Background

PALS, or ’Partners for Active Leisure Scheme’ is a local charity based in Englefield, Berkshire. They provide leisure and recreational activities for children and adolescents aged 5–25 with physical disabilities. This helps the children achieve things, gain confidence and achieve their potential, and it helps the entire family to get a break from the full-time job of caring for a child with a disability.

Restated brief

In the occasion of the 20^th anniversary, PALS wanted a new logo. Partly because their current logo feels out-of-date and has been in use for such a long time. The main reason for the change was the footmark in the original logo, paired with the tagline ‘Every step an achievement’. As Helen Randall, the manager of PALS, pointed out, this is very inappropriate as many of the children they help are not able to walk.

Through discussions with the client we decided the logo should feel more modern, use illustrations to show what the organisation does, use the colours white, yellow and orange and potentially show themes of friendship. The logo should appeal to children, the older end of the 5–25 age gap and their parents.

 

Research

When doing research, the logos of the main competitors for PALS were considered. Many competitors use a rainbow of colours in their logos, similar to that of PALS. Some use fewer, but still bright, colours. Various graphic elements are used, such as simple illustrations, stick figures and pictorial typography.

The new PALS logo should look like it belongs among these groups of logos, as they are often put together on leaflets and brochures. However, it should sufficiently stand out and draw attention. Different styles were discussed with the client, such as using bright colours and an icon with a hand-drawn feel. However, the logo had to be fit to be stitched on shirts and therefore needed simple shapes.

 

Development

As the client desired to show the organisation through the logo, ideas of using wheelchairs and walkers were brought up early. Especially in terms of a wheelchair icon, it should be similar enough to the conventional icon for person in wheelchair, but look different enough to be representative of PALS and recognisable.

The first approach taken was one where icons were incorporated into the lettering of PALS. Subtle details and changed to the A symbolised a walker, and putting the L on an angle and adding parts of a circle symbolised a person in a wheelchair. The client did not find this approach ideal, saying

‘It’s a great start, but I think the committee felt we should keep “PALS” clear of any pictures as such and that the new logo needs to be either underneath or by “PALS” and not within it if that makes sense’.

This idea was therefore scrapped, and I started developing ideas for an icon to go along with the lettering instead.

Different approaches to this icon were developed, with or without a person sitting in the wheelchair. Many ideas to simplify this icon, yet have it remain recognisable, without being too cliché were explored. I decided to go forth with the person sitting in the wheelchair, as the organisation is about he people, not their equipment. I developed icons of a person in a wheelchair interactive with a physically abled person to symbolise the friendship and interaction between people. Different styles were tested, such as angular shapes or rounded shapes. The general reception to these designs at the Real Job meetings favoured the rounded shapes.

After deciding on the icon, different pairings with typefaces and hand-lettering were explored. The lettering could either seamlessly blend in with the icon to make it look as if one, or contrast could be created with the use of a sans serif typeface. I developed different versions exploring possibilities to get more feedback from my client.

Due to my client having other work commitments, communication ceased at this stage of the project. I continued to develop the ideas, but due to lack of feedback from my client the project came to a halt for a few months. Particularly in terms of colour treatment and style of lettering, I felt as if the client’s opinion was vital for me to continue working on the project. The reception of the developed icon was positive however, as a member of the chair said

‘I really like the new designs. I think the ions are great. We need to have a font which is easy to read’.

As I was waiting for more feedback from the board of trustees I considered the icon as more or less ready to go.

When I eventually received feedback 3 months later, it felt as if too many people were disagreeing with where the direction of the logo was headed. Though we established in our first client meeting that the logo should be completely updated, complete with a new colour scheme and lettering, the board was now pushing for the same colour scheme as in the current logo. They also had comments about the icon that essentially meant the entire logo had to be re-thought.

At this stage I developed three icons based on the work I already had: a person in a wheelchair, a person with a walker and a physically abled person standing up. These were configured in different combinations, paired with different rounded sans serif typefaces and sent to the client. Though generally met with positive feedback, they also wanted me to use the typeface from their previous (Comic Sans). I was finally able to schedule a client meeting where I could negotiate different typefaces that would have a similar look and feel to Comic Sans, without the negative connotations of that typeface. A colour palette that was similar to their current one but slightly more harmonious was also agreed upon. Through reasoning of logic and gestalt-theories, we were able to agree upon the best organization of the icons and lettering within the logo. By the end of this client meeting we had decided on the finished logo.

The final stage of the process was to create brand guidelines. As my only deliverable was a logo, and the applications of the logo were not agreed upon, a few examples were included in the guidelines such as website, flyer and social media applications. A main logo and a social media logo were then supplied to the client along with the brand guidelines by the end of the day.

 

 

 

Reflection

The main obstacle in the design process was lack of communication with the client, and only one contact person. As months would go by without getting feedback or information from my client, I was left to my own devices. Though I suggested client meetings, these were ignored. However, I should have been more proactive in reaching out to my client, such as calling multiple times and leaving voice messages. The difficulties from no client contact for months could have been decreased if I actively pursued contact more than I did.

Another difficulty was how I only had contact with the manager of PALS, who also responded to a board of trustees. However, I had no contact with this board and my designs were passed through the manager to the board. This way, I had no opportunities to explain my designs and reason my decisions. If I were to do this project again, I would be more proactive to meet the board of trustees and present my designs to them directly.

Though several times in the design process the work took a different creative direction than I would have wanted personally, I tried my best to please the client while also delivering quality work in the end. Though the finished logo is not the one I would have chosen, I am happy I found a solution the client was liked.

In the end, the client was happy with my work saying

‘Many thanks for this and all your hard work in getting to the final end product’

and I hope they find good use for the new logo.

 

The brief

The CQSD teaching guide project was to design a leaflet/brochure that is easily accessible to busy lecturers to help them to effectively use the space they are teaching in. The client was trying to communicate different teaching methods and how these can be used in the room that they have been allocated to. Lecturers are often allocated a room that they are not familiar too and therefore may not know the best way to teach in that room.

I signed up to this job because I wanted to enhance my InDesign skills and work closely with a client who wanted to design this for an event. I was interested in working on a university branded project as it allowed me to work within set brand guidelines which is a fairly new experience, so I wanted to see the challenges and positives of working this way.

