Project 5: Pia Artwork
Print / Painting | 2019 | Individual Project
Aside: As an artist I go by Pia, my middle name, hence the title of the book and signatures on the artwork.
About the Project
The purpose of this project is to incorporate the design principles regarding typography and grid systems to create a booklet with original content. The layout and style should suit the content and intention of the booklet. In addition, the aim for this project is to practice all the design principles covered this past semester with the intention of creating a relationship between the purpose of the booklet and the design. This project was completed for the course 51–261 Communication Design Fundamentals at Carnegie Mellon University in the spring semester of 2019.
Project Process
Original Concept
I decided to create a pocket size portfolio of my artwork that I can present as needed in professional or casual settings.
Initially, I struggled to determine how I wanted the artwork to be laid out, because the pieces vary in size, but I wanted a uniformed and balanced layout. I did not want to use thick margins around the paintings considering the booklet was supposed to be pocket sized and it would be difficult to see the artwork. As a result, I chose to have each artwork span over the two pages as much as needed and used the excess space to provide details of each piece (title, year, size, material). Additionally, I wanted to present each piece in chronological order.
First Digital Iteration
At first, I did not have all the details of each artwork because my artwork is not with me. With that in mind, I also had to exclude some pieces because the quality of the photos was not very good and I could not take new photos. This is another reason why I decided to make a pocket sized version, because printing the poor quality images in a larger size would reduce the overall value of the booklet.
I wanted the part with the details of each piece to be simple because the art itself is very colorful. If the details were also intricately laid out it would clash with the artwork and be distracting for the viewer. I selected a sans serif font because of this and bolded keywords in the title for a subtle detail. I used triangles and colors from each piece in the design to add some unique quality to each spread, but this received mix comments from my peers and ultimately was removed. A opaque white bar was included because I felt that the division between the artwork and white side was a bit abrupt, but I was not convinced by it as a solution and neither were my peers, commenting that it was distracting. Overall, I was not entirely pleased with this first layout because it was not very uniformed and some pages did not utilize the white space as effectively because of the size of the piece.
Final Iteration
In the final iteration, I optimized the size of the outside margin so that on a layout with less space it did not continue to decrease the space provided. Moreover, I centered the layout so that each page would always have the same outside margin and as a whole the design would be consistent.
I then determined that the size of the title would have to vary to fit the different widths within the margin on each spread. This was a bit of compromise because the size of the type fluctuates throughout the booklet which contradicts my focus on uniformity. However, at the same time it allows the available space to be maximized and individualizes each title. I changed the font to didot to make the typography match the curves and details in the art. I also made this change because my peers felt that the sans serif font I used conflicted with the style of art.
I placed all the details regarding material, size and year on the bottom, considering they are not key to enjoying the art and only extra information for those interested. I kept this as a sans serif font because I still liked the sleek quality it presented and thought it would further demonstrate the hierarchy between the title and details.
I still wanted to incorporate the colors in each artwork because I knew it would make each layout a bit more unique, while also providing more information on each piece. For with the colors, a viewer can understand the balance of colors in the art at a quick glance.
I chose to put the colors at bottom for the same hierarchical reasons as the additional details, but also to keep the colors in the same location on each spread. Instead, if I had put the colors directly below the title it would unnecessarily create additional differences between each spread. Consequently, this choice would guarantee my main focus of creating a uniformed and balanced layout.
The front cover was designed to be similar to the layout found within the booklet. The black portion was enlarged simply to reduce the amount of white space, which served no purpose on the cover considering the simplicity of the design. While the back cover related to the intricacy seen in the art and was a playful attempt to use the typography in an illustrative context.
