P5: Grid, Style and Format
Dive Into Swimming by, Anna Riegger
Indesign, Photoshop; May 2019
Process Documentation
My initial concept designs ranged from a drink recipe collection to world travel documentation for hiking to Chinese Basic Phrases to a Swim technique manual. I felt that I did not know enough about drink recipes or did not have enough hikes documented to follow these routes. I liked the Basic Chinese Phrases approach but was unsure if my grammar is good enough at this stage.
Because I felt that I knew most about and felt most passionate about swimming I decided to design my book around the concept of swimming. The original design was to have 2 spreads of each stroke. One spread would be the above water technique. It was going to have a view above the surface of the iconic view of the stroke spanning both the left and right pages. Opposite spreads would visualize the below water strokes. The grid structure would allow for text to be placed strategically outlining the important aspects of how to swim each stroke. Ideally the style would be simple with abstract illustrations. The grid formatting would create uniformity across all spreads while offering variability amid the above and below water contrasting perspectives. I used a color scheme which I created by pairing blues to show the nuances of the water.
The cover and two spreads I created for the Interim Crit encompassed a lot of these ideas.
Interim Crit
Feedback I got from the crit helped me to improve my designs. I changed the font. The feedback I received showed me how military the text looked prior to changes. I switched the text to ‘Avenir.’ The more humanistic and organic style of this font fit better with the overall scheme. The text is aligned with the gridding where there are 3 types of layouts patterned throughout the book. In addition, I changed the illustrations to be less pixelated and more complex. The new images embody the same abstract visuals but include more details like a water line and waves. The black lines of the illustrations tie the spread together with the text and the large title.
Furthermore, I decided to keep one spread for each stroke, instead of 2 spreads — one above and one below. I included additional spreads to detail a start, dive, flip turn and open turn. These created more diversity within my composition while still maintaining color and style uniformity.
Final Project (see top)
I’ve attached the final cover and back cover as well as the background images which I created by drawing on paper, scanning it into Photoshop, and editing.
If I had more time I would play around more with the grid structure and how the text could use the space more creatively. I especially enjoyed that I had the opportunity to draw for this project.