Meeting the client

The first meeting with a client sets up the tone of the new working relationship, to prepare for thisI thought of a series of questions I needed to know about the client and the project. This set a good foundation for what would be discussed in the meeting. During this initial meeting, I found out key information about the project such as the background, the concept, the target audience and any initial thoughts that the client envisioned the final outcome to be.

After the meeting with the client, I thought about all the skills I would need to be able to complete this task. I needed to master InDesign to be able to complete this well so I set about learning more about the editorial features (such as baseline grids) and how I could use these to benefit me and the finished design.

Restating the brief was a challenge to start with as I was not sure what to include. However, I did my best and got advice from my supervisor as to what was necessary and what was not at this stage. I was advised that I should reconsider deadlines to allow time for print and time for flexibility to meet with the client and work around other commitments. I soon realised that it was necessary to be flexible and more realistic about time scales by considering long-term obstacles that may pop up.

The design stages

I started off designing this project by creating exactly what the client had asked for – an A4 brochure with tables and photos.  I soon became to realise that this was not the most creative I could be, and although I wouldn’t be creating what the client was envisioning, I had to think that she is not a designer and might not know other paths the design could go down. This got me started on brainstorming new, more interactive designs. I had the idea of creating a flip book that would have each of the categories as a new page in it. I mocked up the version the client had asked from, and the new more creative booklet I had started designing, then arranged a meeting with the client to show her these drafts.

The second time I met with my client I first showed her the original A4 booklet, which she was happy with, until I pulled out the new flipbook design. Instantly, she was excited by this new design, she said that she had not thought of any thing like this before and said ‘but I guess that’s why you’re the designer!’. The enthusiasm she showed over this design, made me excited to go in this new direction and as soon as this meeting as over I set about requesting estimates and developing the design.

The initial estimate of costing for the project was higher than the clients original budget, however, once discussing this the client she was happy to increase the budget to get the higher quality product.

This design required a lot of accuracy and planning because of the different page sizes that created the flip book edge. I also found that after creating the big concept, a lot of time was taken perfected the finer details, such as, spotting n-dashes instead of hyphenation, editing line breaks and fixing widows and orphans. Throughout my experience with this project, I learned a lot about the features of InDesign and how to create an accurate InDesign file using features such as, grids, paragraph styles and layouts. This experience helped me to improve all of my projects as I was more aware of and able to use all the features available to me. Constant feedback from my supervisor was helpful as these InDesign techniques were things I was either shown or was able to work out with the features, once I realised I had to learn to do something new to fix an issue.

The problem I encountered

After signing off the job and sending off to print is where my main learning curve occurred. Although I had previously gotten an initial estimate of the design, I had forgotten that even the slightest changes in design can change an estimate quite dramatically. During the development of the flip book I had slightly adjusted the page sizes, this meant that it no longer fitted onto a B4 piece of paper, this increased the price by another £100. This was now way over the client’s initial budget. I tried to fix this by changing the page size but by this stage it was too late. After discussion with my client and the Real Job team, it was decided that the final print could go ahead with this higher price because there was a deadline to meet and the client was able to stretch the budget.  What I learnt from this was firstly, always get regular updates on estimates because they are very likely to change, and secondly, that clients are people too, they do realise that mistakes can be made an solutions can always be found.

Conclusion

Overall, I enjoyed working on this project a lot because of the final outcome as well as the support from my client, my supervisor and the Real Jobs team. From this project, I have become a lot more confident in using Adobe InDesign, as well as being able to communicate with clients, and I would look to take on more projects in the future that involve using these new skills. I have learnt that I have the ability to think of new concepts and what I need to work on most is remembering to pick up on the finer details to make an overall more accurate design to back up the bigger ideas.

Brief
The brief was to design and print promotional material for the Stenton Lecture: a prestigious history lecture that occurs annually at the University of Reading. The client asked for the design to reflect the momentous subject matter of the lecture.

The title of the lecture: 
Britain’s wars with France 1793­­­–1815­­ and their contribution to the consolidation of its Industrial Revolution.

Deliverables
The deliverables requested by the client included 10*A3 and 100*A4 colour posters. These were to be displayed around campus during the run up to the event.

Aim
The aim was to engage a broader university audience and increase overall attendance by creating a conspicuous and thought provoking visual that promoted the topic as stimulating and exciting.

Design restraints
The challenge was to distil a complex historical topic into a succinct visual message. At first, potential design directions seemed limited:

• Photography was not an option, as the technology did not yet exist during the Napoleonic wars.
• Appropriate high-res illustrations were scarce and only served to represent snap shots of particular battles: they did not encompass the overarching themes of the talk.
• There was little opportunity for typographic expression as the project had to adhere to university brand guidelines.
• The restrictions enforced by the poster templates pre-determined both layout and typographic styling.

My response to these restraints was to create original vector artwork that uses colour as the dominant design feature.

Design concept
The concept was to pictorially/symbolically juxtapose the themes of war, nationalism, and industrialisation. White smoke erupting from an industrial chimney divides the red and blue areas of the French Tricolour flag and leads the eye towards the lengthy lecture title. The flag’s colours dominate the design: an emblematic reminder of the French contribution to Britain’s Industrial Revolution. The iconic Nelson statue towers over the cityscape, representing Britain’s naval dominance at the time.

Fortuitously, red, white and blue are also the constituent colours of the Union flag: the posters is ambiguous, creating a sense of intrigue for prospective attendees. The strong use of red also helps to reinforce the UoR branding. The addition of an industrial texture overlay conveys the griminess of both war and coal fuelled factories.

The poster can be understood and appreciated on multiple levels. At first glance (and from a distance), the viewer may only see the unmistakable design of the Tricolour and immediately understand the ‘French connection’. On closer inspection, other details are revealed which communicate a narrative that explicates the lecture title. Multiple viewing levels may result in the observer spending more time with the poster and potentially engaging with the information to a greater extent than a poster with a single viewing level.

Feedback & lessons learned
The design was well received by the history department and I was pleased to satisfy both the client (Prof. Joel Felix) and the key speaker (Prof. Patrick K. O’Brien).

