Design Book Specialist Professional Practice Natasha Ray BA Visual Communication December 2011
Introduction This design book explores, analyses and evaluates my creative process through three projects and two day projects that, together, create the body of work for this unit.
Contents Project One (7 - 14) Research (9 - 10) Ideas (11 - 12) Final Piece (13 - 14)
Project Three (23 - 5
Day Projects
Project Two (15 - 22) Research & Group Ideas (17 - 18) Final Piece (Still Images) (19 - 20) Animation (21 - 22)
0) Research (25 - 32) Design Process (33 - 44) Typography (45 - 48) Final Work (49 - 50)
(51 - 56) Type Day (53 - 54) Type Specification Day (55 - 56)
Final Evaluation (57 - 58)
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Project One Brief (in brief): Working independently, your brief is to promote visual communication to prospective AUCB students, focusing on your specialist area. Your solution is to take the form of an A3 poster that communicates your message without the need for further explanation.
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Research I began this project by researching my own work and work that had inspired me before. This included David Pearson’s redesign of Cormac McCarthy’s novels and Hammerpress, a letterpress company in Kansas City, USA. I specialise in letterpress, typography and book design. Letterpress and laser-cutting my own designs in MDF is a skill I’ve learnt on this course, so felt it was appropriate to use this in promoting it. I used this research to explore what I wanted my signature style to become. It was also important to decide whether or not to use it as a stamp or as the poster itself. I settled on an MDF piece with an experimental typography design to convey that visual communication can be anything and anywhere.
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Ideas I use scamps and quick sketches in my work a lot to visualise an idea once the foundations of a concept has been laid in research. I started experimenting with typography very simply so I could track my ideas easily. I only used the course title as I believed it speaks for itself. I find this way of working very organic and clearly connected to the way I think. I added the curly brackets into the design when I found it difficult to show how encompassing and broad the degree course is. I also used these in a previous project when I was designing my personal business identity. I found they also created an anchor for the rest of the type. When I added the floral border, traditionally used for letterpress, I felt it meshed well with the experimental type, almost as if it was a stamp that had been ‘messed up’.
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Final Piece I enjoyed this project the more I relaxed with it. I often find the first brief of a new year difficult to tackle with, especially concerning time management and idea generation. Feedback for this poster was disappointing. It did not appeal to the FDA first years, but that increased with the second and the Head of Advertising for AUCB understood the idea perfectly. I had aimed too high conceptually. I am still proud of this piece of work as it meant I could progress with specialisms that interest me. I find the poster evokes possibilities and, as the Head of Advertising suggested, ‘guriella letterpress’ which I think sums what I wanted to convey.
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Project Two Brief (in brief): Working in small groups, imagine where visual communication might be in 2022. Your solution is to be a presentation lasting no more than 5 minutes, in a form which reflects your group thinking. Group; Myself, Jess Sarson, Emma Bowerman, Chris Matthews, Natasha Bulley & Hayley Croxall 16
Research & Group Ideas In the first meeting we created personal deadlines including individual research. These images are from typography, stop-motion and time-remapped videos that inspired us. Our research concentrated on our similar specialisms of book design and typography. It was really interesting to brainstorm with others in my class that have the same passion but different ways of working. We specifically focused on our belief that there will be two sides of design emerging. One would be information based- where simple, clean and fast design would be of the highest importance to the consumer. The second, would be an ‘anti’ stylistic movement where books would become extremely experimental and objects of art.
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Final Piece (Still Image) We all agreed on the idea of defacing a history book with hand-made type using markers and newspaper cuttings. On reflection, I think we worked well as a team overall although it was difficult to include a member who joined late. It was also really useful to have postgraduate collaboration with a film-maker and a VFX artist. They gave us some great advice, which meant we changed our idea from stop-motion to time-remapping. It was faster to create, but still had the stop-motion style. After our presentation and feedback, I think we should have cut the script down to keep the animation shorter and easier to follow for the audience.
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Presentation Animation
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Project Three Brief (in brief): Penguin Design Award 2012 (Adult Brief) Create a new book cover for One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. Design a cover for a new generation of readers, avoiding obvious cliches. Originality is key. The design must include all cover copy and be based on the design template provided. It must be eye-catching on a shelf and online with strong typography.
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The Book I started this brief by reading the book. Most book designers encourage reading the whole book if you have time , to determine major themes and personal reactions. I also analysed this book cover; the most recent print-run by Penguin’s Modern Classics series. I found this really useful. From what I knew of the book, this cover seems fitting, but after I read the book, I felt this cover had missed many important themes and issues raised in the novel. There’s a lot more to this story than the hospital environment.
