Terminator type Specimen

TYPE SPECIMEN & STRATEGY : TERMINATOR

RYAN MACEACHERN

BRISTOL UWE

STRATEGY 4 GRID 6 TYPE 11 COLOUR 19 IMAGERY 22 FURNITURE 26

4 This book is based around James Cameron’s 1984 science fiction thriller “the terminator” a film based around the tale of the battle of man vs. machine in a war in the year 2029 the story revolves around a machine being sent back to 1984 to kill the mother of the leader of the revolution John Connor.

The reason I chose this film for the “book about a film “ brief was because none of the films on the FBI top 50 films stood out to me, I needed something that would interest me as I knew that doing a whole book would take a longevity of interest. The terminator has become a cult classic and stands up to any film made now, it spawned an even more successful and critically acclaimed sequel however I feel it lacked the vision and gritty visuals that the original had.

When researching I couldn’t find too much serious research and material based on the film. I found some material from a BFI book and some analysis of the film but it left me at a creative dead end, this is when I realised that I had to set the book in reality and use articles and research to help place the story in its environment of 80’s L.A. What struck me about the film was its seriousness and how it was so grounded in reality yet was so huge in its story telling and concept, everyone had an excuse for not believing the protagonists and dismissed them, which made it more believable.

I split the book into three parts Past, Present & future as this mirrors the themes challenged in the film and researched political and social issues from the periods as well as throughout the entire book ill reflect with passages about the making of and creation of the film.

The past section will present articles and information from the early 80’s up until the date that Kyle Reese declares the nuclear war begins which is 1997. The present will cover topics from 2003 which in terminator 3 is the renewed date of the nuclear war up until the present day 2013, then the future section will focus on articles and topics that aren’t so much set in the future but discuss the future and events that have consequences that directly affect the future.

I wanted to create my own headline typography for the book. I wanted a heavy, thick San-serif font to stand out against the thin page furniture and slim mono-space type

5 that reflects the design of the HUD that the terminator uses. Most of the content is from secondary sources, including newspapers, books, DVD inserts etc. I have put a bibliography in the back so you can see the source however the “what’s your worst nightmare� section is primary after I created an online survey where people could anonymously confess their darkest nightmares.

I tried to use the highest definition images I could get which was easy as I had a blu-ray file of the film however I found an abundance of concept art and set photography that was of lower quality. I used a bitmap effect to help with quality issues and give a retro effect to the book.

The book is aimed at anyone who did not take the terminator film seriously, although it was an exaggerated tale, I believe there is something sinister about the idea of artificial intelligence gaining independence and from the material inside it shows an interesting pattern in real life events mirroring events in the film.

GRID Section 1/5

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Page Size

I had a really hard time choosing my grid, so I decided to go

Width 164mm

for something very visual and relevant to the book. Every page

Height 230mm

contains the outline of a terminator-esque figure.

Spread size Width 328 mm Height 230mm

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Page Size Width 164mm Height 230mm Spread size Width 328 mm Height 230mm

12pt baseline

TYPE Section 2 /5

12 BODY TYPE Letter Gothic std 7pt C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100 Equidicon dicto potem publiss inaturnum densupimus erra publice rvirmaion derce tam inatquam nertum manum puloctum aute, consultus et volia amdicip tertis At viterum nium ad mante quos faceri trum res aline die res nendefe coerriam. Gra norum ne fachus. elus.

Maris, ne ad cone confiri pos, Casta, praciam, Pat. Voliu conte ocaequis, nocci publicae coeribus; nius cularte rorimaionsus in tanum, te, condaciis. Tum habutus, ma, ocavoludere ocules tum dem. Nam adem avocci inatum cut L. Locte intia publis haessim overceperem patam tem, me ca re essenatum seniu missilisque tes et avehebunum aricus, quam nos tastin tam nos hosus, nemo ut vir prites ex nestrac toratemus lin alari facre, qui consulto vit, nem it; Cupionsul vivid Catum inves, aceperi busque tum igna, Cupientia re, ut reisulem det pri ercernit, quis ret ad co es bonsuss ideesilica

13 TITLE Glitch Upper-case 44pt C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

TITLE HEADLINE

14 CONTENTS TITLE Glitch Upper-case 144pt C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

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CHAPTER TITLES Glitch Upper-case 144pt C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0

16 SPREAD QUOTE Glitch Upper-case 144pt C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

17 LETTER GOTHIC STD I wanted to choose a mono-space type because originally my design was going to be very glitchy and disjointed taking components from crashed computers and malfunctions so the type would be like the type found in a terminal window or code, however I changed my mind but felt it necessary to keep the mono-space type so it would keep that computer connection.

GLITCH Glitch is my own creation, I used fontstruct to make the basic structure then edited the font file using fontographer I wanted a block sans-serif for use with titles and quotes. I used the font on large titles and headlines as well as quotes because of its boldness and it contrasts nicely with Letter Gothic.

COLOUR Section 3/5

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COLOUR 1 C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0 This colour is used for text in the Past and future sections because the film features a lot of dark and ominous colour tones

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COLOUR 2 C=0 M=79 Y=97 K=0 This colour is used throughout the entire book and is the only colour other than black and white to appear in the book I chose this colour as red is notorious in the terminator films as it forms the colour of the endo-skeletons eye so decided it would be the perfect colour to tie the book in with the film. I also use this colour to break up sections of the book a red background signals the text is about the creation and process of the film, these sections pop up periodically through out the book and don’t adhere to the strict past, present and future layout.

IMAGERY Section 4/5

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Pattern Dither

Half-tone screen

IMAGES Pattern dither bitmap 170 pixels/inch This effect is a bitmap effect which uses a grid of pixels to create the gradients in the image much like how a bitmap would use denser and denser pattern of dots. I found it a challenge to keep all pictures at a constant resolution as it all depended on the start resolution of the image, for example my bench mark was 170 pixels/ inch however images that were extremely large e.g. over 1000 x 1000 pixels I would have to bring down to 60-80 pixels/inch so the effect was noticeable.

25 RED DOT I have used a red dot on several images and nearly all the spreads throughout the book to bring all the pages together and give it a fluid feel because most of the content is disjointed and separate I felt it was necessary to help improve the flow of the content with the design.

The dot comes from the iris of the terminator which is usually surrounded by black or is seen lighting darkness.

FURNITURE Section 5/5

28 FURNITURE 0.5 stroke line The page furniture helps structure and place things on the page it settles and unifies the content, I chose to include lines after looking at the terminators HUD and changed colour to reflect the three colour schemes of the book

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