Here are some lessons learned on professionalism, design and print production:

• Agree on the exact copy at the start of the project (before the design process begins)
  This would have accelerated the process significantly as it would avoid waiting for email responses and repeatedly having to make small copy alterations.
• Discuss the hierarchy of elements with the client upfront
  This would have highlighted the importance of featuring the key speakers’ name in a more prominent position (and size) on the poster.
• Do test prints before going to press and, if possible, ask for a printers proof
  I’ve learnt that there is a discrepancy between the appearance of opacity layers onscreen and in print. I was disappointed with the finished printed product because the overlaid texture printed much darker than it had appeared on screen. Similarly, the contrast between the red type on a black background was noticeably inferior in the print version.
• Use a ‘rich black’ for large areas of black
  Since finishing this project I’ve learnt to enhance the density of printed black by underprinting 100% black with 50% of cyan, magenta and yellow.
• Avoid using light weights of type (unless used very big)
  In hindsight, I used too many kinds of type variation on this poster. The light faces were intended to sit back in the hierarchy but they look too scrawny and lack presence on the page. If I were to re-do the poster, I’d be more judicious with methods of type differentiation and rely on scale, case, colour and italics before altering weight.
• Try out the client’s design ideas, even if you think they won’t work
  At first I was dubious about adding a Nelson statue to the poster as I thought it might overcomplicate both the composition and concept: I only tried it out in order to appease the client. However, I see now that it is a crucial addition to the design, without which, there would be no reference to the British.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Restated Brief

As a team of four, we have been tasked with designing the promotional material for the Wynkyn de Worde Society throughout the year. As these deliverables are being made for a creative audience, the designs should be of a high standard and something the receivers will want to keep.

The outputs we will have been involved in designing include a series of booking forms, a letterhead template, a member’s handbook and menus. Each output is sent through the post (with exception of the menu which will be presented on the day of the dinner). This project is not limited by a budget, giving us the opportunity to explore different stocks and print finishes.

Designing

Booking Forms

The booking forms are created by different people of the team. As the illustrations and visual appearance of these are very different across the series, the same typeface (De Worde) has been used to create consistency throughout the series.

July

The July booking form was themed on a summer celebratory barbecue for the society’s 60th anniversary. This was not to be mixed up with the November anniversary or the previous booking form themed as a ‘Summer Outing’.

Since most of the booking forms before this used vector artwork, we decided that using watercolour as an artwork technique would give the booking form a fresh feel and contrast to previous work. Artwork was painted and scanned and arranged in Illustrator to achieve a seamless pattern that would divide neatly along the two folds as well as have perfect cutouts for the type.

The inside of the booking form also features a single panel of artwork that reveals the watercolour paper texture. The sizeable difference between the fruits on the inside and outside created a dynamic and fresh design for the summer barbecue.

August

The theme for the booking form was Benjamin Franklin and his time as a printer. Although extensive research about Benjamin Franklin, and his opinion on printing, was conducted it was obvious by the end of the design process just how challenging it was to visualise his numerous achievements.

The form went through a series of design iterations, and the most simple design was chosen in the end. A picture of Benjamin Franklin on the outside and some images of his printed works on the inside. The most important lesson learnt from designing this form was not to overcomplicate ideas.

This was integral to appealing to an audience with strong and varying design taste. The cropping of images, not too loosely or tightly, was important when designing the form as it helped to retain the shapes of the objects in the images, but not to compromise the structure of the layout. Editing the levels in the images made them to print well on the paper.

A change in typeface for the whole form, was appropriate for the theme and, proved that the design template we had created for the form was versatile.

September

The September booking form was the last of the Real Job and celebrated the 60^th Anniversary. This presented the challenge of differentiating it from the earlier forms whilst sticking with the existing format. The final design is a colour pencil artwork that features the current Wynkyn de Worde logo and a ‘6’, reading as ‘60’ when opened flat. The artwork was expanded on the inside panel creating a vibrant and punchy opening. This paired well with the keepsake and menu that had suns from previous years. We used two-thirds of an A4 for the last booking form due to the artwork’s dimensions, as well as the lack of content.

Menu

The menu measures 120 x 120mm and is a single folded menu. The design incorporated four different Wynkyn de Worde suns from past events, mirroring the keepsake that guests received.

These were made into a pattern with a cutout for the print and design credits. During the design process, we experimented with different colours and sizes of the suns and also considered using spot colours for printing. However due to time constraints, the menu was digitally printed on 160gsm paper.

Keepsake

To commemorate their 60th Anniversary, the society wanted a keepsake that reflected their history as an organization. This was achieved by going through their archives and scanning unusual iterations of their sun logo and choosing twelve for an A3 poster.

The poster did not have size limitations, but A3 was chosen as it is an easy size to frame and the aspect ratio works best with the layout. The suns were first arranged by “mathematical” values and later visually rearranged and balanced out. We also experimented with rainbow printing and mocked this up using gradients in Illustrator. The poster was finally foiled in black on Bockingford Watercolour 300gsm by R. K. Burt and Co.

Lessons

We learned both technical skills as well as soft skills during this Real Job. We shared files amongst team members as well as with Rob, our supervisor and client, which meant learning how to work with someone else’s documents. Through this we learned the importance and efficiency of having neatly sorted and labeled paragraph/character styles.

Another aspect of this project was learning to create a design concept and layout before receiving the copy. It was sometimes necessary to create booking forms that reflected the whole theme of the event rather than a specific idea within the theme. Our audience’s taste was also a challenge as designing for an extremely design conscious audience meant that our most obvious idea was not always the one our audience would appreciate.

By the tail end of the Real Job we had set up templates for the booking forms and only changed the necessary and relevant styles with each event. However, design is never a one-size-fits-all solution and typographic details always had to be looked over and refined according to how much copy we received.

Working as a team of four with Rob as our supervisor and client also taught me that picking up on subtleties of each others’ language contributes to better communication and better process overall. After a few months of working together, we had a grasp of how everyone on the team worked and communicated as well as their particular strengths, and this helped the design process and outputs.

The rare opportunity of working with the same audience over an extended period of time also meant that we became more familiar with the things they appreciate and find interesting. This allowed us to shorten the time needed to generate ideas suited to the audience.

Generally, it was said that members of Wynkyn de Worde liked the work we had done. However, given more time to experiment with a wider variety of ideas perhaps we could have created booking forms that were even more diverse in style than what we currently have.

