InDesign

Section 1

Design idea

My first design was inspired by a previous podcast cover, but I also took inspiration from one of our first seminars at reading university. We were given a typeface anatomy sheet that covers the basic parts of a type face, and I wanted to include this in my rendition. I liked the baseline and cap height lines that gave the lettering structure and wanted to include this in my design.

Design process

As mentioned previously, I was already inspired by the type face anatomy handout before I had begun my design. So, I knew that the cap-height, X- height and base line was going to structure my type. However, I did struggle with the layout of this and it is clear I was experimenting with different typefaces during this development. This shows my stages of development before my final version displayed above. I was not satisfied with the sizing of lettering and the fonts I had chosen. It was noteworthy, when moving from development 1 to 2 and playing with the layout, that my design was too simple, and an additional element would be beneficial for my final design. Adding a microphone covered the spacing well.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design idea

For my second design, I wanted to play around a bit more with my text and for the design to be a little more exciting with a layed back approach. Using words of improvement from my lecturer about how I should manipulate the original image a lot more, I focused on a certain section of the image and used the coffee cup element to base my text around. I used light pastels in my design to give it a more feminine appearance and I loved how this turned out, matching well with my snappy ‘let’s talk graphics’ title.

Design process

Before settling on a final design for my second podcast, I was previously experimenting with layout and text. In development 1, you can see I was trialling out including the colour theme tool as a side margin. However, I decided this made my design look too cluttered and did not add anything to my design. On my second development I included aspects of my podcast cover, but reproducing it using different tools in InDesign. However, I felt this was too similar to my previous podcast design. So, for my final idea I settled for circular writing framing the coffee cup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Design ideas

For my final postcard, this was also inspired by a previous podcast. I wanted to include miscellaneous shapes and forms in the background to add body to my design. I took this inspiration from my original podcast cover too. However, unlike my podcast, I added additional elements e.g., the opaque boarder and the focused figure on to the page. I feel that this postcard has a very serious yet has a modern look about it, which I enjoy.

Design process

As I mentioned beforehand on trello, I wanted to involve more to my design to keep it busy and exciting. From my development 1, you can see there was not enough to my design, there was a clearly too much spacing in my design and there was a lot of room of improvement in my first draft.

However, there was a little more improvement in my second draft. I trialled with different lettering for ‘podcast’, experimenting with duplication. I did not mind this, however I feel this did not add anything to my design. At this stage I added an opaque boarder. I kept this in my final design, as it makes the title of ‘graphics etc’ more prominent.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Section 2

Software tutorials

Before starting my postcard, I watched the tutorials suggested in the brief. This covered a lot of basic information that was essential to know to complete the task for week 6. These covered how to set up a new document, how to save, and goes through what each individual tool does in InDesign, so as a beginner in this software this was very helpful. Though these videos were useful, they only included the basics, to develop further skills in InDesign, we had to find software tutorials ourselves for our designs.

From my postcard design 1, I did not need to research much further in this design and used the basic tutorials we were provided as this was my first design and I was adjusting to the new software. Involved in this design, however, I used tutorials for photo placement and layering in order to produce this final outcome.

Moving to my second design, I was more open for experimentation. This involved photo manipulation, watching tutorials on how to crate circular text (using on the line text tool) and in one of my developments for the second design I also followed a perspective text tutorial from YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg732m5bTOc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKOSnQ2RXJI

For my third postcard design, in order to create the miscellaneous shapes on this design I focused on using the shape tool, and to do this I followed a tutorial to get to grips with this new tool.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgprXvKAozw

As InDesign is a large software that holds several different tools in order to complete successful designs, I understand that there is a lot more I can learn about it. There are some software skills I’d like to become more advanced in, for example masking and overlapping my texts to make my designs appear more professional. Truthfully, I’d like to become overall become more comfortable and confident when using the software, e.g. be able to experiment a lot more, and learn more keyboard shortcuts to enable faster design skills.

section 3

resources for research and inspiration

As mentioned previously, my first podcast was inspired by the handout we were given in the beginning of the academic year. This type face anatomy hand out inspired my layout as I had included the lining and connotations in my postcard.

The resource I used was the actual handout that I had kept from the lesson and used that. However, I also found other layout examples of typeface anatomy from the book ‘thinking with type’ by Ellen Lupton. This is a book about typography for designers, that covers typeface anatomy as well. Specifically, the front cover of this book uses anatomy as a decorative element.

http://thinkingwithtype.com

For my second design, I wasn’t so much inspired by a certain source, however I wanted to follow a feminine yet cartoon like aesthetic. Since my postcards were designed from out podcasts, I took inspiration from others I had previously listened to. A podcast that I liked the most and was inspired by was ‘looking up’ by courier media. They follow a cartoon aesthetic and use similar colour schemes as I have. This majorly helped me with my idea development of for my second postcard cover.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/looking-up/id1535812482

For my final design, I used a different podcast as inspiration, this one was called ‘becoming wise’. It is clear that I took inspiration from this podcast. I liked the range of different shapes they used and wanted to include this. Further, it can be argued my design for my postcard is very simple, but I believe this is from the source of inspiration. It is somehow calming due to the spacing it uses, and I wanted to incorporate this element in my own work.

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/becoming-wise/id1095068557

After finishing this task, I grew interested in other topics I would like to explore myself or possibly throughout the rest of the year. I have always been interested in logo design and advertising, and how I can apply my new software skills to possibly move towards this area of graphic design. To do this, I could possibly branch out to other software for this, for example illustrator.