Ubuntu font project

Note to self

Meeting with Steve #2

Our second meeting with Steve was also witness to two 3rd year Interior Design students who gave us a better undertstanding of the course and what needs to be included in the content for the yearbook.

Here is the contact report sent to Steve after our meeting...

Brief:
Produce the 2012 Graduate Yearbook that communicates the diverse, creative and professional quality of the work produced on the BA (Hons) Interior Design Programme.

The yearbook is an annual publication designed to showcase the graduating third year. The book is distributed to industry contacts, potential applicants and visitors to the end of year show. The yearbook is also used as a marketing tool to raise the profile of the course with feeder colleges and the creative industries.

Mandatory Requirements:
The Course, Institution’s Name and Year of Graduation must be clearly presented on the cover and spine of the publication.

Each third year is allocated an equal amount of space containing samples of work and a personal statement.

The yearbook will be produced to a standard square format of 210mm x 210mm.

Considerations:
We will consider the print and digital delivery of the publication and further opportunities for the branding and delivery of course related information.

Meeting (28th February):
-Gained a better understanding of the course by viewing a student’s work.

-Presented and discussed our initial ideas for the layout of the publication.

-Discussed page specification and content structure.

After discussing the number of pages allocated to each student, we have decided to assign one double page spread to each student. However we have thought about the idea of feature pages that will highlight certain disciplines within the course and will allow students to include more of their work, but together rather than individually.

Progress:
We will:

-Use the feedback we received on the layout ideas to develop our designs for next week.

-Forward the student profiles to Programme Leader.

-Organise a time when we can come and photograph the studio environment.

-Contact students who have not completed the yearbook form.

-Develop designs further and explore colour.

If possible would you be able to:

-Send us some information about your study visits.

-Read over the student yearbook forms.

-Send us some images to work with.

For the next meeting (Tuesday 6th March 2pm):
We will:

-Further development with layout designs

-Present design ideas for the yearbook cover

-Bring along pantone reference book

-Finalise the content structure

Deadlines:
Monday 23rd April is the deadline for final images to be included within the yearbook.

Potential layouts

As a team we decided on this layout below as it gives scope for many different initial layouts. We added a larger margin the the inside to allow for the binding.

Individually, we designed layouts for some of the pages for the yearbook to show Steve and allow him a choice. This way he could tall us what he does/doesn't like and we can also give our opinion and put forward our strongest ideas. Here are my layouts presented to Steve. My inspiration has come from Steven Holl and a simplistic design with white space allowing the images and designers inspiration to communicate.

To catch up on...

As I missed last weeks sessions, I must catch up on information given about...

• End of year shows
• PPD presentations
• Have a significant body of work
• Reasons for my briefs in relation to my personal statement

I am also going to sign up for a progress surgery this week, so that I am not continuing down a potential wrong path with my design direction. Sign up for professional progress surgery next week also. 

Meeting with Sally #3

This is what I showed Sally...

PDF

She has chosen a logo and really likes the idea of a logo. As I thought, some of the symbols look a bit too much like Chanel, and so the chosen ones are simple enough not to be related.

Key Dates

Key points

For next week

NOTES

Mædate logo

Working on some ideas for the logo... The æ should reflect the knots made in the products and material. The typeface chosen is Print Clearly which is suitable for commercial use...

Logo development started pretty basic and then more details added to create a more bespoke look.

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

After a mini crit with a few students, an idea to use the æ as a pattern was mentioned and so I continued with this...

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

Box-head

I am going to email David for an interview which I can put into my publication, but I need to think of them first! This needs to be done tomorrow morning so that I can email more studios ASAP with questions. The placement was great and hopefully will form a case study in my publication.

Placement at Box-head

Awesome. More info on a PPD blog post.

How will it change my practice?
Hourly time management, not just daily. I now have less time to do stuff and some pretty tight deadlines. However, I think my targets are achievable if I continue working at the pace I was at Box-head. By splitting the day up into 3 hour slots and tackling a different issue in these I believe I can achieve more and work more productively.

Skinny fonts

Moving away from the hand-drawn look, and focussing on the clean and professional aesthetics of a skinny sans serif font. The 'craft' can be communicated through stock and finish...

This popper into view and is the sort of font which I would want to use! Nice and clean, when teamed with the right stock, colours and context I think this font style could work really well!

Possible typefaces to use...

æ hand-drawn fonts

Not looking good to start with!

