OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - PAGE LAYOUT DEVELOPMENTS

Initial tips and tricks sketches:
I started off by sketching some of the points based off the research I undertook into being more sustainable. These sketches are to basically simplify the points into images, so you can understand the point from the image, in some anyway.

Light switch turned off.

Plant your own trees, and a meat-free day.

Buy locally grown produce.

Veggie patch.

Compost, bird house and wash laundry in cold water symbol.

Bicycle to show you should use this mode of transport.

Digitally developed sketches:
The sketches were then uploaded to Photoshop and Illustrator and modified to make them look more clean and contemporary.

The bird houses were produced with the original sketch but with the levels changed on photoshop to make the contrast between black and white greater. Then using the pen tool and precise, straight lines in a very structured fashion, then image traced on Illustrator in black and green, and finally traced using the pencil tool, creating a more 'hands free' aesthetic. This was all to see which style would work the best. These different styles will be applied to another sketch to get a solid idea of which one is the most effective.

The compost bin was the next sketch to get the full experimentation applied to it. In the first sketch the sleek lined pen tool design worked the best, due to it's clean appearance. In the compost bin sketches I feel the pen tooled design worked the best as well with the flowers, as it is the cleanest design which conveys the message the simplest.

This style was then applied to the locally grown produce sketches. I tried two different sign styles, one with an arrow and one without. However the arrow one looks more like a road sign which doesn't convey a very countryside, local produce aesthetic.

These are all of the sketches digitised. You can see they all work well as a unit being in the same style.

The colours were changed to a really dark green so that they fit in with the green environmental theme. The stroke weights were changed so they're all the same weight as well, to make the appearance unified.

Page layout application:
The illustrations were applied to the guide, along with a more expanded description for each 'tip' from the research points.

Effects of deforestation page development:
The initial effects of deforestation page layout was pretty boring and hard to read, so I have experimented with layouts that present the information in a more legible and aesthetically pleasing manner.

Tried creating 'bubbles' around each fact to define them from one another, however it looks too bubbly as the title is encased in a 'bubble' as well.

Drew arrows coming from the centre, in a green an white gradient. This creates a really clear flow, however the arrows look a bit too clip arty with the gradient, it could very easily be seen in any standard environmental flyer.

After researching the eco friendly typefaces I tried using Ryman Eco on this design, and it does look interesting, however transforms it into a much more serious looking design, and the text looks much blacker and dense as well.

This is Ryman Eco close up, so you can see how it is constructed. I imagine it would work really effectively on a larger scale, perhaps as a heading or subheading, however as body copy I am unsure of it's legibility on a smaller scale.

Top: Soleil Book, Middle: Ryman Eco, Bottom: Soleil Light. Ryman is a lot mroe complicated a typeface compared to Soleil, and I can't imagine (in the light weight) that Ryman Eco would use less ink. 

A completely different layout was explored, using the title as a starting point, and then listing all the effects in a path like approach. However, I am not sure whether it looks more like a step by step method, as in one effect leads to another, instead of them all being equal. However I much prefer this layout to the spider diagram approach as it seems to have much more space between points, and the dotted connecting lines create a natural aesthetic, as if someone is walking between the points.

Illustrations:
I produced a few illustrations to go alongside the text for this spread, to illustrate my point, literally, but to also make it look less wordy.

20% of carbon emissions are from rainforests.

Increased risk of forest fires.

Decreased rainfall.

Larger variation in temperature from day to night.

The Amazon river changes will affect the current off the South American coast and the jetstream.

In situ:
I then placed these illustrations in the guide page itself, to see how they will work amongst the other content on the page and the space available.

Wanted an abstract approach, so it didn't look like a little figure, however it detracts from the text and doesn't fit in very well.

Tried it smaller which works better but looks out of place, like it's been forced.

All the illustrations in situ, and they don't really add to the page, in fact they make it look more cluttered than it needs to be.