I decided to have a look at some online flipbooks, they give the booklet the feel of an actual booklet. Theyre are many websites that do this brilliantly, and I found this one called uberflip offering free trials. Here’s my booklet online!

http://amandaferris.uberflip.com/i/129157

Idea Development

Finally finished and what an interesting project this has been. This final major project has been completely different from any other. So Initially being allowed to select our own project made starting out more difficult for me. It wasn’t an issue of coming up with ideas, it was choosing one that would be substantial enough for the project. In some way it came about the idea of how ‘everything gives us cancer’ and it was suggested I look up Russell Howard’s good news ‘Cancer song’ where he lists a few things that the Daily Mail have published that give us cancer. Further research into the subject showed that many people had already created a list of articles of up to sixty items by the Daily Mail, which formed the base of my project!

The Project

I decided that I would use this list of sixty items to create a booklet that would expose the Daily Mail. The Daily Mail is popular for it’s bizarre stories and misleading catchy headlines. Reading the articles, It became clear that the headlines are never what the article is actually about. It’s interesting that some of the stories don’t even have authors as well, which is odd for a published piece.

The Booklet

Each article in the booklet I made was shown through its headline as the title, with a corresponding illustration, and that was just enough for each page. The booklet was thirty-six single pages and eighteen page spreads consisting of thirty articles. I decided the book would only be A6 size to create a unique and ‘quirky’ feel. Almost like a gift or a quick amusing read. The binding for the book was important because it’s part of the feel of the book and the impression I want to impose. I chose to perfect bind the book, because of its association with being professional and it’s also something I had never done before. I enjoyed the challenge of designing for perfect binding, getting the correct margin size so that you don’t lose part of the book in the fold and getting the PDF right for printing and knowing what size the spine of the cover needs to be, which was all a nice challenge.

The Design

The design of the booklet was a long process experimenting with different layouts and altering of the illustrations to make each page work as a composition. I was having difficulty to begin with getting the right look for the book until I had some advice to reduce the size of the elements on the page and try not to fill the page, which I something I have a habit of doing. I took on this advice and tried to simplify the layout and take on a more contemporary modern style. And in doing so found a graphic style that worked for the professional feel of the booklet. I simplified the illustrations to one colour, and took on a pictographic style that allowed the images to compliment the typography instead of over powering which put the hierarchy on the type. I used a variant of colours through the booklet that related to what colour the illustrations would have been if they were not white, and with this decided to keep the front cover white to create a difference between the front and the inside pages. The fonts I chose related to that of a newspaper in hierarchy, in using a bold font in capitals for the front cover, a serif font for the headings inside the book, then a sans serif font for the body text of each article. In doing this helps guide the reader through the book and also mimics the content’s original publishing. The booklet is divided into a 6 column grid throughout which helped to structure the elements on the page.

Thoughts

Although It took a while to get started on this project, I did thoroughly enjoy the process of designing to printing. Book design is an area that’s fairly new to me, and I enjoyed the challenge. I think that maybe my booklet could of done with a little more fine tuning with the grid system and spacing, but unfortunately that was a result of being behind in general which led to missing out on advice of the layout. I also would have liked to learn a bit more about the baseline grid and understand how to work with different sizes of type because of the difficulty I had between the header and the body text. The spacing in between each was sometimes different because of how I changed the size of the headers.

Unfortunately there was one hiccup in the printing process which was a spelling mistake! When I was making one last spelling check, I did a final ‘hide all the guides’ in In-design and in doing so added some extra letters into a header. Which has definitely taught me to always double check spelling and a lesson well learnt.

Other than that everything went smoothly in the designing process and even printing, the book was the correct size and and the pages were in order. I’m happy with the final outcome and love flipping through a final printed piece that makes the hard work all worth it. There really is something different about a printed piece of design compared to reading on a screen. My main issue through this project and designing in general is how slow I can be with putting together an idea, I always seem to come up with my ideas very late on in the project which means I always miss out on help and advice with final layouts. I’m hoping to fix that issue next year and hopefully make a complete change!

Final Major Project

These are the final images of my booklet printed. Unfortunately I couldn’t photograph it properly because of it being perfect bound, it will not lay open on its own. But it’s amazing how something printed has a much different feel compared to staring at the screen. There’s something about a printed piece of design and being able to hold it that makes its reading experience a lot different to a computer screen. 

