404 design boards

Callum O’Reilly

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Design Principles OUGD404 Callum O’Reilly Level 4 Graphic Design

Layout

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Marber Based Grid

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Pantone Book

Breaking the Grid

A1 Poster Grid

This module has allowed me to create an understanding of grid systems, through investigation into the Marber grid. The design plan utilises the space on the page allowing 2/3rds of it to the image, letting the visuals speak for the book. I began to create and develop my own grid systems within my work.

Evident in my Pantone book, using a grid of 5x5 rows and columns with a 2mm gutter giving the publication a sense of consistency with its layout, placing the images and text in comparable cells throughout. The grid system created for the A1 poster needed to be able to be folded down to A4, this format allowed the design to start with a basic grid of 2 columns and 3 rows; meaning the content in the lower left corner would be the content that is visible to the audience. This is something broken when experimenting with the timeline, as it was to be placed on the slip covers, I wanted it to contrast against the strong balanced grid of the cover. This contrast is done through misplacement of the text breaking out of its modular design, further reaffirmed by the displacement of the images.

Colour

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Investigation into IKB (International Klein Blue)

My Experimentation Homage to the Square

Josef Albers Homage to the Square

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My investigation into colour began with my research into Josef Albers, his most known for his works ‘Homage to the square’, a series of paintings exploring the oxymoronic nature of colour in respect to its independent and dependence to each other. Depicted through the way the colours create a ‘temperature’ tone gradient dependant on how they’re paired, without actually bleeding together, keeping the colours as independent elements. ¬¬To gain a greater understanding of the theory behind this I created my own exploration of the style, using the colours from my pantone swatch; created in my book. My Pantone experimentation depicts colours taken from Woodhouse Lane in Leeds, this image was chosen due to its rusty warm tonnes evident on the broadcast tower, road and bus stop.

The colours have been organised in a way that complement each other, representing ‘warm’ tones, whilst retain independence as three separate blocks of colour. We investigated into RGB and CMYK, CMYK was mainly used for this module as majority of the outcomes were for print. CMYK is subtractive, meaning the addition of the colours changes the hue. Investigations into IKB, its origins and contemporary use have also been carried out, the colour was first mixed by artist Yves Klein,

Pantone Book

CMYK VS. RGB

Woodhouse Lane, LS2

for his series of monotone paintings featuring the ultramarine. Pantone Matching System is the standardised system to ensure the correct colours are used to replicate designs, each colour having its own number and swatch, explored here through the extraction of sample colours from an image within Leeds.

Type

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A1 Poster

Montserrat

Helvetica Neue Pantone Book Text

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Various different typeface decisions were made depending on the brief’s needed, the content itself was also taken into consideration to choose the most appropriate typeface for that format. As can be seen on the left the typeface Montserrat was chosen for the main head-line typefaces on the poster. This use of this typeface adds personality to the poster which mainly focuses on the use of white/negative space, if a typeface with less personality was used it would make the outcome appear clinical and blank rather than modern. Montserrat has more personality to it than other typefaces due to its smaller x height, making the characters themselves appear more curved in nature, even though they all have straight horizontal and vertical terminals.

Helvetica Neue was chosen for the body text of my document, giving the book a sense of professionalism and clarity. The typeface is standard and plain, thus keeping the audience’s attention on the content and visual representations of the text, as it has no formal or decorative elements. The typeface also coincides with the modernist simplistic style presented throughout the booklet. As this was different to the headline and sub header typeface selection it also visually differentiates the body to the title.

Typeography has also influenced my design in terms of the Tate logo being made out of half tone. This led me to change my image of the paper construction to halftone, visually reaffirming the brand identity through imagery.

Halftone Tate Modern Logo

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Format

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Paper Construction

Pantone Book Design

A1 Poster

Folded A1 Poster

Pantone Book Cover Format needed to be taken into consideration for each of the separate elements of this module. My pantone booklet needed to be created as a double page spread in order to bind it in the way it was, meaning pagination was also considered to insure the parts of the design that was printed on alternate stocks was done successfully. The cover needed to be changed as the information behind it was blocking off the title, as the stock was translucent, to allow the audience to see the image that was being analysed.

The placement of content was also taken into consideration in my A1 poster, as it was to be folded down to A4. Being A1 folding techniques needed to be researched before completing the final piece, the Tate logo was placed into the bottom left corner making it evident when folded as can be seen in the final photo. The format of the poster, also meant that the photography included needed to be high quality to avoid pixilation and distortion when printing at such a large scale; this was a further consideration when using imagery from secondary sources, such as obtaining the Tate logo.

Final Outcomes

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3 Penguin Book Covers

Pantone Book

The final three outcomes depict the three penguin classic book cover remakes. They represent a use of the Marber grid system, sticking to the traditional brand identity of the penguin classic books, in which Helvetica was used to keep the type an undertone rather than a focus of the cover; not distracting the audience from the visuals itself.

The final pantone book cover consists of a publication bound through a 2-up saddle stich, using red thread highlighting tones from the image on the inside, which the sample colours for my pantone swatch derived from. The content was consisted place in comparable modular cells throughout a 5x5 grid system, allowing consistency.

The final A1 poster permitted experimentation with format, as can be seen above the final printed outcome works successfully to the brief in both A1 and A4 format.

Romek Marber was one of the most influential designers in terms of creating a grid system that was consistently

used, to the point where it began to become Penguin books visual identity. This timeline highlights key points in his life, in which I contradict the grid system that he created, through breaking the grid it allows the audience to engage with the contrast between this and the strong strict guides of the cover.

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A1 Poster (Folded to A4)

Romek Marber Timeline