Brief 12 Boards

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

1 Brief

The Brief

Test Print

To create the yearbook for this year’s graduating class of the Printed Textiles & Surface Pattern Design course. It needs to showcase every student’s work as well as advertise the course. It is aimed at prospective students, parents, other universities and potential employers. This was a collaboration between me, Jordan Harrison Reader, Joe Harrison and Leo Sims.

This is an ongoing project, and these boards show the progress so far. The photographs show the test print that have been received, and this has amends to be made before sending for the final publication through.

Danielle Harrison

Danielle Harrison

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

2 Concept

Textiles Tribe

Their Space

Course Culture

The Printed Textiles group call themselves a tribe, and so this was recurring theme within the yearbook. From the cover photo, to the tone of voice and symbolism, it is prevalent throughout to get the message across that they are a community and have a tribe mentality. Symbolism inspired my tribal shapes, copy such as ‘social jungle’ and ‘creative monkeys’ and the jungle leave inspired pattern on the cover all contribute to this.

Their space is a lively, vibrant, buzzing space full of people, light, work, motivational posters and personal touches.

This needed to be conveyed within the book because it is a huge selling point for the course. Being in such a creative environment would be appealing for prospective students and reflect their culture which is what the course wanted. To do this, photography of the space, and the print room, were taken, with quotes by the students overlayed them.

Rather than showcasing each person and their work, the purpose of this yearbook is to promote the culture of the course and their extremely hard work ethic. So, each student were allocated one page each rather than a spread, and infographics showcasing important aspects of the course were featured throughout so the viewer can start to see what they are about beyond the patterns.

Danielle Harrison

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

3 Research

Production

Tribal Aesthetic

Big Typography

Since there was a big budget for the yearbook, there was options for the binding and finishing process. After some research, screw binding felt like an appropriate bind since it reflects a swatch booklet - something the textiles course are familiar with. It also gives a tactile and hands on feel, which again reflects the nature of the course. We looked through the G.F. Smith sample books and picked a coated one to work well with photography.

We looked at different ways a tribal aesthetic could be applied to the book, as we didn’t want it to be too strong and interefere with the strong imagery of the students work, but then we wanted it to clear this was a recurring theme.

Accents of tribal symbolism were found to be an effective way of combining clean and hand rendered design to still look professional while retaining personality.

One key design trend we felt worked well was big typography to display bodycopy. This is so that it grabs the attention of the viewer and not cause them to skim past the ‘boring information’.

Danielle Harrison

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

4 Design Decisions

Cover Image and Colour

Monotone Images

Typography

Tone of Voice

The colour is an important part of the book, as it is a focal point on all of the spreads which are not student work. A deep blue was picked from the cover image for consistency throughout the book. This particular image was chosen for the cover due to its jungle inspired look with the vibrant leaves to work with the tribal theme. It is an abstract, bright design that would grab the attention of the viewer, and showcase the high standard of the course.

To make the blue a focal point, it has been overlaid the background images throughout the book which have a halftone effect on top. These help show the space of the course as well as make the spreads stand out with the high contrast of the text on top. They are clear breaks within the book so that the work does not become repetitive.

The display typeface is an important part as it is used thtroughout the spreads - it needed to be readable since it is used to display key information. In the development stages a tribal inspired typeface was created, but later changed for Headline. It is readable for the viewer, bold to stand out well and has rough edges to fit in with the tribal aesthetic.

Symbols were also created to accompany the spreads to further emphasise the tribal theme.

Since the copy throughout the book is limited and aims to only focus on the essentials which need to be said and portray the culture of the course, the tone of voice is friendly and casual. Keywords are included to convey the tribal theme and community such as ‘creative monkeys’, ‘print all day - party all night’, ‘it can be a bit of a jungle out there’ and ‘salut!’.

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

5 Infographics

Infographics To showcase the culture of the course and allow the viewer to look beyond the work, a variety of infographics were created. Quotes from the students were picked out, based on how they best represent the course and their experiences. Other things such as what a typical day involves for them, the tools they use, their accolades and the plants in their studio made up infographics to be featured throughout, breaking up the student work.

It was important that these were easy to flick and scan through, since people wouldn’t be spending a long time analysing each page. The information needs to get across quickly - the previous yearbook had too much text at a small scale which was easy to miss and skip past. This was achieved through big, bold typography with a limited word account and placed over blue, monotone images for a high contrast.

Danielle Harrison

Brief 12 Printed Textiles Yearbook

Layouts There were four layouts for the students to choose from to display their work, with a variety of shapes and the option to choose between 1 and 3 pieces. This gives them versatility to pick a layout that would suit their work, and in return create a higher standard of imagery throughout.

6 Student Work

Danielle Harrison