The quality of print is great, however the only niggly thing I would point out is how when the book was cut, the edges are not a clean cut, instead you can see lines. But that’s me just being a perfectionist!

And unfortunately after printing and spell checking, I accidentally hit ‘w’ in In Design to hide all the guides one last time and added two ‘w’s’ into a text box header and didn’t notice until i received the final print. Which will teach me to double spell check next time! Otherwise I’m very happy with the design as a booklet.

The second half of my Daily Mail article booklet.

Final Major Project - Layout Development

This is one of my layouts broken down with the elements I have used, including fonts and layout.The dotted lines are to represent the positioning of the elements on the page.

Final Major Project - Layout Development

With white illustrations, I have decided to take a colour from the illustration for the background. Here i have started with the broken heart article and tried to incorporate the illustration as park of the title which works really well because it flows and it’s not onbious that those two are two different elements because theyre the same colour. I then have experimented with the crayon article and how I can interact the image with the title. And with the scribble line it’s as if it’s finished off the title.

In my sketchbook I experimented with different layout ideas and I aim to use those for the booklet. I worked with ways of balancing the image and text in a way that suits the page but still doesn’t fill the space, and allows space around for the text and image to breath.

Final Major Project - Fonts

 Choosing this font for the title of the articles on each page was influenced by Newspapers choice for header font’s that are usually the second or third header on the page.

Final Major Project - Fonts

My favourite font to use for body text is Calibri, and although I tried to look for others, I still find Calibri the best option for the smaller text on the book pages. This will be used for the descriptive text and the author’s name.

Final Major Project - Illustration Development

Looking back through my research, I realised that I found a lot of interesting poster designs that reduce pictograms to a white image. I originally thought that that wouldn’t be possible with my illustrations, however giving it a go i realised it is possible. For more complicated illustrations that can’t be understood through all white, all i needed to do was use the colour of the background behind with a thin line to show the detail, or even a fill of the shape.

And they look great, they’re more sophisticated and are also simpler. I also decided to add a few articles, to help increase the size of the book as I don’t want it to seem to thin and small.

I added these articles of things that give us cancer:

1. Retirement
I have demonstrated this through a retirement activity which is knitting for a woman.

2. Wealthy Teens
I demonstrated this through a house with money coming out of the chimney.

3. Energy saving ightbulbs
Demonstrated through a simple light bulb, which i imagine would be positioned as a light bulb at the top of the page.

4. Biscuits
Demonstrated through a simple cookie.

5. Lefthandedness
Shown in the illustrated with a left hand making an ‘L’ shape.

6. Long ring finger
Shown through an extra long right finger on a hand.

7. Night time trip to the toilet
Which i didnt involve in my last illustration collection because the ‘eyes’ I used to demonstrate darkness, were difficult to do in colour, but now as white and on a coloured background works really well.

Final Major Project - Layout Development

Here I have tried to start minimising the size of the illustrations and working with type more. I have also tried working with the coloured illustrations, however I think it’s them that is not working with the layout. The colours clash but the second page seems too empty to use a spread for each article. the illustration on it’s own doesn’t seem to work. And i can’t let the image go across the center of the page because that’s where it will be bound and I’d loose some of the image.

Final Major Project - Composition layout ideas

These are the start of experimenting with composition layouts for the A6 booklet. Working with arrangement and placement of the illustration to text. Experimenting with the idea of possibly giving a spread for a few of the articles. This would help for larger illustrations and also help thicken the book.

I took these few layout ideas to a critique. After experimenting with these few I realised that I wasn’t getting the look I wanted from the booklet. Instead these are becoming too much like a comic. My illustration style generally is cartoon like, I need a way of altering these to become more sophisticated. After designing these, I have decided that creating a sophisticated looking book will be much more appealing, and contradict the message of these articles that are far from professional.

I was given some advice to reduce the size of the illustrations, this will help to create a more professional look with trying not to fill white space which is a habbit I have. I need to work with the type and image relation and allow for white space between to become part of the composition, The space will allow for the image and type to breath.

The typography needs to be experimented with, I have decided that I don’t need to include the name of each, I just need to include the title of the article. Because sure enough The Daily Mail makes the titles catchy enough e.g ‘Is your bra bad for you?’

As for the illustrations, these will need to be experimented with to change their style and seem less child like.