Final Project — Social/Cultural Feature:Learning to Design an Advanced Typographic System
Project details
For our final project, we have to combine everything that we’ve learned about typography, form and colour to design a visual style guide for a feature that will be represented across 2 design mediums: a featured magazine article and 1 additional design mediums. To be successful, we have to employ the Gestalt and typography principles that we have learned to make our designs simultaneously beautiful, functional and emotional.
Part 1: Choosing feature content
I played around with two different feature ideas that I found interesting.
Idea 1– the consumption of bugs
Article Title: They’re Healthy. They’re Sustainable. So Why Don’t Humans Eat More Bugs?
Keywords: innovation, organic
Description: The introduction of insects into the American diet has been a long and hard battle, even though they are healthy, low-cost and sustainable. Researchers are now trying to introduce the Sakondry as a “bacon bug” due to it being supposedly“tailor-made for the American palate”. Would the taste and texture of these plump, juicy bugs be enough for Americans to overcome their hesitation towards bugs?
Article: https://time.com/5942290/eat-insects-save-planet/
First, I explored a topic related to climate change and the meat industry, which is insect consumption. I found an interesting article about a new “bacon bug” that researchers were trying to introduce into the market. However, after some consideration, I decided that there weren’t too many avenues of design that I was excited to explore with this topic, so I moved on to my second idea.
Idea 2 — The return of Broadway
Article Title: Broadway reopens after pandemic shutdown with three blockbusters: ‘The Lion King’, ‘Hamilton’, ‘Wicked’
Keywords: Grand, historic, excitement
Description: Broadway is reopening after its pandemic shut down in March 2020. Three of its bestselling shows, “The Lion King,” “Hamilton” and “Wicked” are back in theatres and are slowly building up to regular attendance. Actors, directors, and theatre-goers alike are itching to experience shows like we did in the past, and everyone is thrilled that live is finally back.
The second idea that I explored was the return of Broadway after the pandemic. To me, the return of Broadway is a historic moment because for many theatre lovers, experiencing live performances is an experience of catharsis. Broadway also reminds me of bright lights, colors and a feeling of excitement, which I think would be interesting to explore through design.
Part 2: Adobe Illustrator Exercises
The goal of these exercises was to help us practice using the pathfinder and pen-tool tools in Adobe Illustrators. These tools will be helpful when designing our final visual guide.
Pathfinder tool
In this task, we had to recreate the image of the robot, using the building blocks provided. Comparing the two, the mouth and ears of my robot was slightly too big, but overall it is relatively close.
Pen-tool tool
For this exercise, I had use the pen-tool to trace an image of an animal of my choice.
Part 3: Design Directions
Mood-board
Two themes that I immediately noticed from my mood-board is that there is an element of darkness and mystery created by the smoke and dimmed lights, but there is also a sense of color and happiness around these images.
Edits from feedback 10/26
After getting some feedback on my first two directions, I decided to combine some of the elements of both. I stuck to most of the typography choices of the “Dramatic return” direction because it looks more classy and professional. However, I did rearrange the hierarchy of the types so that the subheading would be larger than the quote. I also used a different font the headline, so that it would stand out more.
For the colours, I chose a pink, a blue and a yellow because my pervious colors were too similar to each other. This gives me a wider range of color choices.
Preparation for group critique
For the group critique this week, I prepared my final design system. I also included a design template, which helps me visualize what my article would look like if I implemented my font choices to a magazine spread, and a mood-board which I have been drawing inspiration from.
For my mood-board, my professor suggested that I looked into designer Paula Scher and her work for the public theatre. I found this extremely helpful because I saw how she was able to use color and typography to tie different productions together, which is what I will have to do as well. I also loved the bright colors and bold fonts that she used in her work, which I incorporated into my moodboard.
When preparing my design system, I wanted to incorporate a series of bright colours, similar to those in my mood board. I also began to think about graphic elements, such as the Lion King head, that I wanted to feature in my magazine spread.
Group critique feedback 11/4
We split into groups of 3 and 4 and spent 7–8 minutes on each person’s critique.
