Typographic Treatments

One existing book layout is the Marber Grid

Existing Book Covers

This book cover is quite classical so fits with the era of the book. The book shows the mockingbird and the tree. 

The first edition cover shows an illustration of a tree. In Chapter 7 of To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem find many gifts inside the knot-hole of an old tree on the Radley property.  They find sticks of gum, a boy and a girl carved out of soap, and a spelling medal, among other things.  Scout and Jem eagerly look forward to each discovery inside of the knot-hole.  Boo Radley is the one leaving the gifts in the knot-hole. The cover subtly references an important theme in the book but gives nothing away about the story if it hasn't been read. the semiotics behind this cover is simply the portrayal of the tree as a communicator between the Children and Boo Radley. I think the book cover has been communicated in a very subtle way and I can't decide if this a completely good thing, maybe the a slightly more important symbol in the book. The cover says nothing to someone who has never read the book before.

In order to design my book covers I conducted some 

research into To Kill A Mockingbird, I read the book in order to understand the key themes of the storyline. I also watched the film in order to get a feel for the gothic western aesthetics. 

I analysed existing book covers of To Kill A Mockingbird and from this realised I needed to go down an illustrative route as this is more fitting to the book and my style. I found that most of the existing book covers are a little bit outdated as the book was written back in the 60’s. The colour schemes were quite dull and the typefaces are old fashioned. 

Previous winners of the Penguin book prize use selected bold sections of colour, and the colour palettes are limited

To Kill a Mockingbird- Harper Lee

To Kill a Mockingbird was written by Harper Lee in 1960. the book is said to be loosely based on Lee's childhood 

The book is fiction genre, specifically southern gothic and its a coming of age story. 

Harper Lee wrote the book in the 1950's. Thinking about the what was going on at that time in terms of the black and white divide. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. Congress passed the civil rights act in 1957 etc. 

To Kill a Mockingbird is an exploration of human morality, and presents a constant conversation regarding the inherent goodness or evilness of people. Atticus, father of Scout and Jem, also plays the role of teacher, for his children and his town. Atticus believes that people usually contain aspects of both good and evil, but that good will usually prevail. Atticus teaches this to his children, but also to the town, as he works to defend Tom Robinson, an innocent black man accused of raping a white woman.

Throughout the book, Scout and Jem make the classic transition from innocence to maturity. Jem leads this change, as he is older than Scout, but both children experience it. At the beginning of the novel, they approach life innocently believing in the goodness of all people, thinking everyone understands and adheres to the same values they and their father do.

Along with struggling with concepts of good and evil, Scout and Jem spend a great deal of time trying to understand what defines and creates social strata. Scout tends to believe that "folks are just folks", while Jem is convinced that social standing is related to how long people's relatives and ancestors have been able to write.

When Scout and Jem receive airguns for Christmas, Atticus tells them that although he would prefer that they practice their shooting with tin cans, if they must shoot at living things, they must never shoot at mockingbirds. Atticus explains that it is a sin to kill a mockingbird.

Bravery takes many forms in To Kill A Mockingbird. Atticus is brave to defend a black man in the face of criticism and threats of violence. He also is brave in the face of danger, both when he kills the rabid dog with a single shot and when facing the mob of men outside the jailhouse. Atticus urges Scout to be brave and prevent herself from fighting those who criticize her or her family. To Atticus, withholding violence is one of the highest forms of bravery. The children believe themselves to be brave when approaching the Radley house early in the book, but learn later on that this was false bravery, and in fact, silly. Atticus holds up Mrs. Dubose as the ultimate definition of bravery, as she finds against her morphine addiction in order to be free from it before she dies, even when she knows she will die in the process.

Throughout the novel, Scout explores the differences between black people and white people. She and Jem attend church with Calpurnia and Scout truly enjoys the experience. Afterwards, she asks Calpurnia if she might be able to visit her house sometime because she has never seen it. Calpurnia agrees, but the visit is never made, largely because Aunt Alexandra puts a stop to it. Jem, Scout and Dill also sit with the black citizens of the town in the balcony of the court house to observe the trial. In addition, Scout and Dill have a lengthy conversation with Mr. Raymond, a white man who married a black woman and has mixed children. Mr. Raymond reveals that he pretends to be an alcoholic by carrying around a paper bag with a bottle of Coca-Cola inside in order to let the town excuse his choice to marry a black woman.

 "You never really understand a person until you consider things from their point of view" a quote from Atticus and is one of the main morals of the story and is what the children learn to deal with as they go through the story. 


10 words to describe the book 

• childhood 
• morality 
• compassion 
• courage 
• injustice 
• prejudice
• fear
• innocence
• curiosity
• racism

Module Evaluation

This project focussed on the idea of process which enabled me to explore new approaches for the progression of my designs. I was able to try out new techniques and be more hands on with my ideas. This enabled my work to be more varied and interesting. This projects tasks has showed me how to do in depth primary research in order to supplement my development. The production methods meant I struggled at times with time management and technology issues. Primary research for this project enabled me to go out into leeds and take research from around me rather than just finding it off the internet. I learnt a lot from the workshops such as pagination and it helped me to make my booklet for way finding. 
Next time I will try to improve on my time management and plan ahead and book printing slots. I would also like to take more time to experiment in my sketchbook as i think my best work came from this part of the module.  

