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.

 

 

 

 

Review of design agencies project write ups

I looked at the way Pentagram structure their write ups on their website and with all of their projects they take a very image based approach, explaining most of their process in the captions beneath the images. I also looked at Designinc who also use large images, however they also feature three short paragraphs under the headings background, approach and results.

The brief

The brief was to come up with a functional clock design (clock face and hands) for the typography department and create a report to explain the design decisions made.

Purpose and function

The clock will be used in the typography department and so the audience is anyone who looks at the time in the building, including lecturers, students and visitors. It needs to be functional, so regardless of the design, it needs to still function as a clock and be fairly legible.

Requirements

The brief was quite open and the client wasn’t very specific. For the project to be a success, the he wanted me to explore lots of possibilities so that I could come to an informed decision on which design would be the most appropriate.

Research

For my research, I looked into clocks designed by Max Bill, in particular his designs for kitchen clocks. I noticed how the numbers on the clock have been updated so that the main numbers represent the seconds rather than the minutes to better suit the purpose of the clock.

Concept

After seeing Max Bill’s clocks, I thought about how I could tailor my clock design to cater especially for the typography department. I decided to segment the hours into sections to show different groups of hours in the day. I began with the department closing hours in purple, open hours in blue, and lunchtime in yellow. Originally I had the opening hours from 9am until 6pm but when I spoke to the client, I was told that it would be better to go with 9am until 5pm as this was the times that the typography department ran lectures and official meetings.

I decided to push the concept further by adapting the numbers on the clock from the conventional 1 to 12. I thought that seeing as the majority of the time people work in the department during daytime hours, it would be more appropriate to use the PM numbers from the 24 hour clock, for example 13 instead of 1. I decided to use the numbers 09 through to 20 (9am until 8pm). I was quite worried to bring this up in the real jobs meeting as I wasn’t sure if it was ridiculous but I actually got some very positive feedback from the idea. I learnt from this that I should explain my ideas with confidence and not hold to see what the feedback will be before I appear proud of my designs. If I appear confident with my design decisions then others will be more likely to believe in my ideas as well.

I considered adding the other un-used numbers from the 24 hour clock around the middle but this became too complicated to read.

Design process

Numbers

I began by thinking again about the number placement. In my original versions shown above, I had the numbers and the dots all in the same circle. This didn’t work well as in order to fit in all of the numbers, the type size had to be very small. I decided that they needed to be in different circles. I tried the numbers both on the inside and the outside and thought about how the dots and numbers would interact with the clock hands.

I decided that if I put the dots on the inside then I could make the minute hand interact with them. I thought of having a hole in the end of the minute hand so that when the hand moves round, the dots appear through the hole.

My first clock hand design was slightly too thin and due to the length of the minute hand, the two hands look out of proportion. I tried having the hour hand slightly thicker which worked better as it was shorter.

I tested the hand positions at different times on the clock to check that the interaction was smooth at all points. I adjusted the size of the hole so that only one dot would fit in at any one time.

pushing the concept

I showed my ideas to my supervisor and he seemed to think that the concept was interesting but thought that I could take it further. He encouraged me to really push the boundaries and think about how much information really needs to be in each segment and how clear it needs to be. In the yellow lunchtime segment, I tried removing the dots entirely to show that there is a break. The continuous, circular flow of dots literally stops between 13:00 and 14:00.

I also tried dulling the numbers within the purple segment by making them a dark purple colour rather than black. This is to push the idea that time is less important in the department between the hours of 17:00 and 09:00.

It occured to me that when we talk about the 24 hour clock in relation to one didget numbers, we usually add a ‘0’ before to clarify that it means AM. Because of this, I decided to change the ‘9’ to ‘09’ to remain consistant. This also improved the spacing of the 9 compared to the other numbers as previously, the single didget was vastly different in width.

I also tried a version without any numbers out of the hours of the department opening hours. I thought that this could still be functional as lots of clocks miss off all of the numbers except for 12, 3, 6 and 9 and there was still enough information to be able to tell the time. I decided however that it wasn’t as clear. I decided that this idea possibly pushed it too far, as although it makes sense conceptually, the brief still claimed that it had to be functional and deleting all of the visual cues did make it harder to read.

Futura research

I was encouraged to look into the typeface Futura and how it was used on clocks. I looked at some examples of clocks that used sans serif typefaces similar to Futura in the 1920s. They inspired me to try both the typeface Futura, and a new colour palette in my work and create something in a similar visual style.

The change in typeface made the clock instantly more legible as the letters were heavier and had more of an impact. The dark colours contrasted well with the white numbers.

Printing

I had to experiment quite a bit with the colour of printing as it always come out differently from what I was viewing on my screen.

Mock up of Possible Final deliverable

I have got to a point with the job where I have created a mock up of my design that I am happy with and am awaiting feedback on my design from the client. There were a couple of difficult things to accomplish with the mock up, for example cutting out the circle on the end of the minute hand.

Communication with client

Throughout the process I maintained regular contact with the client and showed him my work at different points for feedback although the project had a quick turn around. If there was a longer timeframe, we probably would have had more meetings.

This project was made both easier and more difficult because of the freedom I was given by the client. It was easier because he didn’t have a specific solution in mind meaning I could, to some degree, decide on my own concept and make my own design decisions. It was challenging as there was very little direction. I had to come up with my own ideas entirely and as long as I explored lots of options, the client was happy.

Overall

This job really developed me as an independent worker as I had to think creatively on my own, yet still satisfy the client. Overall, the project ran smoothly. I think if I started the project again, I would begin by printing designs at scale earlier as I learned more about the size and arrangement of elements once they were fitted into the frame than looking at them on screen. Having never done any clock design before it was an interesting job to work on. I have realised over the process that there is so much more to clocks than meets the eye and there are so many more possibilities than I initially imagined.

