Library Explorations

Semester Long Project at Reed Library

Jack Weaver

Process

This semester long project was very beneficial as a learning guide throughout the semester. It provoked me to explore the plentiful resources available in Reed Library and encouraged me to seek inspiration when I would find my self stalled on a project. The amount of justification I had for my selection for each week varied upon varying reasons.

The blog posts, which are relayed here as well as in my blog explain the credentials I was looking for based on each week. Sometimes I would set out to find good examples of varying types of grids from manuscript, to modular and occasionally just looking for columns.

Other times I would look for a book cover that immediately beckons and demands my attention amongst hundreds of thousands of other choices.

The ones that called to me off of the shelves were the most helpful and educational examples for me, as I was able to ask the important questions, like, why did I pull this off the shelf, what are the subtle reasons. My research in the library really helped me to feel more comfortable within that environment, and opened up my mind to how the actual texture of the paper makes a good deal of difference as to how the reader responds to different publications. It’s all about concentrating on craft and how certain decisions that are made completely effect how the over all work is viewed.

The exploration of the library was very beneficial and I’m going to work to continue being curious.

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That is the largest lesson I have learned this semester. It is important to keep being curious and extremely important to keep working and looking for opportunities to hone your skills. I need to remain diligent with my work and find ways to keep fresh throughout the duration of a semester, or even a year. I think this project was good way to go about doing that.

Bibliography Week 1

Creativity 41. Print. Creativity International (November 2012)

Week 2

“Marian Bantjes: Pretty Pictures.” Print.

Metropolis Books. Sept 30, 2013.

“The Package Design Book 2” Print. Taschen. Jan Week 3 30, 2013.

Week 4

“Iron Curtain Graphics: Eastern European Design created without computers.” Print.

Gestalten. 2012.

Week 5

AIGA. Professional Practices in Graphic design: American Institute of Graphic Arts. Allworth Press. Print. 1998

Week 6

Donna Tart. “The Goldfinch”. Print. Bayback Books 2015.

“Riveted: The science of why jokes make us Laugh, movies make us cry, and religion makes us feel one with the universe.” Print. St. Martin’s Press. 2014.

Week 8

“Novum. World of Graphic Design” Sensitive Subjects. Print. Fall 2015.

“1963 Census of Transportation” United States Department of Commerce. Print. 1963

Week 10

Popular Science “The Big Burn”. Print. Fall 2015.

Week 11

“Today is the last day of the rest of your life.”Ulli Lust. Print. Fantagraphics. 2013 “Farm 54” Galit Seliktar. Print. Ponent Mon S.L. 2011

Week 12

Week 7

“Rock from Elvis Presley to the Rolling stones”.

Print. Times Books. 1975

Week 9

Week 11

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Week One

The cover of this book has a very eccentric design that drew me right in. It’s patterned cover and vibrant colors easily distinguished itself apart from the seemingly endless rows of darkly colored and worn graphic design textbooks. The excitement of the designs, texts, and color did not merely end on the cover. Further exploration plunges the reader into a world of commercial design. Posters, advertisements, illustrations and photography all wrapped in one thickly covered book. I think this book will be a guide for this semester in regards to finding what I can “get away with� in regards to both typography and design.

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Week Two

I was initially pretty skeptical of this book due to the title. I mean it made me feel a little uncomfortable that this person is calling their own work pretty. However, when I opened the book I was pleasantly surprised. All of the work was impressive to me, and there were even self criticisms posted beneath each one, so the reader knows how the artist feels about it. Some of the ones that I thought were very thought provoking turned out to be some of the ones that the designer was not satisfied with.

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Week Three

This Book has been my favorite one of the semester. The popsicle design on the bright red cover wraps to both sides of the book. These strange, repeated shapes are what drew me into this book, filled to the brim with hundreds of examples of product design. This book motivated me to work with imaginary products and designing packaging for them as well as a logo.

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Week Four

Initially I thought that this was going to be an entire book dedicated to communist design, and for the most part it is. It’s intrigue came largely out of the heavy symbolism on the front cover and the color choices. These elements make the design nearly tangible, and it made me feel like it was a book that was meant to be held, and browsed. Looking back at these designs from the cold war and prior, really makes me think about my own work, and what kind of design is going to be relevant 50-60 years from now.

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Week Five

I think this is the last week that I will spend in the design section of the library. I picked this book because it really didn’t make me feel any kind of visual sensation. The design is purposeful and in my opinion a bit bland. With context this makes sense because it’s the AIGA guide to graphic design, it’s content is important, and based highly upon layout and high standards of professionalism. The grid is used fairly aggressively. By aggressive I mean to say liberally applied in a very legible fashion. As a designer and an illustrator I think I enjoy a bit more simplification or maybe more visual elements with really dynamic color.