Not that keen on this appoach as the fonts look quite unprofessional and like the crafted items wouldn't be to a high quality. The opposite to what I want to communicate! Also, from my initial sketches and idea from 'Step Brothers' I think the font I choose should have the middle bit of the M touching the baseline, it's a nice touch which gives it even more of a brand as its not that usual.

Hand-drawn fonts

Initially keen on creating my own typeface for Sally, however this will take precious time which I do not have at the moment. Also, on a selfish level, I have already demonstrated this skill through a previous brief and so is not an essential element to be tackled for my portfolio.

I want to try and find a font similar to the one used on the title sequence of 'Step Brothers' as I think it has a nice personal quality to it, whilst still being legible, but not childish.

Hand-drawn fonts I could use...

Action plan #3

Evaluation #2

Group meeting

Discussed what we had researched and our initial ideas of where this could go, design wise. After collaboratively looking at all the research strands suggested by Steve, we all though the design direction taken by Steven Holl was the best and could be suitable for the Interior Design Yearbook.

IMAGES OF LAYOUT

æ

Tried out messing about with ae and within 'maedate' to see how it works alongside other letterforms.

Digital perfection

After setting my type in the printing suite at Vernon Street, I digitised the paragraph of text, ready to print in digital print. This was printed on bulky newsprint in a colour I think I will use throughout this brief. The letterpress image was lines up next to the digital type so I could get the leading right between lines.

æ

A prominent part of Sallys branding is the æ, so I researched this some more...

The letter, or ligature, æ, in its upper case form Æ, is formed from the writing together of a and e (or A and E). It is less common nowadays than it was: few people use it in handwriting, not many printers include it in their fonts, and it is not easy to use it from most keyboards. It has had several incarnations in English usage.

No reply from Gabrielle

Gabrielle has not replied to any of my emails. A bit disappointed that she has not even responded to say thanks but no thanks but oh well, I have a starting point brief #4. I printed out the poster and small leaflet I also made to photograph for my portfolio... Really happy with the result and using image has helped show a different side to my practice which I had been ignoring.

Maedate

All images taken from Sallys blog... A good way to understand what she was talking about! Hopefully I can see some samples next week when I show here some ideas to see if where i'm heading is in the right direction.

 

 

  

Meeting with Sally #2

• Keen on having the publication a different size than what would 'normally' be expected.
• Name of label is Mædate.
• Made from a knotting method of textile making. 

Letterpress #2

A paragraph from my dissertation has been chosen which accurately describes what I am attempting to communicate in this brief, and therefore a good starting point for letterpress! By using the restriction of the typefaces available in letterpress I know which ones I can use digitally and manually. Times 14pt was the best option for this paragraph of text. I learnt how to add more leading, which is pretty explanatory, add more leading! Duuuur. I have been able to use a larger pt size for the header and hopefully can also do this accurately in InDesign to create the digital file. This paragraph took me 3 hours to typeset and place in the chase, and luckly, and suprisingly, there was only 1 spelling mistake, 1 letter upside down, and 1 letter not up to printing standard!

Concept sent

Sent the concept off the Gabrielle this morning, after having a quick look at what I did yesterday I was able to make quick changes with fresh eyes so it look much better now than it did yesterday! Really happy with this, hope I get chosen to develop the concept further and hopefully get a real life project from this.

Type and Image, colour

Typeface chosen to reflect the background image and this font has a nice soft edge, even though it is bold. I this it reflects the personal approach to this film festival. The red compliments the gradient and makes the text a focus of the poster, however, it looked a bit flat, so to bring the two elements together, I added a cyan overlay with transparency and again added filters... the ones which work best are number 4 and 8 as they have less conflict between colours and your eyes sees the text without too much distraction.

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

Image gradient

The background image for one concept will be a gradient. I liked this idea from one of the posters I saw for film festivals and the darkness gives it a cinematography feel. I have seen this done before on more occasions but cant think where and can't find any good examples part from these photographs...

By messaging around with the image to desaturate and apply a bespoke gradient over the top as another layer, I have been able to create some pretty nice effects on the existing image I found.

Only issue is the gamut warning, this is one area where I hate print and am jealous of screen based colours!

Type and Image

Examples of how type and image works together as inspiration for this poster and branding...

Thoughts:
Most effective when less words and really impact heavy type and image. If the image is simple the the type can be decorative, if the image is complex, the type should be simple.