Background
The department of Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading have multiple different rooms that are needed to host different types of teaching. This means the furniture regularly has to be moved to ensure the teaching space is suitable. To make the process of moving the furniture easier and quicker, a set of room plans were requested to be designed and displayed in each room. University porters could then be brought in to move the furniture rather than students and lecturers doing it.

Brief
The brief was to make the layout of each teaching room within the typography department easy to set up in different states depending on the use the room is needed for. The room plans will be used by lecturers (both visiting and internal), students and university porters. The final deliverable is a clickable pdf that will be saved to the department sever and can be seen by all staff and sent out to visiting lecturers. The pdf of the room layouts will also be printed and displayed in each corresponding room.

In the brief we stated, the success of this project would be measured by the ease of use for both the lecturers and porters. As this project developed we discovered the ease of use was not just important for using the physical final deliverable to set up a room, it was also crucial that the files were all set up correctly and were understandable to ensure the room layouts can easily be edited and added to once the real job had finished. Although the porters have not yet tested the layouts for ease, we tested a member of staff within the department, Victoria Gifford, who will eventually come into contact with the porters directly about the room plans. Victoria found the files easy to navigate digitally and the files were easy for her to download and forward. On screen, she also understood what the elements within the room plans were showing.

Communication
Throughout the design process, we had regular meetings with our client as we saw him during the real jobs meetings. This allowed us not only to keep the client up to date but to receive consistent feedback on our designs from him, the building manager and other students. This process allowed our work to evolve into a usable system for all people who would eventually come into contact with it.

Schedule
The original deadline was not met because when the deadline was approaching, the client added on the task of doing room plans for the degree show. Therefore, the deadline was extended until after the degree show to allow us time to see the setup of it. The revised deadline was never finalised between us and the client. As well as this, we feel the deadline may have been missed because there was too much of a casual relationship between us and the client due to the client being one of our lecturers. For the majority, this did not impact the work negatively as we were getting much more regular contact and feedback from the client. However, it meant there was not a strict deadline to meet. We have learnt that we should have pushed for a deadline to be set that was realistic for us so we had something to work towards and so it would have felt like a project that would happen in the workplace.

Design process
Each teaching room has one main member of staff that we consulted about the room layouts. Through the process we continually asked them about suggested layouts for their room and we eventually gained sign off from each of them. The building manager, Geoff Wyeth then signed off each room from a health and safety perspective.

Before we could begin design work, there was a lot of data collection to complete. All eight teaching rooms that we were creating room plans for had to be measured. As well as this, all the tables had to be measured and the tables and chairs had to be counted. This was a time-consuming process as the tables and chairs were regularly moving around between the rooms. We then spoke to the lecturers to understand how many students would need to fit in each room when different types of teaching were happening. This was an important part of the process as it allowed us to understand the lecturers’ needs when teaching. During the process, we also spoke to our peers to see if there were any room layouts that would particularly help them with their learning. This was interesting as it showed us an audience we had not originally thought of as they would not use the room plans directly, but it would affect them.

We quickly realised the artwork we were creating required mathematical thought as the furniture had to be to scale within the room as otherwise, it would be difficult to replicate the design layout in real life.

The colour scheme for the designs was left up to us as designers, as it did not necessarily have to follow the University of Reading’s brand guidelines, however after discussing with the client, it was decided that using the department colour, orange, as the principal colour would match other printed documents within the department.  We used the orange to highlight the teaching rooms to represent the department and the red to represent the University of Reading as a whole for the lectures rooms.

However, this map looked too confusing with its similar colours. We introduced the University of Reading’s bright secondary colours to be used to highlight the importance of specific rooms on the department map.

Final design
Although we came to a clear, accessible design for the room plans reasonably quickly, the file organisation and making that easy to use needed some adjustments. This taught us to do a thorough job when setting up and working on complex files in future projects. When our client set out the layout for the degree show, he said ‘the files seem easy to update increasing the chances that we maintain the system for the years ahead’.

One of the main design deliverables was an interactive pdf for both the degree and all normal room states. This included a map of the department that allows users to click on the room they wanted to be taken directly, to see its states. This feature allowed the interactive pdf to be easily used by anyone and helped to quickly direct people through the volume of states. Creating this document was new to both of us and the skills we learnt while making it have been able to inform our work in other modules.

Feedback
We have not yet received official feedback on the main room plans however, we have had all rooms and states signed off by their owners and our designs for the degree show were used by lectures when setting up. Our client stated ‘the degree show room plans were successful as they were used with ease to set up this year’s show. Using these room plans to help set up the degree show this year was a huge help. In particular, the inclusion of the positions of poles and boards made a big difference.’

Conclusion
This feedback proves that the room plans are effective, useful and easy to use. it has shown that we have achieved the aims listed in our brief. We hope that the files we have created can and will be used by the department in the future. Overall creating the various different documents has taught us not only about the importance of file management throughout a long and lengthy project as this one but also has increased the level of knowledge of the programs we have used. This real job has been invaluable in teaching us the importance of being up to date and making our files right the first time so that the project can progress quickly and efficiently.

 

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Tate Exchange programme for Reading Assembly

Background

Tate Modern runs an annual programme called the Tate Exchange. Tate invites universities to run workshops in the Tate Exchange area for a week long programme. The theme for Tate Exchange 2018 was production. This year was the first year the University of Reading participated in Tate Exchange, therefore previous examples of logos and leaflets that other colleges/universities were difficult to find.

Deliverables

There are four deliverables for this project:

• Logo
• Leaflet
• T-shirt
• Stickers

The stickers were added onto the brief shortly before the deadline. This however was not a problem as the client only wanted a simple sticker with already designed logos and a line with space to write a persons name.

Schedule

As this job began over the Christmas break, the client meeting was organised to be out of term time to allow me more time to design. After the first client meeting, I immediately wrote the restated brief so I could begin designing promptly. It was clear to me early in the project that my planned schedule could not be followed as I hadn’t taken into account both my supervisor and client being on holiday. This taught me to be more realistic and lenient towards schedules to accommodate other people schedules that I was not aware of. Towards the end of the project, I felt the deadline was approaching quickly and although the logo and main design aspects had been confirmed with the client, there was still a lot of detailed typographic work to do to the leaflet. The copy was also later than the scheduled date as individual lecturers had to write a paragraph about what they were doing at the Tate and many of the lecturers missed the deadline. Therefore placeholder text was in the design for longer than expected. This pressure was heightened as all the deliverables had to be seen to Tate for official sign off before printing. The feedback from the Tate sign off however only produced a few minor changes and all deliverables went to print on time and as smoothly as possible.

