Perspective
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
Research For this assignment, I started doing visual research as soon as I solidified my topic. I decided that I wanted to curate accounts, interviews, literature, and comments from students at WashU along side Morris’ article and so I conducted visual research to fit several different kinds of page layouts to go along with the different kinds of secondary texts I was bringing to the book. The central and unifying focus of my book, though, was the presentation of Morris’ article with the comments typeset alongside the article so I wanted to make sure that that was a really strong component of my book- and so I did the most visual research to try and find how other designers had approached including comments, or footnotes, alongside a larger body of text. In addition to looking at page layouts and book design, I did a lot of visual research on different kinds of
illustration styles. Originally I wanted to illustrate the added texts that I included in the book, which didn’t ultimately make it into the book, but I still did a lot of research trying to decide what style I might want to use.
Right: Examples of research conducted for this assignment specifically for ways to design the spreads of Morris’ article with the comments I collected. The two images of the Hamilton: The Revolution book were particularly influential in the design of both the interview spreads and those with Morris’ article. Above: An example of visual research conducted specifically to see how other designers tackled adding footnotes or comments to a large body of text.
2
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
Discovery My central focus for this project,
into the process, navigating and the part that I was most the problem sections, and invested in, was definitely the finding solution. As a made content of the book. I wanted my way through the content to make something that was and started trying to design engaging and interesting, and the book I was forced to figure collecting that content drove out ways to design interview the discover and creative pro- spreads, essay spreads, the cess for my book. To collect my article and comment spreads, secondary text, I reached out photo spreads, pull quote to some of my friends around spreads, and poetry spreads. campus to collect a diverse That process drove my discollections of perspectives for covery process as I was forced the article. I interviewed each to create all different kinds of person, asked them to read spreads. Morris’s article and provide comments, and gathered their personal literature such as poems or essay. This, in some As I continued making differways, made it so I couldn’t ent kinds of spreads, and as exactly control the content of I began to find designs that I my book. Some people gave me was happy with, I was faced far more than others, so I had with the problem of making to find a way to balance that a book that was cohesive. My which was a challenge. When refinement process was largely I started designing, discovery focused on finding ways to came primarily in the form make everything feel uniof experimenting with new fied and making the readers spread designs and just diving experience with the book
Refinement
4
understandable and engaging. Alongside refining individual spreads, I worked to find ways to make the book unified. For example, I defined a color system to help identify the people interviewed for the book and to their literature, comments, and interviews together. I also defined some loose systems to help make things recognizable, like always introducing the section of the book dedicated to a particular person’s contributions with a large full-spread photo of them. One of the major refinements I worked on was also finding the best way to combine the interviews with the article. Originally I had all of the interviews first with the article at the end, but I found that having the typography-heavy article all at the end ended up feeling repetitive and less interesting. To solve this problem, I interlaced spreads of the article with the interviews, which broke up the
reading of the article and made the whole book feel more like a single unified presentation. Once I had a more developed book layout, I continued the refinement process by working on individual spreads layout, typographic details, and photo editing. This process continued until the book was finished.
Above: Development of a pull quote spread from initial to final.
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
“I wanted to m something tha engaging and i and collecting content drove and creative p my book.�
make at was interesting, g that e the discover process for 6
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
Above/Left: Experimentation for the typesetting of Morris’ article the central component of the book. The final style for the article is displayed in the spread pictured directly above. Right: Progression of the interview spread(s) from an initial concept to the final 2-spread version.
8
Type Reflections Editorial Type Practice Editorial on Practice Reflections on
10
Above: Thumbnails of the final book
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
Criticism Most of the criticism that I have for this projects centered on the scope of the book. I really would have liked to include more people and more interviews for the book, but with the time limitation of the project I wasn’t able to do so. I really would have liked to be able to spend more time finding the content- to try and find people from more diverse backgrounds. I would have liked to get some people who don’t go to WashU to the book to try and get more variety in comments. I think that I got all my secondary texts from soRight Top: Introduction spread showing the five people included in the book Right Bottom: Closing spread showing both how the book finished and who contributed content for the book.
cially-conscious students who, granted, all have very different experience, but still it would have been interesting to pull info from people of different ages, or at different stages of their life. I understand that that was not really feasible under the time constraints but it would have been a nice addition to my book. The only other part of the book that I have concerns about is the opening spread. I struggled to find a good introduction spread for the book, and I’m still a little unsure of whether the final spread is effective ore not.
12
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type
14
Final Review I am really proud of how the final book turned out. I was really excited about this project from the very beginning, and I really put a lot of time into the book- which I think really paid off. There are probably some small typographic issues that could be fixed, or spreads that could be reconsidered, but by and large I am very happy with how my book turned out. Right: A vector illustration/pattern that I created and used as a decorative element to help both mark the spreads with Morris’ article and tie them back to the interview spreads. The colored featured in the illustration match the colors used for each of the five people featured in the book. This image was also used as an image for some of the title text to create depth and interest.
Reflections on Practice Editorial Type