Visual Language: Paper Folding

Today in visual language we all picked a random word, mine was ultimate. We then tried to show this word by cutting apart a magazine. I have chosen fashion pages, and logos for luxury brands, as well as adjectives relating to 'ultimate' such as divine, great etc. Here I have spelt ultimate out of these words.

The Anatomy of a Book

Today I have learnt about the anatomy of a book. Book design incorporates content, format, design and sequence into a coherent whole.

Leaves - Individual sheets

Pages - Leaves have a front and a back which are referred to as pages

Page spread - When bound together the left and right page are centered on a gutter where they are bound together at the spine

Types of binding

Imposition - precise arrangement of multiple pages on a large sheet

Pagination - process of diving and numbering documents in to pages

We created a mini book by folding an A2 piece of paper and then cutting it. I have created these diagrams to show where/how each page would be laid out. The scissors show where has to be cut.

Book Making Workshop

I later attended a book making workshop, creating these three books. The first one has holes drilled in the middle, and has been fasted with sewing. The second book features a japenese sewing bind. The third book is a concentina book with a hardback cover.

Moving Image Workshop

Week One

In this workshop we learnt how to create a video from photography stills. I prepared the images ready for the video by resizing them on photoshop to the PAL UK video standard size of 720 x 576 pixels. Instead of editing each photographs size individually, we learnt how to record actions on photoshop.

- Create new action - record - change image size - save as (new folder) - close image - stop

To apply this action to one other image, I could open the other image and select the action and the change would be made. Or, to apply it to all of the stills, I would select file - automate - batch - choose folder with stills in - ok.

I used Quicktime player 7 to create this video. I opened the image sequence and changed the frame rate to 12 frames per second, resulting in a 6 second video. I then exported this movie, changing the frame rate to 25fps as this is the PAL standard.

I then edited the still photographs by creating an action to change things such as the hue/saturation, which I applied to all photographs at once as I had done previously. 

This is my edited video, which I uploaded to Vimeo.

Week Two
This week in the moving image workshop I have made a video from my own drawings, so my piece is relevant to my current work. There are only 8 images, meaning the final video lasts for only just over a second. Instead of using quicktime player, I have used final cut. Just a few advantages of using final cut are that you can have audio and text in your video, you have more control over your images, you can have gaps in the video, and the images can last for different durations.

 


I started by importing my images, and then dropping them into the timeline. The length of the image block determines the time it will be on screen, so I shrunk the blocks, as with a flick book, each image only needs to be seen for a very short amount of time.

This screenshot shows how I added text to the video in the viewer window. In the end, instead of having the text as a separate slide, I decided the text would be underneath for the duration of the video. I did this by overlaying this block.

By creating a new sequence, and then dragging my old sequence into the new one, all the slides will work as one, as if it was a video now. If I wanted to, I could place the sequence more than once.

To save my file, I exported it using quick time conversion, and saved it with h.264 compression.

Displaying Information: Graphs

We created a graph as another way of displaying information. The information displayed is not relevant to my current brief, this graph was created just as an example of how information can be placed on a graph.

I started off by listing five events that had happened to me at college, five reasons why I applied for Graphic Design, five reasons why I was wearing the top I was wearing and five significant points in my education. I then gave each of these categories a symbol, and placed them in a rough time line of what the events took place. The first event was a primary school memory and the last one was the reasons for why I was wearing my t-shirt. With some points like this, more than one event happened at the same time, so I plotted these points on top of each other.

Key

Graph 1

Graph 2

Type and Grid: Magazine Layout

Week One
Grid

The Guardian newspaper has a standardised grid which I have marked out. 

Guardian 5 column & 3 column grids:

Here I have overlayed the 5 column grid on top of the 3 column grid to show how they are both actually from the same grid, but a grid with many more columns.

 

In contrast, I looked at the layout of The Sun, which is all over the place and untidy.

Measured Type

With the pica measurements, it is possible to measure what size type is.

Task: 

Create a grid with 8 or more columns. Take a page or dps from an existing magazine article with different type / sizes and images, and re-arrange the elements, with a variation of scale, cropping and shrinking images, etc. At least 12 different examples on 2 sheets of A3, must have either a tonal value or use of colour.

Original magazine article

This article is from the Cath Kidston magazine.

New grid examples

I created a double page spread grid with 12 columns to use underneath all of my new magazine layouts.

Week Two

In our second visual language session focusing on type and grid, we got into groups and gave each other feedback concerning the layout, spacing, placement of headers and images, and whether the layout makes sense visually and as a whole.

With the responses from others, I have chosen one layout design to take forward. (the 5th layout) I will bring factors I like from the other layouts in to this as well as I continue to develop this design. I have indicated on the page the typeface, point size, colours, guttering, margins, stock and other relevant factors.

Grid

Magazine Layout

Font sizes

"Get the" - 36

"Point" - 72

Sub headings - 24

Quote - 32

Introduction text - 24

General text -16

Fonts used 

Headings - Chaparral Pro

"Get the" and other text -Euphemia

Type and Grid: Lecture Notes

Today in visual language we learnt about the industry standard language of grid and type.

This image shows metal type. The metal body size defines the point size.

NO - when the n and the o are equal size, the o looks smaller, so the o actually goes a bit over and under the lines to make it look equal to the n.

Ligatures - letters interfere with each other to make the proportions between a pair of letters more acceptable. This technique is only used in best quality publications, such as restaurant menus.
e.g.

The use of all capitals makes a word less legible, as the shape of the word is squared in. With lowercase, there is a shape to the word, and the brain recognises this shape instead of the letters. 

All roadsigns in the U.K. use the same font. The process behind this was carefully thought out, so that people get used to the shapes of the words, and so can recognise location names quickly.

Kerning is the space between a pair of letters. It is important to take care with appearance, and not just to use the default computer setting, as type needs to be easy to understand. Minus leading is only possible on a computer. Where there is no leading, the type is set solid.

Tracking is the space between the letters in a word.

Reverse out is to have white writing on a black background. When doing this, tracking should be added to the letters so that the background colours don't bleed onto the white font.

It is important to have appropriateness and meaning in mind when selecting a font.

It is inappropriate to have an unfamiliar word in an ornate typeface.

The use of halftone/colour changes what you look at first (hierachy of words), along with the scale, font, tone etc.

The layout of a product depends on what it is. For example bibles, cookbooks, manuals, novels, scripts and magazines all have different layouts.

There are different versions of a font in a type family.

If the font size was 10pt, with a 4pt gap in between the lines (leading) it would be 10 on 14 pt or 10pt 4pt leaded. This terminology is from the old letter press technology, as the pt of leading is based on the pieces of lead put in between the letter blocks.

A pica is a constant measurement. 12pts is a pica

Letters can look bigger but still be the same pt size, depending on the x height of the letters.