For this Task I worked with formatting text in Indesign. We had to create a leaflet that represented the text we where given. To start of with I looked at quite a few videos, one of which being (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kH-jsWBVNjU). This was a formatting video that allowed me to understand a lot of the basics in indesign as I haven’t had a lot of experience in this software before.

The first step to creating my leaflet was to add a background. I did this by using long rectangles at different angles to get this geometric pattern. I set the colours to different tones of blue as I though this worked best after a few experiments.

The next thing that I needed to do was to start inserting some of the text. To start of with I read an interning article on typefaces allowing me to be able to pick the best one. (https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/indesign/how-to/text-formatting-overview.html). The typeface that I decided to use was minion Pro. For the title I went with all capitals again after my reading I found this worked best as as a stand out from the rest especially as I had used a darker colour in this section. I then went on to add the introduction text which I wanted to follow the lines of the darker blue. To do this I used a force line break to make some of the text fall onto the other line. I made it 11pt as this is a good readable size not being too big or small for its purpose.

After I had done the background and title I needed to figure out a way to add the podcast sections into the leaflet. I tried by adding it in normally but I came to conclusion that this didn’t stand out enough and wanted a more unique way to display this text. So I decided to keep with the geometric theme and add my text in circles. To do this I place a circle using the circle tool and made a white fill with no outline. I did this three times and played around with placement and size and having the biggest circle with the most text in. When adding the text I found it quite difficult to get it all inline because I needed to set it to know that there was a circle frame. I learnt this by finding a video that helped me align the text on the path as well as wrapping it around the circle. I kept the text in the circle the same font and made the title a lot bigger to stand out. As all the text was quite different sizes for each section it became hard to keep the text the same size. To make it fit I made the left text a bit smaller as there was no way to make the circle bigger.

When adding all of my text I played around with leading and tracking a lot. Especially with my title as when using capitals it often looks squished. Adding a bit more space between letters would make it easier to read for a potential user.

The last piece of text that I needed to insert was the dates. Ones the circles where added there wasn’t a lot of room to add these. So I came up with the idea to add the around the outside of the circle. This was quite a hard task however I managed to find a useful video on this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=25&v=gKOSnQ2RXJI&feature=emb_title). To do this I used the same circle that the text are in and used to type of the path tool which is under the type tool. I clicked on the area that I wanted and typed out the date and made it correct font, colour and size that I wanted. One problem that I came across was that my text displayed upside down. To fix this I needed to flip the text in the circle. This was done by going into type- type on a path- options, this allowed me to have the option to flip the text. I then want my to make the text side on the ascender instead of on the base lien and this was done through the same way as the flip.

The final step that I tool to finish was to add a logo as I saw some negative space that could be used. I also wanted there to be a defining feature to know that the leaflet was about a podcast. I went to illustrator to make this and learnt how to insert it in using an online video to help.

 

The aim of this project was to create a flyer for a podcast, named ‘Rethink Fairness’,  with the given text. It was important to this task to redistribute and organise the given text into understandable sections and then create a hierarchy within the text to allow the styling to match this from the start. After reading through the following link, https://helpx.adobe.com/uk/indesign/how-to/make-flyer.html, I decided upon a design in my head and how I wanted to progress with my flyer design.

My goal through this project was to allow the text itself to stand out and function without too much outside influence from images or graphics, this meant it was important to get typefaces correct and focus on how multiple typefaces might function together. I aimed to bring in a modern, high weight contrast typeface to utilise for headers such that they stood out greatly against the background with some very heavy weights to some parts of the characters, furthermore having a display font as large and centred as I did I felt that it stood out to a user as much as the graphic itself, the typeface being noticeable also felt relevant to the context of the podcast as it has this playful display feel while still involving the serif seriousness. When it came to sub-headers on the second page I felt it important not to overuse the display font as to make the headers illegible, to this extent I combined the two typefaces, reducing the weight of the additional typeface down to allow it to attribute to the thin sections of the high weight contrast display font.

I’d toyed with the idea of utilising physical lines and barriers to section information but, again, with the context of the podcast it felt off-key to introduce barriers and borders onto a podcast flyer focused around thinking outside of the norm, I aimed to represent this by leaving in the lines but adjusting them such that they were broken off and didn’t enclose any one part of the text, this, however, meant that I needed to focus on the layout of the sections within the text to allow them to be legible as separate sections, it became increasingly important to avoid floating heads, and respecting the space between separate and related pieces of information, how these spacings ended up I feel accurately allows the reader to separate the information in their own mind without the need for a numbering system or bounding boxes to section the information.