 

Communication

The communication with the client was over email and as the client was university based, we could regularly meet do discuss things in person. Our meetings were thorough and therefore we only met three times whilst completing the project as every meeting I took printed designs and prototypes on different paper for the client to see a mock up of the final design. This made the process go smoother as we covered all the information I needed to complete the next part of the project. If we had missed anything out the client and I were in regular contact to keep each other updated.

 

Design process

The challenge of this project was following both Tate and University of Reading brand guidelines in conjunction.  Although the client said it was not essential to use University of reading colour, red, we later decided it would be appropriate to be university branded to look coherent with other leaflets around the university. I did test and show the client designs in blue, purple red and green before this decision was made. I believe the red was the most successful design as it is bold and the t-shirts the helpers wore whilst at exhibition were also red to be consistent and therefore stood out for any visitors to find them.

During this project I learnt the importance of working closely with detailed typography from the beginning of the project as even with placeholder text, the detail could be experimented with. The use of the placeholder text, used as suggested by my supervisor, meant the typography of the leaflet developed much more than it would of otherwise as I had more time with the text. This project also taught me how hierarchy can be shown in typography by changing many different elements, such as colour, size, spacing and weights. I had a week to experiment with this and as a result I feel the hierarchy is successful. Once the final copy had been sent through, there were challenges with the spacing between sections on the leaflets as due to the folds, the text had to fit within tight margins. To accommodate the final text that replaced the placeholder text, a few minor changes had to be made to the spacing and leading of text.

I learnt how to professionally communicate and suggest things to the client that may contradict what they had planned to make them understand the benefits of a design I had created. Thankfully the clients were very trusting in me and encouraged me to experiment with designs.

To create the t-shirt designs there was a lot of trial and error as I was unsure how large the logos need to be both on the front and the back. I had done research online however there were no helpful guidelines, instead I printed off each logo in many different sizes and pinned them to a t-shirt to test the sizing and spacing. I could then match the size on the digital file so I was sure it was the correct size to send for print.

Final designs

Feedback

There was very positive feedback throughout this project from both the client and peers that have used the leaflet and the other deliverables. The clients said the finished items were excellent and set exactly the right tone for what they were trying to achieve during the exhibition. The programme manager of Tate Exchange stated to my client that the overall branding design and the leaflets were cohesive with what they were doing at the Tate and they looked very professional even when placed with Tate’s leaflets in the foyer.

 

Conclusion

This project was enjoyable for me as it was a job for a real client and I had full control of designs and communication directly with the client. The timescale was shorter than what I am used to however this was good practise and gave me an indication of how quickly jobs are expected to be done after university. When I first took on this project I thought I would not be able to meet the deadline however it has taught me that I overestimate the time I take to do designs and that is was possible and the quality wasn’t affected.

 

Briefing

From the very start of the Real Job, it became clear that this was not an ordinary Real Job, nor an ordinary client. Geoff approached us – having completed the letterpress module the term prior – to print the wedding invitations for the wedding of Paul Luna’s son, David. This was intimidating at first as we had only ever heard about Paul and his design reputation within the department, so we knew we would have our work cut out.

During the briefing, we realised that rather than being involved in the design process like any other ‘regular’ Real Job; we would instead be purely involved in the production process – letterpress printing. During an informal meeting with Paul, overseen by Geoff, Paul laid out what he wanted to achieve and the full requirements of the job. If it wasn’t intimidating to begin with, after his request for 200 invitations to be letterpress printed, it certainly was. In the letterpress module, we were only required to produce a set of six identical prints for submission, so 200 seemed like a near impossible task. During this meeting, we also got an understanding of the ‘perfection’ that our client would like, as he showed off the invitation design, and we discussed colour and card-stock.

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Printing

During this Real Job, we gained real experience working in the production phase of the design process that is often underappreciated. We took several steps to ensure that time management and quality of the final prints were at their best. We mixed the colour whilst waiting for the printing plates and paper to arrive, as this was the most efficient use of time and allowed us to begin promptly when the plates finally arrived.

To ensure we could manage the workload, we decided as a production team to work in ‘shifts’ with two people working together in the workshop, while the third person had the time off. In reflection, this was a fantastic decision as it allowed us to work efficiently, whilst not taking up too much space in the printing workshop or constantly knocking into each other. The exception to this was while mixing the colour, as we decided it would be best to have as many eyes to judge the colour match as possible. Paul provided us with Pantone references, and colour samples to be used to match the inks to. These informed all our decisions, and we tried where possible to get a perfect match. Mixing the colours was very frustrating at first, as we not only had to match the colour to the standard liked by Geoff, but also our client – Paul Luna. The level of perfection needed in a match, took hours to achieve at first, and made us uncertain for the future of the Real Job as we were unsure if we would be able to meet the high standards expected for the print itself. However, we eventually arrived at the two colour matches that Paul was looking for.

The same keen eye for perfection was also witnessed when Paul rejected the original printing plates as they had imperfections – making us agonise over the quality of the print that was expected. In reflection, the pressure that this created was a good thing. Although we all faced frustration at the hands of not being able to meet the high bar set for us, it meant the job arrived at a very high, near professional quality.

As expected, the days spent in the workshop were long with the team not stopping until we had met the quota of prints needed to keep with the tight schedule. The first session took around seven hours to get the correct colour flowing and the alignment exact on the ampersand, as well as running off 50 prints to give an idea of the length the job would take.

Another hurdle we faced was the fact that each invite would have to run through the press four times, to account for the double-sided print and the two colours used on each side. This was difficult to comprehend at first, realising quickly that to get the 200 flawless invitations, we would have to print around 400 of the first plate to account for loss at each stage. One of the challenges we overcame was adapting the colours to ensure a better coating on the heavy card-stock, especially the duck-egg blue that did not print the fine lines of the ampersand as crisp as we would have liked. After the addition of solid white, this drastically improved the print quality, while staying true to the original colour swatch, as the solid white compensated for the off-white card-stock. Other challenges included the appearance of ‘wonky’ registration between plates, and inking consistency. Through Geoff’s careful guidance, we found ways to alter the inking impression and flow of the ink by changing the height of the plates and amount of ink on the rollers.

