface-level, “I like making colorful things for Instagram” kinda thing here. Or some simple “I like to type semi-ironic things in Helvetica” bullshit either. This is deep, emotional, admiration for grids, perfect justified text, geometric and grotesque san serifs, the correct use of an en and em dash, and an irrational hatred for fake small caps and italics, poor rags, widows, and orphans. REAL TYPE NERD SHIT. So of course the would-be journalist without an art/creative background would fall in love in with the organization and design of words. Ever since I picked up Judith Schalansky’s Atlas of Remote Islands in Typography I, I’ve been hooked on text layouts and how the elements of the page can really make or break your design. We’re halfway through the second paragraph and in typical Brandon fashion, I totally buried the lede (journalism term!). We’re here to talk about methodologies—specifically mine. As someone who’s trying to understand his capabilities as a designer and what my thing is, I assumed I’d have trouble putting this together. Then it hit me that the tools and steps I utilized as a writer, I put to use as a designer.
To help uncover my methodology and document my journalistic approach to graphic design, I will analyze my first grad school design project. Raising Baltimore, a magazine aimed at serving the needs of millennial parents in Baltimore City, was the culmination of a semester-long dive into combining words and images to present information and concepts in media.
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Lea
arn
research
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esearching is probably the most important step in my process. You must know your subject manner. If you don’t know anything about your subject manner, how could you effectively design something about it? I acquired this mentality when I was writing short calendar blurbs for City Paper. These blurbs needed to be densely populated with background information while being pertinent to the event at hand. At the time, I thought doing deep research for a short article was foolish, but it ultimately made me a better writer. Being knowledgeable sharpens your thought process and in turn sharpens the execution. Following my internship, I’d never write anything without doing a deep dive into my subject.
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Once I decided to become serious about design, I realized that I needed to apply the same research concepts from my writing to my design work. I needed to understand my audience and their motivations. What are the appropriate conventions for this piece? Is my typeface selection going to convey the wrong message? For this project, my research included buying a plethora of family magazines and identifying the layout of pages, colors and typefaces used, the order in which content was presented as well as what types of advertisements are included and what are the motivations of the companies who chose to purchase space in this magazine. I’d also use online resources such as Muzli and Pinterest for further visual research and to help organize my ideas.
Learn
I scrounged through various family and home magazines to make decisions on the visual style of my project (left). I used online resources such as Muzli (top) and Pinterest (right) to for further visual research and to organize my ideas. 7
pla
an
plan
(Above) This was my initial mood board for the magazine. It helped me set the visual tone of the project.
(Right) My notes written out on chart paper. I’m able to clear my mind while also keeping a physical copy of my thoughts that I can easily reference at a glance. 10
Brainstorming A
fter all of that research, I become eager to jump right into building out my project and producing drafts. My ideas are all in my head and I should totally be able to reproduce them on the computer. However, more times than not, I’m unable to. I forget details that I wanted to use and eventually end up with nothing worthwhile. This is why its important for me to not skip the brainstorming step or what Iprefer to call it—The Brain Dump.
Throughout my career as a student, I absolutely hated creating outlines and rough drafts for my papers, especially when teachers would build them into the grade—forcing me to take place in this process. I understood when I was younger that it may have been necessary, but as I got older, I had a decent
amount of success just sitting down and banging out papers. As I progressed in higher education, I realized that this freelancing style of writing wouldn’t work anymore and I needed to get organized. I began dumping my thoughts about what I research onto paper—specifically the large sheets of chart paper that I could hang on the wall. As a designer, I’ve found doing this similar brain dump to be helpful in acquiring clarity about what direction I’m going on a project. In addition to taking notes, I enjoy creating mood boards. They allow me to set the visual tone for my work. I’ll combine colors, images, and even type to help me stay on the correct path.
the brain dump 11
Sketching I
absolutely hate to draw. It’s because I don’t think I’m particularly good at it. I had to learn that this step isn’t about it looking good, but finding direction. Because I’m drawing on paper and not pounding away in an Adobe program on a MacBook, I’m forced to make deliberate decisions about the design and consider whether the composition has potential to work. (Thanks, TJ)
For the Raising Baltimore cover, I wanted to emulate the covers of Milk and Parents. I had multiple ideas for the title’s style so I sketched it out. While I didn’t use that style for the final cover, the sketching process gave me a clear idea of what I wanted the structure to be.
Left column: Parents and Milk were the inspiration for my own cover. I wanted to combine the type style of Milk while also incorporating the bold color choices of Parents. At the bottom are my initial sketches for the title’s graphic style.
Center column: These are my initial layout choices. I wasn’t happy with the script typefaces so i played with various weights of Brandon Grotesque. I used Brandon Grotesque throughout the book for titles so I decided to give it a shot for the cover. I enjoyed this photo, but I knew that I couldn’t use it on the final because it didn’t convey fall but more so summer.
Right Column: I decided to use the thin and black weights of Brandon Grotesque for the title so now I’m trying to settle on the visuals and layout of the information.
Opposite: What would be the final cover, features a dynamic photo of a family having fun in the fall (Get it?). This photo was actually taken in the summer but I changed the colors of the leaves and grass to fit the theme. I also decided on using the bold, burnt orange to help with the theme. 12
Plan
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Plan
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(Left) My table of contents inspiration from Parents. (Center) My sketch of what I wanted the table of contents to be. (Right) Rising Baltimore’s table of contents. 15
bui
ild
DEsign I
prefer to experiment with potential layouts so I can get feel for works. Using the layouts from Milk and Parents as inspiration, I began building out the first article I wrote.Ultimately, I found the colors and bubbly style of Parents more appealing for my material. I didn’t want it to feel so serious plus, I could align the style of Parents closer to what my research and mood boards suggested this magazine should look like.
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Build
laying it out.
(Opposite) Milk magazine spread and my take on it for Rising Baltimore. (Above) Parents magazine spread and my take on it. I’ll eventually use this style moving forward in my project.
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Build
I know how important consistency and simplicity is to design, but I tend to ignore these principles because I have a lifetime of being told otherwise. It’s hard to respect white space when you have so many years of filling pages up with graphics in Microsoft Word. It’s hard to resist breaking the grid after seeing so many articles suggesting that it’s totally ok to do when designing a magazine. When on a project such as this, I understand that consistency is key. Suddenly changing important elements such as body copy’s typeface can be jarring to the audience. On this page, I change many elements throughout my draft process—such as colors and the imagery—but I made sure to keep my changes within the same layout to ensure consistency throughout the project.
keep it Consistent.
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Utilizing simplicity can convey a much more powerful message than trying to be fancy for the sake of being fancy. On the right, I wanted to break up the style of my layouts. However, I made design decisions that weren’t in the best interest of the reader. The color choices and orientation of the title make for a difficult read. When I reverted back to my original style, I was able to showcase the photo in a much more powerful way and have the reading experience be enjoyable. Design is not only about making things pretty. Design informs and persuades and important that whatever you make, works.
keep it
simple.
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Rew
wind
Let’s do it Over
(Left) “Ripples of Change” article from Raising Baltimore. I think that it’s a bit clutter and I can fix it.
(Right) Comments from professor and peers regarding this spread.
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Rewind
T
here is nothing I hate more than doing something over after it’s finished. However, it’s been a few years since I’ve worked on this project and I think it would bea good time to give one of these spreads some justice. Back when I was making this magazine, I thought this particular spread could be better, so I’m going to take the advice from my critiques and see if I can’t make it look a bit better
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