More more type?

Another type sesh! Ooooo!!!

We're on a whole page of text! How advanced do I feel!??

So we've dragged some text into InDesign and the first task was to make it as readable as possible by changing the size and leading. Simple as pie...

THEN... crazy man did some magic stuff on the big screen... I got lost. :(

I did manage to find my way though (eventually)

We had to split the page into two columns, and

make the text fit, again, using the size and leading. I chose 9pt against 14pt leading.

I'm well chuffed. Mine got picked :D (as well as two others)

...Layout time!

We had to made four documents, one with 2 columns, 3, 4 and 5. Then we had to fit the text in them, along with an image.

These are mine. :)

2 columns..

3 columns..4 columns..5 columns..

More type?

YES! :D

So this was the 3rd session with the nutty man. We were made to work with paragraphs today! :O

It wasn't too bad. Rather enjoyable actually.

So yeah, we were given one paragraph and had the task to fit it in one column of a certain size using size, leading and kerning. Simples!

The next two columns were adapted to how we thought it'd look best if it were to be in a magazine.

I learnt that the smaller the writing, the better... as long as you can read it that is! Type in a magazine has no need to be over size 10/11pt! No one's gonna want to read it from across the room, are they??

The next task was to stretch the same piece of text across different sized columns (below)

Again, using point size, kerning and leading, we had to adapt the writing. It had to be legible, but could be as big or small as needed. Taking into account, again, that text doesn't need to be huge (if to be read in a magazine for example) I stuck to a safe ranging between 10 and 13. Still, 13's a little too big. So it could have done with being made smaller. Nevermind!!

One step ahead?

I dived straight into the whole designing stage, which is badddddd. BAD Lindsey!
There I was, just playing around with material, when it popped into my head.. the idea of making up the alphabet with the contents of teabags! :O Now, I REALLY like this idea, however, I haven't actually designed anything to put this on or use this for. So I'ma have to put this on hold for the time being whilst I get my act together and actually get down to designing a product and its packaging!

A bit of sans serif there!

...and for all you serif lovers, these are for you. ;)


Obviously these are only mess arounds. They were made very quickly as you can probably tell from the excess tea around the letters. I didn't use any form of stencils either, so they're not precise. This would be something to consider if I were to include them in the final outcome.
The photography is also very weak, so I'd have to take this into consideration also. But as I say, these were just initial ideas, quick off the mark playing. :)

Personally I prefer the serifs as it gives it more of a professional quality and is more visually pleasing.

HELLLP!

I need some opinions!

I've got the basic layout I'm gonna stick with for this 16 page booklet, but I can't decide which works better visually.

As it stands, I've been using a tint of the header shape thing, but after getting someone elses opinion, it's been brought to my attention that perhaps just using the same colour for the header and footer would look better?
I can't decide.
COMMENTS WOULD BE GREATLY APPRECIATED!!
Thanks. :)

16 page booklet

Well I've been working on this booklet thing over the weekend. I've tried to keep it nice and simple, and I've also tried to put what I've learnt from the mac and type workshops into practice.

Here's a few pages I've done. They still need tweaking, but this generally what they'll look like.

So far I'm quite pleased with the look. I think I've got a nice and simple layout which will carry on through the booklet to make it have the same feel.

Design sheeeeets

Type workshop session 2

I've really been enjoying these workshops, although the teacher's slightly insane!!
I've picked up some interesting tips and techniques when it comes to type. Things I'd never thought about before, and things I'd never used or put into practise.

The first thing we looked at was the space between letters in one word. We used kerning to even out the spaces. The first word we were given was 'RAILWAY'. Below are both the normal and the altered word.

The second word we were given was 'PLAYTIME'. We had to do the same thing as before, but using a serif font, just to make it that bit trickier.

We then moved onto two words, so we used our names, just to spice things up a little. We kerned both serid and san serif fonts.

Layout was something that was also addressed. The task was to place 'ONE, TWO THREE and FOUR' in a way that could be read no matter where each was on the page... if that makes sense? So even though 'ONE' was at the bottom, it was still the first thing you read. Although it's not the best design, I still think it works as after reading 'ONE', the eye is drawn up, then across, then up again.

Here's another one of my examples. Again, it's supposed to read, 'ONE, TWO THREE and FOUR'. I used kerning to space out the letters in each word. I thought that perhaps, the closer the letters are, the easier it is to read, therefore 'ONE' would be the first word the eye catches.

The aim of this second workshop was to work our way up to a sentence.

Concept statement

Find it hard waking up in the morning? Feel like you have no energy during the day? Or are you about to pull an all-nighter to get all your work done for the hand-in date tomorrow morning? Tea is good because it has the caffiene to give you that extra bit of energy you need. Just one cuppa can help refresh you for a demanding and tiring afternoon ahead. Research shows that it increases alertness, stimulates metabolism and contributes to an increase in dopamine levels in the blood, which improves mood. Good huh?

Mac workshop

I found this mac workshop reeeeeally interesting and helpful!! For one I didn't wanna put my head down and sleep. Now THAT'S saying something! :)

So we've been looking at colour, and different methods of using it in our work.

Blates obvious to everyone, but I finally learnt when to use CMYK or RGB! (This was during the first session though) Even though we weren't planning on printing anything from this lesson, we still worked in CMYK, just so we knew how to use it etc.

Anyways, this lesson, we used InDesign. I learnt this was the piece of software to use when bringing everything together to make the final piece.

We were talked through how to make a new document, even though it seems straight forward. I didn't realise what half the settings meant, and they were explained too. So I'm well clued up now! :D

How to choose the document size was made clear to us. I didn't know it was better to work to the right scale of the final piece. So like, if a business card was going to be made, the scale to work on would be the actual measurement of the card. I would've just worked on a normal A4 sheet in the middle! Haah! My bad.

Right, so different ways of using colou

r when printing.

First of all...CMYK broken down....

Here's a photo I took during the summer.

Cyan

Magenta

Yellow

Black

It's wierd to think that these four separate colours make a full colour print! Hah! Who would've known!?

TINTS

Below's an example I made during the InDesign session of a tint. Basically one colour on top of another, after changing the top colour's opacity.

SPOT COLOUR

I really enjoy using spot colour. It looks crisp and precise.

Both colours have full opacity.

DUOTONE

I absolutely love duotone!! It's so unbelievably easy to do in Photoshop. (From last weeks session)

Below is the image I chose to work with when practicing duotone.

The image needs to be changed to greyscale in order for duotone to work.

Image>Mode>Greyscale

It'll ask whether you want to discard the colour information. Simply click 'yes'. :)

Image>Mode>Duotone

I chose PANTONE 673 C (a pink) as my second colour to overlay on the black.

I feel as though the black gives it depth, so, clicking on the diagonal line next to the colour in the duotone options enables you to change the amount of each colour. You as you can see above, I changed it slightly to make it darker around the edges.

What is good?

Tea Pot, Circa 1947 by Tava, Eugene

So, following on from the summer work comes the postcard brief. A rather fun brief actually. :)

Here are my finals!