As Paul works heavily in the department, he was also able to drop by to provide feedback and was on hand for instant critique at each stage. This also meant that he would drop by the workshop and watch us print occasionally. Although his company was welcome, we learnt how nerve wracking it could be for a client to be in the same room, constantly evaluating us whist we work. This would be something we would all like to avoid in the future if possible.

https://youtu.be/MUAFjsLqZcU

Contrary to this, when we did achieve perfect prints, which as time went on happened more and more often, we were able to see our client directly look happy with the work. This was beneficial over having to decipher their response via emails, like many other jobs. This was a welcome change, watching Paul excitedly sending pictures to his son of the process, kept us going throughout the project.

As time went on, we became very efficient at printing as a team, and began timing our prints out of curiosity and found that we could print at a sustained rate of 1 print every 30 seconds by the end of the job, using the Plantin press with 2 people. This put into perspective how difficult it would have been to create long print runs when letterpress was the only option for production, and even more painful for the printer who was repeatedly operating the press, as it took a lot of effort from the operator, comparable to a core workout!

https://youtu.be/q6e8hreJWA4

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Final reflections

This was one of the first live jobs that we had all felt a considerable level of frustration towards, between the long hours and energy put into it, and the high bar of quality expected, we all had our work cut out. The job also happened during a period when we were all very busy, and therefore, taking whole days out in the printing workshop became very difficult. However, this made the job that much more rewarding, and seeing Paul’s happiness with the invitations made it all worth it.

It was also eye-opening to be so involved with the production process, giving us all a new-found respect for how hard production teams must work to achieve perfection, giving us all something to consider when we send a job off into the void of the press. It also gave us a chance to have a break, away from our computer screens, and go ‘back in time’ so to speak, which in a sense was a nice change in pace from design. This physicality also gave us the opportunity to watch ourselves improve over time, eventually arriving at the 200 near professionally finished wedding invitations all on time and ready to be sent to the guests.

The brief

The brief was to create a commemorative catalogue, in the form of a folded leaflet, to explain the client’s art project: ‘Moving Gallery’, an art gallery inside a double decker bus in Reading. The folded leaflet needed to include images taken during the project, text explaining the project, and the bios of the six artists who’s work featured in the Moving Gallery.

Purpose and function

The  catalogue was to be given to the twenty donors of the project as a thank you for their contribution, so somewhere on/ in the leaflet there needed to be a thank you note. There was a possibility that the leaflet might be used for other functions in the future to promote the Moving Gallery project, so it was suggested in the first client meeting that the thank you card could be separated from the catalogue.

Requirements

• The client had a limited budget and so was keen for each leaflet to fit on one double sided piece of SRA3 paper.
• 20 copies of the leaflet and 20 thank you cards to go with them
• It was important that all of the necessary information was on the document, including information about the Moving Gallery, the Moving Gallery at its new exhibition space, and the exhibited artists.
• The client already had a running website and there were a few things that she wanted to keep the same to remain consistent in style. The paragraphs had to be set in the typeface Courier New, and the headings in Din Alternate. The headings were also to be inverted in white out of a black rectangle as on the website.

Design process

experimenting with folds

One of the first challenges in this real job, was finding a way to fit all of the content on to two sides of SRA3 paper. Initially there was a lot of content so I asked the client if she could condense the text down to a smaller amount, which she was happy to do. After I got sent a new folder of content I began to work on the layout.

I started by taking a few sheets of A3 paper and folding them in different ways and writing on where the content might sit so find out what might be the best approach.

I decided that the best use of space would be to fold it in half longways and then create a concertina. This meant that I could have information on the outside of the leaflet on each flat side and then have a full A3 spread once it is opened.

I decided that the thank you element of the design could be a wrap around card that folds around the main leaflet and tucks in so that it doesn’t fall off.

Layout

I next needed to decide where best to put the information. I organised the information into three groups according to the text my client sent me: artist information, Moving Gallery on route and Moving Gallery at its next exhibition space, Jelly. As there were six artists and six concertina sides (once you take out one side for the front cover and one for the back), I thought of putting one artist on each, however there was too much information to fit both the name, text and image for each artist on each side without having a tiny type size. I decided to try putting all of the artists on the inside spread, which worked much better as I had more space and flexibility with the layout.

I made a number of changes to the layout throughout the process after several meetings with my supervisor. One thing I had to really work on was my alignment of the artist’s bios. Problems occurred because I had a fairly strict grid but if everything sat centrally on my grid, it was difficult, without reading the text, to see which image relates to which artist’s name.

 

My first few layouts all had the title on the right hand side of the page, which I later decided was irrational as it made it seem as though it was only a title for the right page rather than both. In this layout I stuck to my grid but this meant that the space between non relating elements wasn’t different enough from the space between relating elements. In this version I also realised that some of my images were far larger than others, particularly on the left hand page where there was no heading.

After moving my title to the left hand page it was greatly improved however I still had to work on the spacing. I tried moving the images around and increasing the space between non-relating elements.

To further improve clarity, I tried using blue bars to link relating elements together. I used this blue as it featured in the logo but nowhere else.

I decided that this was a step too far and looked less elegant and I could just use space to separate elements.

Images

One of the biggest problems that I had with this project was the quality of the images I was provided with. They all seemed to have been taken on a low resolution phone camera for example. I asked the client if there were any better quality images but these were all she had. I did my best to brighten the images in photoshop and sharpen them where I could. During this project, I learned a few photoshop tricks for improving images. I learned how to change the perspective of images to make sure the content was completely upright and also how to brighten the images without making bad lighting appear unnaturally yellow, by playing around with the saturation in specific areas. Although they did not end up being amazing quality, I feel that I did the best I could with the images I had been given.

COlour

Another issue that came up was in the colour of the card I used for the thank you card. When I initially proposed a type of card to the client, she said it was too green. I had chosen the card based on the colour of the logo and this was something I had to work around as it seemed the client had in her head an idea of the colour she would like, but no physical example of this colour. This left me in a situation where I wasn’t exactly what she wanted. After sending back and forth various colour swatches, I ended up resolving this by sending her a link to a card company, who’s card I knew would be fine in the printers, and suggested that she chose a colour of card and purchase it herself then give it to me to print on. As the client only needed twenty copies of the final product, this solution was fine. After this, the process ran smoothly as the client was then accountable for her choice in card rather than me spending money on card she didn’t like.