Object Evaluation

To Evaluate, I think the overall outcome was sucsessful althought there are a few things I would change with more time. I am pleased with the quirky context of my design, it is a simple idea but funny and easy to accociate with a wide audience. 

I am pleased with the sizing of the calculator on the page as it is visually pleasing and easy for people to enterpret, it is as if you are holding the calculator in your hand. 

I am dissapointed with the print quality as I diddnt have time to print it out professionally as you can see from the photos. If I had managed my time better then I could have got a print slot booked and been prepared for things to go wrong. 

The design on my final booklet was a little bit rushed aswell, I am not sure on the typography now it is printed out, with more time i would like to go back and reprint the booklet. 

Final sign

wayfinding system development

I refined my idea to just looking at mills in particular the 

production of wool. Instead of focussing round a traditional sign I moved into using wool and making a home made makeshift sign. I like the way this idea can merge into its surrounding instead of just sitting next to it. 

The colour scheme has stayed the same as my first ideas as i want to keep the traditional old theme for the signs, I wanted to use colours of wool that would have been made when the mills were around in the Industrial Revolution. 

My developments firstly looked at making typography with the wool to advertise what was there but i thought this idea was too obvious. 

I took this idea further and took out the typography so it was simplified to just the symbol wich is objective but most people wont know what it means. 

Evaluation way finding

To evaluate I think there are lots of things I could have done differently to improve my project. I need to look at some contextual links in order to bring ideas to my work, my idea had an ok context but needed some more solid research behind it to make it exciting for the viewer to follow. 

The final design was sucsessful as the sign fitted into its surroundings, the wool showed the context behind the idea, with more time i would liek to have experiemented with brighter colours and different locations. I would need to develop a map sytem and an information booklet that people could follow to get around. 

I also think the sign system needs another symbol to show whre the mills are placed such as an X mark to show the placing of the historical mills. 

If my time management had been better for this project then I could have achieved this so i am overall dissapointed with my work. 

Study Task 3

Blackletter

Using an angled brush and ink I created marks using ink and from this cut them up into pictograms. 

Studio Brief 1 Breakdown

Design Process OUGD405


Studio Brief 1 'Wayfinding'

-Hand in 13th January Final Crit 
-Monday and Friday sessions

Wayfinding can be defined as spatial problem solving. It is knowing where you are in a building or an environment, knowing where your desired location is, and knowing how to get there from your present location.

“Most sign systems have the appearance of an objective, functional, almost scientific construction. However, under the surface one can find many subjective motives."

objective  factual, something everyone can agree on
subjective  opinion, feeling, reliant on individual perspective and interpretation.

Experimental Jetset

A sign system is basically an interpretation of a space. By suggesting a way from A to B, the sign system shows its selective nature: of all possible ways to go from A to B, the sign system shows only one.

Sarah Boris

Mijksenaar

Research

1. Break down the Brief, Simplify to keywords
2. Challenge conventions- list all conventions and their opposites
3. Site research- study things you want to sign
4. Interviews / Surveys
5. Reading into design, art, history, sociology, politics
6. Photograpy / Video

Conventions:
objective- subjective
uniform- varied
stable- dynamic
clarity- stylised
universal- particular
authority- novice

initial ideas for studio brief 2

IDEA 1

From looking at the inside of the calculator I created a design that I think would work well as a wallpaper design inspired by the circuit board. I experimented with different colour schemes, but i think the best ones are where there is less emphasis on the colour and more on the forms from the circuit board.

IDEA 2

A book showing the different words you can make using the calculator there is quite a few words that can be made and it was a popular thing to do at school so could have a humorous element. 

way finding systems around leeds

supergraphics

Super graphics are used to transform bland interiors or exteriors into exciting visual environments.

Wayfinding Artist Research

David Rudnick

Rudnick started making posters for Making Time, a well known club in Philadelphia, America when he was in college over 4 years ago and still is the artistic director for the club. His poster designs are striking, using bold typography and vibrant colour palettes.

Erik Hue

I like how Hue's work is developed from sketchbook ideas into graphical posters, this is something that i am trying to work on in this module. 

Hassan Rahim

Wayfinding study task 1

For our first study task we made a video in a group looking at how people move in spaces and how the react to signs in those spaces and how their movement changes. 

For the video we needed to create:

-an obstruction

-create a new connection

-create a diversion

Link to video:

https://vimeo.com/193028736 

In our video we tested how people would react to our wayfinding methods, we tried to make people have to stop and thing quickly on their feet, in our society we have signs we all know and follow and so to mix this up gave us a few surprised reactions. We created a few obstructions in our video and watching peoples reactions to this was interesting as pretty much everyone goes around the obstruction. We have it programmed into us that we must follow a sign if it tells us to do something. It was very interesting to see how people followed our signs even though they were extremely makeshift.