PROCESS BOOK

Book Design Insight & Layout Workshop with Briony Hartley

Watching Briony’s presentation about the different book designs she made has been a start of the process book project. She covered the basics we need to be aware of regarding layouts and hierarchy. It helped to refresh my knowledge I gained in first year.

On the layout workshop we put in practice what she taught us about the techinque of using a hanging line. It gives consistancy to the layout, creating a flow throughout the book (Figure 1 and 2). It took time to learn to use it and not to feel restricted by it.

We also looked at how different fonts can work together and what attributes (angles, shapes, x-height, varying stroke widths, etc) to compare to pair them well.

Layout

Choosing a layout the first step was to research book designs and layouts. I found that many of the artist books and portfolios use square format which looks very appealing to me and I could visualize arranging my content within that square space. Unfortunately I have learnt it on the way that this format - or at least the

Figure 65.: Layout workshop with Briony. Practicing hanging lines. Figure 66: Square format book research showing good examples of layouts. Figure 67: A designer’s book of Didot. Square layout with typographic image works perfectly. Figure 68: Book cover with cut-out shape that inspired my design.. Figure 69: Bookbinding experiment.

way I layed it out- is not suitable for this purpose if the number of pages are limited. I would have liked to spread the contentout more and include pages with minimal typography on it.

During my research I found a book cover (Figure 69.) with a very simple cut-out and that inspired me to use the folded heart shape similar way on the front cover. As I miss hand-on work, I did a a quick tutorial of japanese bonding and created a mini book just to see how its mechanism. (FIgure 69)

My intention was to create a book that not only tells the story of the design process but visually engaging for its readers. I was thinking to add a rhythm to the book which helps it to stay visually interesting. In order to reach that, I experimented with different methods (Figure 70-71). I created initial flatplans where I played with the background colour and another version where I used the enlarged logo font to add them as a background to the pages. I used the brand’s name ‘Our Museum’ (Figure 72-73) and spread its letters across the pages in an order that it could be read out. At this point I had a tutorial with Briony, who liked the idea so I decided to go by that.

The next step was to fill the flatplan with content. I have organized my files into folders, dedicated one for each sections of the book. I wrote an outline (figure )that helped to spread out the content roughly. I learned that I will need more practice judging the amount of images and texts because I wasn’t able to stick to the flatplan and cover all content requirements at the same time.

Figure 70-71 (top and middle left).: Layout background experiment with colours to create rhythm. Figure 72 (bottom left).: Layout background experiment with typography. Next Page: Figure 73: Outlined content. Figure 74.: Screenshot of the the book spreads in indesign. Figure 75.: Screenshot of Briony’s feedback after our tutorial.

Font

When we did our brand guidelines, we choose Optima to match the World of water display font. However, when I started to work on the process book, I decided to use Gill Sans for the bodytext ( Figure 4). It has very similar characteristics to Optima (humanist sans-serif) but its strokewidth is wider at regular weight which makes it more legible and readable in a book.

For headings, I varied the size and weight of the Gill Sans font, except of the main title (Heading 1) where I used the display font as I found it. To decide about the font size I printed out examples in different sizes and text.

In order to make it easy to navigate in the book, I decided to use running head which I placed on a tab, which aligned to the hanging line.

Colour

Regarding the colour palette, I chose to use 3 colours only: black, white and the blue-green gradient. I decided to keep it simple in order to be more successful in creating a consistent visual system. 36

Heading1

Heading 2

Heading 3

Figure x. Lorem Ipsum.

CONTENT (AS IN RUNNING HEADS)

CONTENT (AS IN TABLE OF CONTENT)

Figure 76.: Hierarchy - Headings and page number

Optima regular - Font size 9 pt, tracking 12 pt.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Usdaepta sperumquo verem explit exces tiEctotatquias adit fugitium nos eatus es arumqui duciati beatquodi ut dite volup tatis exernat emquatis asperum faceati onsequae. Ovidusci dolupta tenihil lupiet quunt.