Next week, I will endeavor to travel other areas of the expansive Reed library. I want to find what calls to me right off the shelf. I want to be able to find what draws me to certain books, and what causes others to go unnoticed. I’m sure there’s going to be plenty of gestalt theory at play.

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Week Six

This week I let my instincts guide me. The hand lettering of this title are what pulled me over to take a closer look. The title seemed like something close to a diary, it made the plain white cover more approachable. The typeface looks like it was written quickly but has enough human characteristics to create a kind of persona. I’m beginning to grow very fond of hand lettering and all of the application available for it. If you don’t have to buy a type face why would you? You can claim your own glory in the typographic world, you should. A brief moment in the sun.

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Week Seven

I chose this book for analysis for a few different aspects that kept me turning pages. For starters I really appreciate that use of type in the design of the cover. The evenly spaced “HA HA HA�s remind me of some Batman fan art for a joker revival. A kind of madness with unity with a rather wonky emblem of a Rosie the riveter arm.

Within the inner sanctum of the book lies a nicely formatted grid system with both text and a supple amount of images. Columns are used effectively throughout to display the text required for the accompanying images. It could be said that the images have equal importance in regards to the type, and I think that the formatting makes that quite clear.

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Week Eight

This week’s blog post warranted so many photos of the magazine I chose for typographic analysis because I was really sucked into this printed work by the really elaborate and tasteful use of color. The front cover is textured and the title and subtext information are laid out perfectly, juxtaposed with the background image. The two elements work together in harmony, without the title or other information becoming lost. Within the magazine, are multiple examples of excellent grids, mainly columns and modular, with accents on hierarchy throughout. This issue focused pretty heavily on the importance of images, and the a really poignant use of color. With that said, the type is formatted in clean grids that accent that powerful and sometimes fun illustrations and photos. Novum has become one of my favorite magazines to browse, when in the library, and this week is no exception.

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Week Nine

This week’s selection was made based upon an appreciation for the logo emblazoned on the spine of the medium sized book. Color, and contrast on the spine between the type and the logo were what initially caught my eye. The cover reminds me of something like George Orwell’s 1984, with it’s modernist simplicity that might involve a deeper meaning. Though that is not the case for this census book about transportation, it doesn’t mean that this cover’s design couldn’t be re-purposed for a book of a different theme.

The reason that I included the info graphic map of the United States is that it reminds me of something straight from the cold war era, a time when Mutual assured destruction was a national security policy, and lives were heavily marginalized as percentages and statistics. I guess that’s why the cover seems so fitting for a dystopian novel like 1984, that content is so sterile in relation to the millions of people it is referring to,

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Week Ten

I chose this issue of Popular Science for some specific analysis of advertisement placement, and grid layouts. In the second image illustrations are used to convey extra meaning for the column grids which are formatted very neatly and compliment the images. The grid is really a wonderful display when used with powerful illustrations. The format for this magazine is based probably about 85% on images, and 15% on type layout, which I would say is pretty typical of magazines these days. The powerful images are what initially drew me in, but I the type has a uniform quality about it, I think juxtaposing a plane of color behind the titles is what helps create that unity.

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Week Eleven

This week I went hunting through the library looking to compare graphic novel covers and layouts within each of the books. The first is a soft cover book with a dynamic cover illustration and hand lettering, done rather rudimentary, and is purposeful in that sense. The spacing of the title is a little wonky, and words meld together. I think that this approach for the type works because the story is supposed to be pretty random and about a step outside of the normal. The second book I perused pays much more attention to grid layouts in regards to the front and back covers. I think it makes for a very nice composition paired with the background information and portrays a sense of drama in a clean sophisticated manner. The grids used for the first comic are modular, with the second using more of a manuscript layout to show images.

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Week Twelve

Good evening! This week I took a stroll through the musical history section of the library in search of interesting and well done examples of typography. When I say “well done typography” I am referring specifically to how the title is laid out. On this book, there are no cover pages, but the spine is laid out with the Title, secondary information, and author’s name. I’ve found that over the past several weeks I’ve been drawn to brightly colored books with san serif type faces for titles. San serifs seem very effective at being titles because they don’t tell you a whole lot about what to expect from the context, and they are meant to convey words, and their meaning.

Unlike display faces, or hand done type which can give a whole lot of character to the type and tell you a great deal about the book infront of you.

The actual type within this book is laid out with manuscript grids, with the folios juxtaposed on the top left of each page, left of the bold chapter information. I think that is a nice position for the folios, it means for easy reading and navigation throughout the book.

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Jack Weaver 2015