OUGD406 STUDIO BRIEF 2 - STUDY TASK 3

This study task is a continuation of the previous two study tasks for this brief. We had to use the descriptive words our peers gave for our book, and if they were negative, we had to subvert them, and if they were positive they should be left as they are. We had to choose a typeface which we felt represented the feedback we were given on our book covers from the discussion, and our descriptive words as well. We have to choose a hierarchy of information (author, title, subtitle etc), and also a type style/size/alignment appropriate to the feedback and above points. We must then use this to create a black and white A4 mock up of a redesign of our book cover, but the design must be purely typographic and not include any symbols or imagery. We only had 30 minutes to complete this study task, so our ideas had to be very simple yet still have the impact they are intended to have.

My descriptive words:

• Bland
• Contrasting
• Dark
• Mysterious
• Bold
• Not aged
• Engaging
• Intriguing

Hierarchy of information:

Title

Subtitle

Author

My ideas:

Title, Subtitle and Authors: DIN Condensed. To express the hierarchy of information in my designs, I simply made each aspect slightly smaller than the previous, so the title is the largest point size, and the authors names the smallest. I chose to centrally align everything as I thought this would create an appealing balance within the page. I chose to place the author's names at the bottom of the page as I thought this would create an effective footer for the cover, especially with the use of uppercase lettering for the authors. For the authors I chose to produce their names in uppercase and the "and" joining the together in lowercase lettering, as I wanted their names to appear more important than the "and", and for them also to stand out as being relatively important on the page as well, which I don't think they would have done if they were in lowercase with only the first letters being uppercase. 

In this design I aligned everything flush left, to appear more like you would read it in an essay to reflect the content of the book, essays. I don't like this alignment however as it makes the cover look imbalanced, with all the elements being on the left hand side.

In the previous two designs I felt that the "Design Literacy" part of the title wasn't as powerful as it could appear, so I changed the case to uppercase. This makes it appear a lot bolder, and more easily recognised as a title. I also centrally aligned all the elements again, deciding after my last experimentation that flush left didn't suit the cover well.

Keeping exactly the same layout as previously,  I changed the subtitle font to Gill Sans, as I thought that DIN Condensed was a little too heavy weighted, I wanted something a little lighter to contrast better against the weight and boldness of the main part of the title.Although this typeface does achieve my goal of using a lighter weighted typeface, I don't feel as if it fits with the other typeface DIN Condensed on the page, it's too rounded.

This is my final design, where I have replaced Gill Sans with DIN Alternate, which is a different version of the DIN Condensed typeface. I think that this typeface fits in a lot better with DIN Condensed on the cover, yet is still weighted slightly less than the title typeface, allowing it to stand out more effectively.

We then received written feedback on our final design, whereby everyone went round other people's final designs for their book covers, and wrote the first few words that came to mind when looking at the cover. This is the feedback I received:

• Clear
• Central
• Tidy
• Minimalistic
• Straightforward
• Futuristic
• To the point
• Spacious
• Clean
• Minimal
• Simplistic
• Good usage of white space
• Simplicity
• Understanding
• Love first typeface "DESIGN LITERACY", not subheading though

This has given me a good starting point for my further experimentations and designs for Studio Brief 2, as it has shown me which typefaces work really well together, and which ones don't. It has also allowed me to see that sometimes a more simple design can be just as effective as a more complicated one, and that the whole point of my book is to be clear and literate, so my cover should reflect this.