Optima regular - Font size 8, tracking 12pt

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

To officta temquis derrovi ducidunt odiorest dist fuga. Nem coria volliquiatur modignietur aspiet omnihilles nonsequi cus que debis eos nobis et ipsam fuga. Nam, ommolor rovidiatem unto ipsum il ium fugitem que poreribea quistiae porem que sit utempe nates simodia voluptatium rem quidel eiuntio. Gitate et fugia vitiat acca ture dem del expeles mos qui dolendam, a Gill Sans regular - Font size 9 pt, tracking 12 pt.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z a b c d e f g i j k l m o n p q r s t u v w x y z 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Maximusam utam eationsed quid quam num harum int qui quia nobitaque esto blabore peditiorerro ommo bearum id eos de poriae. Nequodis et excera quis nobist ate volor modiciae conem fugiata tatque volorem hillat alitio moluptas doluptatum nis sam, am quid endi doluptas quamend ernat. Officae conseque res sundi occatatias iur, quiande perfere henistem re, qui inctiss itiusdaes sundaero

Figure 77.: Gill Sans and Optima comparison. Briony advised me to start experimenting by printing them out, and I found that 9 pt Gill sans works out the best for me.

Evaluation and self- reflection

Designing the process book, I had to overcome some of my weaknesses. On a personal level, one of the biggest challenges for me as a designer is to be able to think and create within a system. My designs tend to be overcomplicated, mostly because of my intention to communicate too many ideas together, which results in difficulties building a coherent system around them. Receiving feedback helped me to acknowledge this and that was the first step towards making changes. In this case, I started off with a very different, more chaotic layout and hierarchy and when I felt that it didn’t work well, I went through the whole book and redesigned it. I managed to simplify it and make it more consistent.

However, I can still see areas where it could be improved. Firstly, when I created the flat plan, I didn’t pay attention to the number of images that I have to include. In order to evidence all my work and to reason my design decisions I ended up including a large number of images but laying them out in a way that I imagined, would have required adding more pages to the book and I had already used the maximum of 48 pages. If I had more time and my personal life circumstances didn’t interfere with my studies, I would have had another try to work more on the layout. What I have learned from this is that I have to spend more time on creating a flat plan and give more consideration to it.

Another area where I would like to improve is the contemporariness and that is something I can only achieve if I do more research and more practice working with layouts and colours. I think that expanding my skills and deepening my academic knowledge will create the strong background that I need to free up my creative mind.

Coming to the end of the designing process of the book, I feel that I have made many steps further towards my learning goals and writing the evaluation helped me to highlight the areas I need to focus on more.

Completing this book has become a very good practice and learning journey where I have significantly improved my technical skills - and it has also helped my confidence.

Bibliography

Baines, P., Haslam, A. (2002). Type & typography. London. Laurance King Publishing ltd.

Envato. (2020). How to Create a Table of Contents in InDesign [online]. Youtube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=_pMPYmffgTU [Accessed 6 November 2020].

Hartley, B. (2020). Book design. [web]. Goldust Design. Available from: https://www.goldustdesign.co.uk [Accessed 13 November 2020].

Hartley, B. (2020) Industry Insight: Bookdesign and Typography. [online presentation]. 2 November. Bournemouth. Available from: https://aub.cloud.panopto.eu/Panopto/Pages/Viewer. aspx?id=bfbc83d4-937c-4bf3-9d39-ac670115235e [Accessed 19 November 2020].

InDesignSecrets. (2018). InDesign How-To: Create Paragraph Styles Quickly (Video Tutorial) [online]. Youtube. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3zIToPMEO4[Accessed 5 November 2020].

Pentagram. (2020) Work.: editorial design. [online]. Pentagram. Available from: https://www.pentagram.com/work/ discipline/editorial-design [Accessed 7 November 2020].

Shaughnessy, A. and Bierut, M. (2009). Graphic design: A User’s Manual. London. Laurance King Publishing Ltd.

List of figures

Figure 65.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Layout workshop with Briony. [digital images]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 66.: Graphicriver.net. (2020). Square format portfolio book. [online]. Envato Pty Ltd. Available from: https://graphicriver.net/ portfolio+book-and-proposal-graphics [Accessed 1 December 2020]. Figure 67.: Metzger, T. Francis Didot book design. [online]. Available from: https://www.taylormetzger.com/francis-didot-handbound-book [accessed 6 November 2020]. Figure 68.: Serra, C. (2013). Book cover with cut-out shape. [online] Behance. Available from: https://www.behance.net/gallery/12760399/ Mini-books-Portfolio [Accessed 6 November 2020]. Figure 69.:Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Bookbinding experiment. [digital images]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 70-71.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Layout background experiment with colours. [digital images]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 72.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Layout background experiment with typography. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 73: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Outlined content. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 74.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Screenshot of the the book spreads in indesign. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 75.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Screenshot of Briony’s feedback after our tutorial. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author. Figure 76.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Hierarchy - Headings and page number. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author Figure 77.: Munkacsi, Zs. (2020). Gill Sans glyphs. [digital image]. In possesion of: the author