Group Presentation

As part of the Process and Production module of my course we were set the task of creating a group presentation about our responses to the previous brief, in this case it was about the City In Flux. I found the activity to be useful in honing my presenting and team management skills. To start with we were placed into random groups of around four and once the group I was in was together and the lecture had finished we began to create a work-plan. We then met up later in the week and created a time-plan, as we created a presentation intro plan later towards the presentation deadline. After reading the brief several times to ensure we understood what was asked, we then created a bullet-point list of subjects to cover which then also gave us an estimated time allowance per person. The presentations were for 15 minutes per group, with 10 minutes presentation time and 5 minutes questions and reflection. We worked out this would give each of us around a minute and a half each for our individual sections and we also allowed a minute spare for any overrun time.

After initial discussion it was decided that I would be the team leader and we designated the designing, presenting and copywriting roles to be shared between each of us. I found working as a team was difficult at points due to communication issues over the holiday period, as each of us had busy points throughout the holidays which made sticking to the timeframe difficult. As a result of this we met up a couple of days before the hand in date and worked through the checklist.

On the actual presentation day one team member was unfortunately absent, so I stepped up to the mark and read out their individual section. I had only briefly been talked through their response to the project due to choosing to present each section in turns, this meaning that I was required to read from the slides. I have learnt from this that you need to have a back-up plan for if the initial plan doesn’t work out and also to ensure you understand your peers’ responses thoroughly in case of absence.

Please see the presentation slides below.

InDesign - Session Two

Overview

In this workshop we looked at how rivers, orphans, widows and hyphens can degrade the look of a publication. Rivers make it harder to read due to the larger areas of white space, this is because any area of one colour larger then another will always attract our attention. This relates to the figure-ground perspective. In regards to hyphens they simply look messy and delay our reading, as we have to move from one sentence end to the next beginning in order to read the word. For widows and orphan’s it is due to the eye focussing on the unusual within a page, such as if there were a red ball in a box of yellow balls for instance. Finally there is also the case of paragraph shaping (A.K.A. Clean rags), this can be particularly tricky to balance out against the widows and orphans and can require compromise between the two. These are all decisions a designer has to make when designing the final stages of a magazine, newspaper or book layout.

Example of Rivers
and Widows.

There are a few different ways to correct these flaws. These include altering the tracking, the kerning, using soft line breaks (A.K.A. Soft Return) and restricting the amount of Hyphens allowed within consecutive lines. There are options to alter the tracking in larger numbers using the options in basic character formats, the same can be said for the style or kerning. However, although these may seem a quick easy fix to your design problems, it isn’t that simple as these are a general guide and require alteration as to work for you. Furthermore although Adobe’s H&J violations highlighter can be useful, I find quite often the violation isn’t large enough to require amendment and therefore it can be easier to judge such by eye.

Leaflet Design

We were also shown other tools within InDesign that are used within magazine and leaflet design. This included the creating tab leaders, which can be used to aid menu pricing lists and also how to create a contents page.

How did you find it?

Front Cover Design

Magazine Spread Layouts

I found putting the error correcting rules into practice to be more difficult then it first appears. I found in particular with the widows and rags that it requires very careful consideration and therefore I feel I need a lot more practice on this area of design work. I find the paragraph styles to be a very useful tool within InDesign, as not only can you easily set a style to a block of text but you can also change it if need be. However if using an array of different styles then it is best to ensure a clear labeling system. A good note to point out is that although there is the option to change the paragraph styles half-way through a document, this isn't ideal as it may move text to other pages if flowing from one box to another. Therefore it is always best to decide on these design elements at the beginning of a document. 

I am quite pleased with my design, however I feel I had spent too much time on it, though this is due to getting to grips with the techniques. I am particularly fond of the front cover and pages 6-7, this is due to the dynamic feel to the cover through the use of the energetic action shot paired with the colour choices. While I am pleased with the last two-page spread due to the juxtaposition of content, though I feel if it were to be published in a real-life magazine then it would need further improvement. 

All images used within the design were found using Google Images, no copyright infringement intended, used for educational purposes only. 

Below is the experimental design:

Typographic Task 3

For the third task on typography I chose the typeface design with which I would develop further into a vector alphabet. I chose the “Lewis Mechanics” as I have named it, sketches as I feel these would be reasonable to create as my first typeface. However from looking at my sketches it was apparent that I had issues in weight throughout the alphabet and therefore I chose one letter to base the width upon the rest. I chose the letter T for this as I felt it has a clear, crisp definition while also retaining a clunky, machine like feel.

Sketches For The Lewis Mechanics Typeface

Before creating each letter on Illustrator I first created the lowercase x. This was used as a guide for where the x-height appears, therefore giving me the median and baseline guides. As I proceeded with my designs I created the ascender height and descender height. These guidelines can be seen in use in my speed video where i created the G. I created the skeleton for the G using the letter D flipped horizontally.

Typographic Task - Part 3 from Nicole H.D.W. Sinclair on Vimeo.

Q Weight Measurements

In order to level the weight out as to be even across the alphabet I used a simple line as a guide to measure the width with. This is demonstrated in this image of my Q. As a stylistic feature on the font I incorporated a circle into each letter where appropriate, with the exception of the letter O. This was also to keep the feel of the inspiration to the font within the apparel.

Legibility Test & Background Variation

Above is a test I made to check the legibility of my typeface. Below you can see my final font, I have also created a few variations to show how it would work on different coloured backgrounds.

White and Grey Backdrops

Final Typeface Design for "Lewis Mechanics"

Overview of Workshop

I found this to be an interesting workshop to take part in and found the process of developing a font takes careful consideration. I enjoyed creating the typeface, however I feel I spent too much time on developing it, though this came out with the above outcome which i feel is successful.

P.S. 28th May - Upon searching for the image which I was inspired by for the above typeface I discovered it was not created by Wyndam Lewis but in fact Edward Wadsworth and is named "Newcastle". In conjunction with this discovery the typeface will no longer be called Lewis Mechanics but Wadsworth Mechanics instead.