Some key takeaways from the group feedback session is that I could use even brighter colors and replace the dark blues with a brighter, more cyan-like blue. I will also be experimenting with different fonts for the body text, as it was more difficult to read in-person that it was on my computer screen. I also want to change the font of the quote to make it look more playful and exciting. I also asked for some graphic element ideas and my group suggested I incorporated the iconic broadway lights, which I thought was a brilliant idea.
Grid Exercise
In class we learned about grid systems and how many magazines use the same few kinds of grids to format and organize the content within. Therefore, to before formatting our own spreads, we first studied the grid systems used in other magazines. I used colored blocks to trace out the columns and rows in the spread. What I learned is that even though a spread may seem like it only has one or two columns, its underlying grid system might have much more than that, and not all grid systems are super obvious initially.
Magazine Spread, Instagram Ad and Poster Sketches
For homework, I tried to come up with 3 different magazine spread, instagram ad and poster ideas. This was harder than I thought because we had to come up with a different grid system for each of the 3 spread types. My first design was inspired by Paula’s work on the public theatre, so I was planning on incorporating color and typography into my magazine spread. For the second spread, I was inspired by the Broadway sign with the lights and I used a two column spread. For my third spread, I was inspired by the bright lights of Broadway and wanted to incorporate a spread that spans across all 5 pages.
I also made sketches for the poster and instagram ads.
Spread ideas
The first step of crafting our magazine spreads was to block out the spaces that were going to be occupied by text and images. I experimented with a two column design, a photo collage and overlapping text. From this exercise, I learned creative ways to arrange text to add interest to a plain article. I also ran into many problems because my article was on the shorter side so I needed to incorporate many graphic elements to fill a 5 page spread.
Digital iterations
I decided to explore my first design idea with overlaying, bright text, inspired by Paula Scher’s work for the public theatre.
Initially I wanted to have words behind the text and images in the spreads itself, but I quickly realized that the text would not be easily readable and this was one of my main priorities for this project. Hence, I landed on the spreads below as my first digital iteration draft.
I really struggled with was finding images that were high quality and would not appear blurry in my spreads. This was really important to me because low-quality images can make any design look unprofessional. For example, this was originally what my spreads looked like, but the image of Lin-Manuel Miranda that I used on the front page only had an effective DPI of 150. Therefore, I ended up changing almost every image in my spreads to achieve a DPI between 250–300 for as many images as possible.
During one of my feedback sessions, I was trying to move the black text above to a different location when my TA, Youngryun, told me she really liked how the overlaid text looked when it was cropped and running off the page. This inspired the design of my magazine spreads.
This was my second full digital iteration that I submitted for my 2nd critique. I received some helpful feedback about my title page and my spreads. For example, my professor Anna suggested that I should make the text on the final page run off the page like I did on the cover for consistency. She also suggested that I should cut off less of the yellow text because it is hard to read half words. Lastly, she gave me helpful advice about the spacing and size of my text since it was way too big and there was not enough white space in my spreads so it looked cluttered. My body text was originally size 14pt but she told me to change it to 10pt.
Instagram ad
For this interim critique, I also revisited my instagram ad and came up with my first iteration. I wanted to use the same text layout as I did in my spreads but wanted to feature a different image. I ended up settling with a picture from “Wicked” because I liked how it spans the width of the ad and it conveys a majestic and grand vibe that is intriguing.
Anna suggested that I should make the text yellow for consistency and lay the text differently too.
Final Piece
Below were my final spreads, instagram ad and design system. I updated my design system to reflect the theme, colors and graphic elements that I used in my final piece and made a few changes based on feedback from the last critique.
Final Group Critique and Feedback
In the final group critique, we bound our magazine spreads to mimic that of an actual magazine. We started with a quick presentation of our work and included the answers to three questions: What inspired you to choose this topic, what was your favourite part of your design and what would you change if you had more time.
My favourite part of my work was the title page of my magazine article. I think the bright pink and yellow is eye-catching and vibrant and the typography reminds me of Broadway headlines. If I had more time, I would’ve spent more time ironing out the details of my piece that I didn’t realize until I printed out. For example, the yellow outline that surrounds the photo on the cover page intersects the “s” in “1st show” and the page numbers were not present on pages 2,3 and 4.
My classmates also gave me some ways I could improve my work. For example, one classmate suggested that I should incorporate more bright pink in my spreads since it is so prominent on the front page.
