OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - CONTENT OF THE GUIDE & FRONT COVER SKETCHES

I started off by exploring the actual content of the guide, to make sure it is appropriate and focused on the government. Some things that will be included are how to be sustainable/environmentally friendly travelling to/from work, the effects of deforestation on the world, and advice on making laws more stringent to only allow wood with the legal symbol on in, and to close any loopholes. For this last point I will need to look up what governments can do to prevent illegal timber entering the country.

Front cover sketches:
Aesthetic style:
GREEN, green and a dash more green. I want this to be very clear that it's about the environment, so you can't be mistaken and it stands out. I also want to put a graphic style on it, so that it doesn't look like a government produced, boring leaflet, but that time has been put in to create it this way. The tone of voice is going to be not formal, but kind of friendly, but getting the points over in a simple and concise manner. It has to appeal to the government, so it can't be really jokey, but I don't want to make it very formal either, it should be a little bit of fun in places but still be taken seriously, without necessarily being formal.

First page of sketches, I went with the title "A simple guide to: saving the rainforest" as it still sounds formal, but the use of the word simple conveys that anyone can help and suggests that they maybe haven't been doing a very good job so far, which they haven't. I plan to use imagery (mainly taken by myself when I went to Brasil) and perhaps vector shapes that suggest vegetation, or maybe even looser illustrations using different mediums, however this may be too abstract and not clean enough. Banners are used to make the text stand out against the imagery, so it has a bold impact. The banners could also connate showing the loss of the rainforest, as by putting a white box over rainforest imagery, you essentially don't see part of the rainforest, cutting it off.

These sketches play more with the idea of using the illustrations or vector shapes for the imagery, as this creates a more abstract, clean appearance, hopefully. I also used the shape of a tree to form the frame for the text, which makes it kind of useful and involved more in the cover.

These are all potential ideas for the front cover, and to see whether they actually work or not they will have to be experimented with digitally in the correct size.