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Research- Joe Collier The cover of my copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest reminded me instantly of Collier’s 2004 photos of the abandoned asylum , Cane Hill. His photos have a haunting quality as the asylum looks like the staff and patients all just stood up and left. It made me question the placing of the novel today. The brief clearly stated that the cover had to appeal to new readers but Kesey’s book is of a previous time. I wondered , if the novel was a building, such as Cane Hill, how would it have deteriorated over the years? It still holds its strong themes and ideals but has become a clear symbol of a past society. Another part of Collier’s photography that interested me were the art therapy paintings that had been left strewn across the rooms. It was a disturbing reminder that this asylum had been home to hundreds of unnamed individuals.
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Primary Research I became interested in art therapy and its beginnings in the 1960’s during an antipsychiatry movement (which was when Kesey wrote the book). I thought it to be important to get a first-hand experience of the positives and outcomes of art therapy as it linked so closely to the book (Nurse Ratched, a character in the book, constantly asked whether an activity was ‘theraputic’ to the patient). I am lucky enough to know a number of friends and family members who have been or are still presently going through the mental health system and I asked them their experiences with art therapy. I find primary research to be some of the most useful information you can get and I try to use it in every project I can.
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One friend explained that;
We were encouraged to express how we were feeling and to use anything, any materials, that we wanted. It was very abstract- there were no pictures or images, but colours and collages.
We had to make a collage of a ‘traumatic time’ in our lives so we could compare how far we had progressed to stability. There are patients who can’t, physically can’t, express how they’re feeling through words. Art therapy is the only way they can explain how they feel. During the class, the therapists come round and talk to you and explain why you’ve done it that way. It helps you realise what you’re feeling. When you first get committed, you have so many emotions- it’s difficult to be self-aware and focus on the triggers. But art therapy is relaxing and it can also be a really useful mild anger management therapy. 30
Research- Mark Rothko A tutor pointed me in the direction of Rothko (1903-1970), an abstract painter who created images of colour to represent passion, expression and a range of atmospheres and moods. His work reminded me of my friend’s description of art therapy. I found Rothko’s paintings extremely inspirational and poignant. The block colours allow the audience to explore their own expression and thoughts, especially as Rothko refused to explain his work, stating that “Silence is so accurate”. This research became an anchor in this project. I wanted my work to be able to express the many themes contained in the novel. Broad research is important to me to extend the reach of my knowledge of a growing concept.
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Design Process- Initial Ideas I only begin sketching after my main body of research and a quick initial brainstorming. These rough sketches are of the ideas I have taken forward from the brainstorm. I find this way of working logical- starting with a large range of ideas and then focusing in, creating quick sketches for my most successful concepts. On reflection, these sketches are really of one idea in different forms. I became stuck on a glass cover that represented the fog endured by a character throughout the book. Other ideas pictured here are of the book in a box. I became preoccupied with geometric shapes and clean design while trying to represent the patient’s fight against an institution that took their individuality.
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Design Process- Reflection & Advice During my creative process, I often hit a brick wall in my work. I find having a tutorial, or going back a few steps usually help, which I did do for this project. However, as well as these usual tactics, I spoke to a family member who is going through the mental health system presently. I explained the brief, the book and my response. It was extremely useful to hear from someone in this specific position. They asked me what my ‘emotional attachment’ had been to the book and what had struck a chord in my research. I collected all the most important points from my research and worked from them, with a clear decision to think about the way a mental health institution creates statistics and not individuals, and how the novel is fighting against this very theme.
Design Process- Paintings These paintings were created by giving myself art therapy. I used a number of different approaches to the images. Some used colours mentioned in the books and others were my own reaction and expression of the book itself. The opposite image was chosen as the most successful. Comments included how it ‘depressed’ the viewer and ‘disturbed’ them. I found these really enjoyable to create as it was such a step away from what I had been aiming towards before and I have found a mixture of hand-rendered media with some digital effects very successful in previous projects. I became especially interested in the different textures and marks paint could make and how they could define an audience’s emotive response. 38
Design Process- Texture & Degrading Extending my research into texture I went around Bournemouth town centre, taking photos of degraded buildings and flaking paint. If I could merge the painting (representing the individual of a mental health patient) with these flaking textures (a metaphor for the failing staff, the institution and the degrading of the individual themselves) it could convey the battle between individual and institutional thinking. I really enjoyed this way of gathering information as I barely use it. It reminded me to be aware of my surroundings and that some creative processes can come in many different forms.
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Design Process- Experiments Before I tried to overlap the paintings and the flaking texture digitally I tried scalpelling the original photo shapes into a scan of the painting and also ripping the painting to recreate popular shapes I found in my photos. Although I liked the hand-rendering effect of this, I didn’t think it was as successful as playing with the levels on Adobe Illustrator and digitally overlapping the shapes. This gave me a lot more power to change the design and add to it when needed. It also meant the transparency allowed texture to seep to the front of the cover. On reflection, if I had focused my time management properly over the project and allowed myself more timeto experiment at this stage I’d have liked to played with professionally laser-cutting further textures into the design. 42
Design Process- Final Image The final image used for the book cover. The levels successfully bring out the great textures in the paint and overlapped photography. I think this piece conveys the disturbing themes running through the novel and the degrading of an individual in a static institution.