This problem taught me two things, firstly that I should never buy material without clearing that exact material with the client beforehand, and secondly, to choose colours more carefully and make sure that both I and the client have the same shade in our heads.

The budget

I made one definite mistake on this job and that was not being completely certain of what had been agreed in terms of money. I had been told when I was allocated the job that the client had a certain budget and I didn’t think to check at the time whether this was the case. It turned out later in the process that the client had thought that her budget would cover both the real job scheme and her printing costs, when in fact it would only cover one of those things. Moreover, as the project progressed, I should have discussed with the client that printing a separate thank you card was going to require a bigger budget, as this would mean printing not only the 20 sheets of double sided SRA3, but also at least 10 sheets of double sided A4 card. This mistake has taught me to not agree to printing extra deliverables without clearing the extra costs with the client so that I don’t end up losing money.

Final deliverables

I was pleased with the final design and I think it successfully fulfilled the brief. I had to learn some new skills when it came to making the final leaflets and thank you cards, for example how to score the card so that it would have a small 2mm spine so that it fit neatly around the leaflet when folded. As I am producing all of the final twenty deliverables myself, I have to be very self-disciplined to make sure that each one was folded carefully and to a high standard.

 

Overall

From start to finish, this was a fairly smooth, quick process. The client was always very happy with what I produced and she was happy to provide any more information I needed at any point. We maintained regular meetings to discuss the design and kept well in contact via email. The project was extended and a new deadline put in place after the client decided that she didn’t need the deliverable until a later date, so after a speedy start, I ended up having longer to refine the design and making process. I met with my supervisor several times over the process and each time got useful feedback that I fed into my work and tried to improve on.

Something I would work on if I were to begin the process again would be to not be so restricted by the clients initial ideas. I think that although the client wanted a certain style and certain typefaces, I could have been more imaginative with their application and maybe suggested some solutions that pushed the boundaries a little just to see if she might prefer another approach. I think I was lucky that my client was so complimentary about my work but I think it made me less worried about coming up with something extremely creative. I think also, because I knew that the project only originally had a few weeks to come to a final design, I was worried about spending time experimenting and so just went with something that was safe. I would like to have pushed myself a little more with the design of the inside pages.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ecosystems photobook was a collaborative project, between a photographer, an ecological economist and the Department of Typography and Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. The photobook was designed to illustrate different ways communities connect with ecosystems around the World through the eye of a camera lens.

 

Briefing and Research

We were approached by James Lloyd, real jobs coordinator, to design this photobook. After reading the brief and researching the client, we were immediately attracted and believed our combined knowledge of photography and science would give us a good foundation to work from.

Our client, Dr Stanislav Shmelev was eager to begin the project, so an initial Skype conference call took place only a few days after. During this call, we gathered more information about the project, asking questions to enable us to develop a creative proposal. It was during this call that we discovered Stanislav had already began work on this photobook and had a clear vision for the final product. He had influential books to show us, paper samples from interested publishers and text written by an ecological economist, Dr Joachim Spangenberg. It was clear that we would need to meet in person to discuss these visions for the book, and work together to select the best photography to convey his message. Therefore, we organised a meeting in Oxford shortly after.

The first meeting with a client is essential to develop a good working relationship, so to prepare for this meeting we explored Stanislav’s photography, gathering images as instructed for each chapter. We undertook some further market research, exploring what else has been published in the field, investigating book formats, topics discussed, and the handling of text and image. This enabled us to arrive at the meeting prepared, ready to initiate further discussion and the brainstorming of ideas to enable Stanislav to achieve his end vision.

 

Design Process

We began the design process by exploring book formats; creating a range of layouts on different sized pages, as this was the area in which our client was uncertain on what direction he would like to go in. We discussed the pros and cons of different formats, experimenting with landscape, square, and multiple portrait formats. We tried where possible to keep to standard book formats. We sketched layouts on paper, before translating these digitally, to allow us to generate compositions quickly and efficiently. After showing these to Stanislav, he was certain of one thing: he wanted to use a whole double page spread per image and wanted the book to be portrait. We used this to inform the decisions to follow.

Stanislav’s photography varied, but the photographs were mostly 3:4 in proportion, so we worked with this to develop our layout concept. Originally, Stanislav wanted each photograph to occupy a spread and be as big as possible on each page, preferably bleeding off the page. His explanation for this preference was that he did not want some photographs to be seen to have more importance than others. His preference for full bleed images was a worry to us; we believed many of the images required captions and without captions, the book would soon get repetitive and uninteresting. We proposed a different solution that allowed for the introduction of captions with a flexible layout to add interest from spread to spread, that solved this issue to a certain extent. However, we were aware that having images span across a spread could result in some of the photograph being lost in the binding. To accommodate for this, we had to carefully consider which images were chosen and where to include them. This proved a challenge when designing a book heavily photography based.

 

  

 

Image Selection

Image selection was fundamental to the effectiveness of the photobook, and this was something that occupied a large amount of our time. Stanislav had a few images that were to be essential to each chapter, but many were still up for debate, and with hundreds of images to choose from for each chapter, it provided a real challenge. Originally, Stanislav wanted us to select from his images ourselves, choosing what best represented each chapter, whist still being a ‘beautiful’ photography. However, after realising we had different opinions on this, we thought it best if to do this together, which led to lengthy meetings discussing the best and the most important photographs to include. In retrospect, it would have been helpful for us, for the client to have chosen these images in advance of the project and not leave it mostly down to us.

Once the photographs for each section had been chosen, and the text provided, the main job was inserting each photograph and its caption in the correct order. Although, at first we thought this would be an easy task, it proved to be a lot more time consuming than we had imagined, and this is where we encountered the most problems. Each individual page contains a photograph with a caption alongside it, and every chapter opens with a photograph, a caption and an introductory passage that is about a page long. Maps were also designed and included to give geographic context to each image, proving another element to be created. Overall, a very time consuming process, which required lots of toing and froing between the client and ourselves, selecting images, organising captions, copy-editing and photo fixing. Feedback from Stanislav and his connections, as well as the real jobs team was invaluable throughout this stage, enabling the photobook to progress to where it is now. With over 300 pages in the photobook, and the deadline just around the corner, we are set to finish on time, with only a few final checks to complete and a final hand-over meeting with our client.

