OUGD505 STUDIO BRIEF TWO - RESEARCH - HOW TO GUIDES

Not Just Another Guide to Cologne by Raoul Doring & Jacqueline Diedam

The Visual Concept
To create more interest in the guide, the visual concept took a different direction to that found in the ordinary tourist guide. Leaving the two dimensional, digital world, we decided to visualise the cover, as well as the title pages for each of the twelve sections of the guide, with photographs of detailed scenes from Cologne constructed from coloured paper. These colourful paper models took about three hundred working hours to complete and, in the end, around a hundred meters of tape was used to fix 120 square meters of cardboard and paper together. The layout was kept visually simple and clean, to provide an easy-reading experience and to enable the reader to quickly take in the content.

First Printed Edition
After great interest in the final  product, a first-edition print run of 1,000 guides was printed, published and financed in cooperation with the Cologne University of Applied Sciences and KISD. Officially introduced in the winter semester of 2014 to all new incoming international students, the guide comes as a three-piece welcome gift with the guide book, a fold out map for navigation and a postcard to send home.

The guide itself.

It comes with an easy to use map to help guide you through Cologne and so you can pinpoint where different places are.

It also has a website showing what the guide is about, photographs of it, how it was made, if you're interesting in buying or receiving one, and how to get in contact as well.

Example spread from the guide. Simple layout, easy to read, informative, but quite text heavy.

The title pages for the guide were produced using paper models, giving each chapter a start off looking 3D and funky, a different style that what you're used to.

This shows the front cover paper model, you can see the detail they've gone into. 

This guide was really useful to look at, as it takes on a very graphic designer-y approach to a publication, whilst still being informative and clear. The paper models for each chapter and the front cover are what make this guide so unique, as they took hundreds of hours to produce, and make the page pop, almost come alive. It is so much more dynamic that a flat vector image. The idea of making a big deal out of the title pages could be something I look into, as it starts the chapter off on a positive and inspiring note. I should however be careful to use sustainable products if I create anything physical though.


Food for Thought: A Man's Guide to Love & Food by Ronan McIntyre

This project was based on the ISTD brief Food For Thought. The brief asked to investigate food with a new view point, using whatever means appropriate to convey your solution and to identify a target market.
My solution to the creation of a new view point was to create The Mans Guide To Food and Love. This book is a novelty book targeted at men between 20- 30. The content of the book uses an exaggerated chauvinistic humorous tone as it explains how to overcome relationship obstacles with the use of food. While exploiting male stereotypical views and stereotypical view of men. This happens through dating, creating your own meal and dealing with relationship problems. I used a minimalist approach to the visual language to express the truthfulness behind this book, this book is about being open and clear and forming a relationship.

Front cover.

Example spread, you notice it's quite text heavy, as in the description McIntyre calls in a 'book'.

There's even food recipes to win the woman's heart. This could be applied to my guide by a step by step guide to planting your own veggie patch perhaps.

More abstract content spread, where tips are included almost as if they're quotes.

This is a very different kind of guide, for a different target audience and purpose. It has a much cleaner, simpler aesthetic, sticking to two key colours per page or scenario, which also helps you differentiate between the chapters as well. It is also quite text heavy as well, there aren't many images or illustrations either, which make it not as fun as it could be.

Four Elements and Two Goats: A Tour Guide for Children by Sylwia Maja Bartkowska

My debut book "Four Elements & Two Goats" is a creative tour guide for children.
The book is black and white, so a child can colour it the way it likes. The idea is to feel like an artist and make this book your very own. I carefully picked the paper so the book can be coloured with many different mediums.
It shows five possible sightseeing routes around Old Market Square in Poznań, Poland. Each route is themed by one of the Four Elements and led by an adequate elemental guide - Mr. Drop, Mr. Flame, Ms. Cloud & Mr. Earth. Two Goats are one of the symbols of Poznań and are very well known in Poland. In the book they are very playful, run around the pages and hide everywhere they can. The goal is to count and find them all. To make it even more fun, book is packed with dozens of different tasks and puzzles connected with the spots.

Front cover. 

Example page. Even though it's a kids book, it still has a fairly minimal layout, especially colour wise, and has body copy text in fairly small point size in a block, which you don't often find in children's books, unless it was aimed at older children perhaps.

This is a much more fun page, with illustrations and animals and more of an infographic, with hand written text instead of standard typed text, giving it more of a personal feel. The title is also hand rendered, which adds to the childlike feel.

Map page so you can find your way around safely. This is the only shown section that is printed in colour, as this isn't meant to be coloured in.

This is a great idea which in principle works really effectively, however it could be a little more child friendly, perhaps in not so complex illustrations to colour in, and not be so text heavy, or at least make the text more readable. However it doesn't state the age range of the children, so it could be aimed at older kids who this would be the right level of difficulty and text for. It's a great idea to have the whole guide as interactive, by colouring in, as this engages the reader a lot more and gets them more involved and therefore interested so they learn more.

Take Care by Shadz XIII

Grow Your Own Food Campaign
My idea was to create a campaign to educate society about the benefits and simplicity of growing their own food. Encourage and challenge them to find new ways to grow, ways that fit their lifestyle.
Growing food is about trying, is hard to create specific guides for which different places. People have different sizes of houses, flats, gardens, windows. More or less space. Too sunny or too cloudy. Nevertheless is always possible to find a prosperity spot.

Take Care
The name chosen for the campaign is "Take Care" matches the idea of attachment between people and their food. It is a relationship of mutual care. They need to protect and feed their seeds until they grow. At the end they will receive all the benefits from nature.

Sketches
Some concepts I had in the beginning of the project. I decided to pick the logotype idea and refined it. Used as visual reference BillyBop Regular typeface.

Campaign Kick Off
Giving away Organic compost was the best choice I found for Take Care.
The sack would come with the Leaflet. This visual guide would give quick tips and a brief idea of the campaign. With the Organic Compost the target audience can experiment with different seeds and pots that fits their life style. Is about giving a simple start for people who are interested in small and big challenges.

Seeds' Packaging
Take Care is a non-profit company on the other hand is still necessary fund to maintain website, app, etc. This seeds can be purchased via Website. Some specials editions may be created to be used as awards in App Challenges. Ton of voice used is kind and playful.

App Campaign
Creating an app for the campaign would be a fast way to spread the idea. People could share their challenges, accomplishments, fails and success. As result we get a big variety of containers, possibilities and fast feedback. Big community helping each other for the same cause.

Website Campaign
For users who look for advance information, contact, participate or help the campaign. Is it possible to find Tips, Photo Gallery, Download, Shop, Statistics and Support.

Leaflet/flyer and seed packets.

Leaflet/flyer spread.

Seed packets.

The App.

Campaign website.

This turned out to be a really useful guide to find, as it was not only a guide by expanded to seed packets, an app and a website as well, showing how this campaign will spread across different platforms and hit home from different angles. This can quite easily be applied to the guide that I'm producing, or anything really. It's interesting to see how something green is illustrated, what kind of style it takes on and the colours that are used. 

Usefulness

This research has been really useful to see what different guides contain, their style, and whether they come alongside other collateral as well. I think I should be careful not to make it look too text heavy, but just get the key points across, otherwise people will be daunted by the amount of text to read. I should also consider the other outcomes I should produce to go alongside and support the guide, such as a campaign website, app, posters etc, as this will help to fill out and make this project a lot mroe developed.