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Sabon
L a t
Jura
Franklin Gothic Bo 45
Neuton
n o
a
ook
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Typography These are an example of fonts that I considered using for the book cover. I was torn between a strong, authoritive serif and a clean, clinical sans-serif. I chose a number of typefaces that I thought would go with the final image and then analysed their font families and suitability. A couple of the fonts I had chosen were not as well designed as others, which I removed immediately. Others had small font families, and as I already had a basic plan for the typography that needed a good-sized family, I removed those. Sabon was the first typeface I chose. Similar to Garamond, but slightly more rounded, it was designed in the 1960’s (which was when Kesey wrote his novel) and held both the clean look of a modern sans-serif with the authority of a serif. It was easily my final choice.
Typography- Paint Experiments Since the beginning of this project, I wanted the front quote to be the most eye-catching on the cover and originally I didn’t want any other copy on the front. However, due to the brief’s strict rules I had to include the title and author. I decided, at first, to do it in spot gloss, but experimented with paint as well. The problem I found with the paint was that, unlike the spot gloss, where you can’t see it from one angle but you can from another (a comment on the audience’s individual perception of the themes running throughout the book), the paint is stable. However much I experimented with it, the copy was either very obvious or unreadable from any angle. I do think I could use this technique for another project though.
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Final Work This is my final book cover photographed around a copy of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
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Day Projects
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Type Day In this Day Project, we were placed into groups and asked to create a poster that explained a particular rule about the use of typography. I think we worked successfully as a team and created an interesting piece of work with the short time we had. Our rule to express was case; lower case, upper case, small caps, drop caps, non-lining numerals and lining numerals. We all agreed they were rules our target audience would be aware of, so we decided our poster should be unexpected. When explaining the rules of traditional typography, we broke them with experimental line breaks, tracking and the misuse of the very rules we were trying to enforce. This is explained in our first sentence; ‘This is very important. Read but don’t look’. 53
Type Specification Day For this Day Project we were asked to create a magazine double spread in the morning and then write a type specification for it. This was then given to a peer in the class who had to redo the spread using just the type specification. On reflection, although my type specification was detailed, it was in no concise order and illegible. Since then, I’ve rewritten my type specification, listed in order. I felt this Day Project was really helpful- it made me realise that what I think is readable by me is not necessarily for anybody else. This is why documents should be presented professionally at all times.
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Final Self-Evaluation When this unit began, I was very nervous about it. I usually find the first couple of projects difficult to flow into after the summer holidays. The first project was only a week, which allowed me to adjust my time management skills early on in the year. As I expected, it took a little time to get back into creative work after such a long break, but in the end I was very proud of my final outcome. I’m interested in laser-cutting and letterpress which is a skill that I’d like to progress with through this course and after with workshops in London. Although my final outcome in project one could be seen as not fufilling the brief, I did have a lot of fun creating it and I have a great piece for my portfolio. The second project was also really enjoyable. I found most of my team easy to work with and just as passionate as myself about the topic. There was a couple of people who believed they were just there to ‘write notes’ which I
found disappointing as it meant the others in the team had to do extra work to make up for it. Regardless of this however, I was, again, proud of our final result. I learnt new skills, scrubbed up on some old ones and swapped some great research about typography and book design. The hardest project I found in this unit was the Penguin Design Brief. Penguin Publishing is a company that I would love to work for one day and I was very aware of this throughout the beginning of the competition. It took a lot of tutorials and family members and friends outside the situation to keep me on the right track as I had intimidated myself into a few brick walls in the creative process. I think the turning point was moving away from the geometric style (which I have only touched lightly on in this design book, but which I held onto for a few weeks) and really understanding my connection to the book. I was very lucky to have primary research available to me on such a sensitive subject. Overall, although I am proud of each piece of work in this unit (including the day projects) I had some major pitfalls that could be easily avoided if I focused on my time management and allow myself a longer amount of time to explore a wider range of ideas and to experiment with them. These are lessons I’ll be taking forward into the next unit.
Bibliography PROJECT ONE: Research (pgs 9-10): Cormac McCarthy Book Design by David Pearson Hammerpress Poster available here: http://hammerpress.net PROJECT TWO: Research (pgs 17-18): ‘Typophile Film Festival 5 Opening Titles’ by Brent Barson available here: http://vimeo.com/6382511 ‘Changing Education Paradigms’ by RSA Animate available here: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?feature=player_ embedded&v=zDZFcDGpL4U 59
‘Her Morning Elegance’ by Oren Lavie available here: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?feature=player_embedded&v=2_ HXUhShhmY PROJECT THREE: Research (pgs 25-32): Cane Hill Asylum Photography by Joe Collier available here: http://www.abandoned-britain.com/PP/ canehill/1.htm Primary Research- Source wishes to stay anonymous All images on pgs 31-32 by Mark Rothko
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