 

 

Reflection

Over the last six months, we have had both challenging and rewarding moments, and it is finally nice to see it all coming together. It is sure to be an invaluable addition to our portfolios, and we are honoured to be apart of such an immense editorial project. We have gained knowledge in ecosystems and the world we live in, developed skills in copy-editing and in handling word and image. We have experienced working with large amounts of photography and text, improving our organisational skills. Finally, we pride ourselves in our good client communication, and without the excellent working relationship we have developed with Stanislav and ourselves, this project would have never been finished in time. This project will no-doubt improve our future projects, university and beyond.

 

 

 

 

Brief
I was approached by James Lloyd, real jobs coordinator, to design the eleventh edition of the University of Reading Creative Arts Anthology; an annual publication that brings together poetry, prose, art and photography by students and staff at the University of Reading and local residents. The Typography and Graphic Communication department have been involved in the design and production for many years, and I was honoured to be chosen to design this year’s edition.

Although this was my first-time text-setting poetry in InDesign, my background knowledge in complex text-setting during this course and my interest in book design, put me in a good position to approach a new type of verbal content. Fortunately, I was provided with several earlier editions of the Creative Arts Anthology that I could refer to, and with Eric Kindel’s supervision I was confident to begin the design process. I promptly contacted both my clients, Jerome Cox-Strong and Peter Robinson, for a meeting. The editors of this year’s anthology were also present during the initial meeting, and I organised to discuss the design further with the editors after the meeting. It was clear that they had little to no vision for the end result, however, they did express a preference for central left-aligned text setting, common in poetry books and in earlier editions of the Creative Arts Anthology. Their explanation for this was: when text is left-aligned to the margins, and the poem has short lines, it can seem as if the poem is falling off the page or into the spine, which is unpleasant. This influenced the final design of the inside pages considerably.

 

Design Process
As designing poetry books was unfamiliar territory, I took the opportunity to research past anthologies and poetry collections to explore different approaches to poetry text-setting. The content varied immensely, from poems to prose, and from paintings to photography, providing a particular challenge. The design and the margins had to be flexible enough to accommodate a wide range of verbal content. The editors aided the process of designing considerably, by providing the sequence of poems in a single word document, along with the accompanying images. Not only did I have the verbal and visual content within the book to juxtapose, but I also had to consider the editors preface, contents, and biographies. These were designed after the main book in order to echo the inside verbal content. The editors also specified the image to be on the cover – an untitled photograph of flowers in a garden. This limited to some extent the composition of the text on the cover as I was limited to areas that did not obstruct the focal point.

From the initial meeting with the clients, it was made clear that a left-aligned central design was preferred. I did experiment with both central and fully left-aligned but agreed the central was more fitting for this poetry book. Generating a layout that accommodated several types of verbal content, as well as images, was challenging and time consuming. But, I am pleased with the outcome. The suggestion of centred alignment means text is always visually centred on the page, but the margins offer restrictions for prose and longer line lengths, as well as giving boundaries to images. This was effective, however in reflection, I could have found a simpler solution to the setting of text centrally, for example through a script of some sort.

A major decision during the design process, was the choice of a typeface. Due to the nature of the content, and the theme of this edition, I wanted an elegant typeface that had ‘life’ to it. I thought as this was a University of Reading anthology, what better place to look than at the MA Typeface Design typefaces. After a discussion with Eric about usage rights, it was decided to find one freely available to me from the department or from Adobe Typekit. Many typefaces were tried and some in combination, but it was decided upon to use the typeface Edita, designed by Pilar Cano, a 2006 graduate of MA Typeface Design at the University of Reading. Edita is a contemporary book typeface with a softness and fluidity, designed to be used alongside photographs and other graphic elements. The italic was used predominantly for titles, small caps for author’s names, and book for the body text. To play on the theme of the edition, I also made use of the discretionary ligatures within the italic setting available in the typeface, which added an element of connectivity to the titles reinforcing the theme of ‘life’. I believe my experience from previous editorial projects over this course, made this process much easier.

Rules were originally used below the heading, but these weren’t fitting for the poetry content and theme, therefore with Paul Luna’s suggestion, I replaced it with a decorative element. Paul recommended several typefaces with glyphs and printer’s flowers, which I explored. Eventually deciding upon the glyph, from the typeface Kepler, which is reminiscent of a printer’s flower, to play off the theme of ‘life’ and ‘nature’ that ran throughout this edition.

Feedback from both Paul and Eric was beneficial throughout the process, enabling me to achieve aesthetically pleasing inside pages. In reflection, I would have found the same scrutiny in the feedback for the cover beneficial. Towards the end of the design process, I contacted the Real Job’s team, who showed me how to approach registering for an ISBN and generating a barcode. This provided a useful insight into the editorial process that I didn’t know previously.

 

   

 

Production
The production process was fairly straight forward, printed by DPS as it is every year. The client liaised with DPS themselves, meaning I had very little involvement. I provided a production specification, which was in line with the client’s specification taken from last year’s anthology. Due to my experience working in a production house, the preparation of files was straight-forward. I prepared the file as instructed by DPS, completing the art working checklist, and communicating with the Real Job’s team throughout.

I caught a glimpse of the books hot off the press and was pleased with the result. I was impressed with the finish quality, especially of the inside pages and the typeface and decorations. The editors were also very pleased with the final design and expressed this during the launch event. Unfortunately, my client informed me that DPS had made a mistake in the production by printing several copies in black and white. But, this has since been resolved.

 

 

Reflection
Overall, I am pleased with the finished book and it has proven to be invaluable addition to my portfolio, but also to my knowledge in text-setting unusual texts and handling the production of an editorial project. I believe the project ran smoothly, with clear and effective communication between the editors, clients and I, which resulted in a good working relationship. I am grateful to Paul and Eric who shared their knowledge of editorial design and typography. During this project, I have developed more awareness typographic detail and appreciate good copy-editing, which will no-doubt improve future design projects, university and beyond.