The centre piece of the flyer I’d aimed to be some sort of contextual representation, I didn’t think an image would function in the same way so, using images typically associated with psychology I created a gradient mesh with lighter bubbles overlayed on top to create an interesting graphic to sit at the front and centre of the flyer, I used this same style to create a few smaller bubbles to sit on and around the text of the second page to create a theme across the whole design and also allow the second page to appear slightly more intriguing, rather than just being flat text.

 

Design ideas

My chosen discussion task will be formatting a flyer in InDesign. This was the task I struggled with the most, but also, I think, benefited from the most.

Although I do have experience with formatting text in InDesign, it is something I find difficult, so I wanted to explore this task fully so that I could build up this skill a little more, as I believe it is an important one to have as a designer, especially as a designer interested primarily in typographic design.

Initially for my design I wanted to create something that mirrored the aesthetic of other promotion used for the podcast. After looking at the podcast website, as well as the promotional material online, I came up with a first design idea.

Design process

I wanted to keep a similar colour scheme, yellow and blue, to match the official promotional material, as well as some of the key imagery. One design in particular caught my eye, which was one featuring a silhouette of a head with the title “rethink’ where the brain would be.

I used this as inspiration, creating a forward-facing silhouette in blue with an open eye in yellow. While experimenting with this, I decided that I simply didn’t like how the shapes and colours worked together and decided to move on to a second idea. This time I planned to use a different silhouette, more like the one in my original inspiration. Again,  although I had used a similar design, I found it looked slightly wrong, and decided it would be best to move away from this idea.

Eventually I settled on a new, somewhat simpler idea, using an image of the presenter, still using the gradient blue hues I liked originally, and combining two fonts that I felt worked well with the tone and image.

Software tutorials

Although I already knew the basics of formatting text in InDesign, it was definitely helpful to have access to and have the opportunity to find tutorials to make the process more simple and more effective.

Looking at the tutorials for formatting text to refresh my knowledge really helped me get a better understanding of how I might bring my knowledge of formatting text for book design into formatting text and image for a flyer or magazine. Although the two processes were somewhat different, with the help of the provided tutorials I was able to use a combination of fonts, weights and sizes relatively easily in the setting of a flyer alongside image.

While I have never had experience with using hyperlinks in text before, I found it to be easy to understand and incredibly useful for other projects, especially for its usefulness in designing for screen or in web design. I also found it useful to be able to format a hyperlink directly into text without disturbing the layout and being able to apply paragraph styles to it.

I was unsure how to use certain text formats that I wanted to try, so I looked at some simple software tutorials to help me further my understanding. I wanted to learn how to type around an ellipse, so I looked at some software tutorials that advised on how to  type around a pre drawn shape or line. This tutorial (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SU8FwJhNiQ) on creating text along a path. This was a simple tutorial, but I feel it will be incredibly useful in the future with other projects.

I would like to further develop my skills in using typography on indesign following along with the more complex provided tutorials.

 

Resources for research and inspiration

When beginning research for this task I wanted to consider first what the current promotional material for this podcast might look like, and how I could incorporate that into my design.  I went to the page for the podcast itself, noting colour scheme, font, image and layout. Again, this was a combination of blue and yellow colours, which I really liked and tried my best to incorporate into my final design, specifically keeping the blue gradient colours, matching them to the image used, in complementary contrast with the orange/yellow tone for some of the headers, and an off white for the main body.

Once I had landed on my third and final design idea in the process, I wanted to do some research outside of the provided software tutorials and design tips on how flyers and magazines are designed. I first looked at some sites on magazine design, such as this one (https://yesimadesigner.com/anatomy-of-a-magazine-layout/). I also looked at Pinterest for inspiration and ideas surrounding magazine, leaflet or flyer design. I decided I liked the use of a large image with an abstract shape being used for the title text, with the key text around or underneath. I also liked abstract, bold fonts in combination with simple, clean ones, using bold colour combinations to create a contemporary yet welcoming effect that draws the eye.

I looked at further image and design for media collections for inspiration, this time specifically centred around podcast or video promotion or informational design. Again, these often use an eye-catching logo or the presenter or creator in an image to draw attention, using large or bright yet simple lettering and phrases combined with smaller, slightly less visible from afar text to draw the audience into reading further about the media. I attempted to achieve a similar technique through my design, while trying to maintain a simple decorative aspect.