 

 

 

The client & the brief

My client for this project was a lady named Maggie Shelton; she works as a Community Catchment Officer, for the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust.

The Background Story

As a designer, gaining a clear understanding of the ecology and science behind this project’s was incredibly important when considering how to visually approach design ideas with this project’s purpose and importance in mind. The most crucial aspect of this process was to ensure I asked my client detailed and specific questions about what is most relevant to the charity’s ethos and aims. Specifically, I wanted to gain as much information as I could about the Watercress & Winterbournes conversation project. In my initial meeting with Maggie, I found out that the focus for this project is to preserve the chalk streams of the Hampshire Downs, a unique landscape specific to this region. Maggie was incredibly passionate about how crucial the preservation of these habitats are,  therefore after taking part in this face to face meeting with Maggie, I understood that this project was close to her heart; this experience was a very useful learning curve as it reinforced to me the importance of the correct kind of communication with your client. The project also supports of a range of heritage industries, villages and their communities.

‘The area is central the to UK’s watercress industry and its water mills have supported industries such as the production of paper, corn, silk and even gin.’ – Maggie Shelton

My client also went into great detail about the partnership vision and their overall aims. The point of this project is primarily to unite sixteen partners, in order to help form relationships with surrounding communities in the Hampshire Downs area, who’s roles are essential in caring for the local heritage. This project also aims to encourage and inspire young people to protect the natural headwaters now and for future generations.

 Deliverables

The client specifically requested three different logo designs for the Watercress & Winterbournes project. These logos would be used on letterheads, banners, featuring as part of a web presence, and should also work as part of any publicity that advertises the new Heritage Lottery Fund project. The client specifically requested that these three logo designs must work in full colour and also in black and white. These logo designs also needed to be just as successful when scaled down to a smaller size, and scaled up to be used in varying formats.

Specific Design Considerations included:

• The logo including the words ‘Watercress & Winterbournes’ specifically using an ampersand.
• The logo needed to sit alongside the Heritage Lottery Fund logo, therefore not compete with the this logo but complement it.
• The colour palette must be cheap to photocopy, as the client for this project is a member of a charity, ensuring the design is cost effective was a very important element.
• These logos must also be visually effective on a Powerpoint presentation and also effective when placed over a detailed photograph.
• Maggie Shelton specifically requested in her brief that these logos ‘reflect the ethos of the project’

I responded to this discussion with Maggie by briefly talking about some of my initial ideas for this brief. She reiterated to me that the heritage and sense of community was very important to communicate. I suggested to her that I wanted to use the concept of the natural surroundings in my logo designs. As the focus of the project is on preserving the heritage, I wanted to focus my design ideas towards a more traditional approach. This would feature hand-drawn illustrations, and perhaps serif typefaces. During this meeting I ensured that I communicated my understanding and appreciation for the project’s mission. I explained some of my ideas, in doing this, I assured her that she could trust me with respecting the project’s aims, though this is a newly founded project, the Hampshire Downs are a part of the UK’s natural heritage and I understood the relevance of this.

My Design Approach

I approached this design by considering the ideas and themes discussed with my client. I wanted to incorporate the project’s ideas of preservation and the importance placed on the heritage of the region and the natural habitats it encompasses. To do this, I began by experimenting with my own hand-drawn illustrations. I focused on motifs such as the watercress, specific to the chalk streams but this also features in the name of the project itself. I wanted these drawings to be detailed and realistic in order to represent the traditional elements of the project itself as discussed with my client. These drawings resulted in a botanical drawing style. These drawings were effective in both colour, using a natural green. When designing the typography for the logo designs, I wanted to use serif typefaces, traditional and simple letterforms, with particular focus on the ‘W’, representing the Watercress & Winterbournes name. I decided to incorporate these two main elements together, by featuring the watercress drawing as part of the typography.

 

Figure 1 – Initial Visuals

Figure 2 – Experiments with typographical treatment

Figure 3 – Developed Logo Designs

My Experience

Overall, my experience producing logo designs for the Hampshire & Isle of Wight Wildlife Trust was incredibly positive. I learnt a considerable amount about the relationship that can be formed with a client and how this can influence your perception of the design work produced for them. I feel that I have improved my ability to retrieve information from a client, I have learnt that making sure I am asking the correct questions, influences my work very positively. Understanding a brief is also very valuable to the process; ensuring you are correctly informed about the purpose the of work you are designing for, means that as a designer, you can make the correct decisions about the job at hand. This job was very simple in terms of the content, the deliverables were clear and concise and there was little that could go wrong technically, however, the challenging part of the project was to make sure I paid homage to the project itself. The project has a particularly important and somewhat serious message. The part my logo designs played in portraying the correct identity and message for project was very specific. Another important lesson I have learnt as part of this process, was to keep an open mind about my own ideas. After attending a very informative Real Jobs meeting, I discovered that it is also important to not underestimate your abilities; to sell your ideas and to have confidence in your skills. The designs that I presented to the group in this meeting, I personally felt were a little weak in my opinion, however, my colleagues felt that my designs were strong, original and unique. I found that the most successful design, came as a result of an accidental experiment and this was quite eye-opening for me.

 

 

Brief
Albert Elduque Busquets, a postdoctoral researcher in Brazilian Cinema from the Department of Film, Theatre and Television was looking for a student designer to design a catalogue which the content included essays written about ten Brazilian music films and also the information about when these films would be shown in the Reading Film Theatre. The catalogues would be printed by the Design and Print Studio and handed out to people who went to see these ten films. The catalogue needed to be sent to print no later than 15 December, so the client could receive some of the copies on 10 January, few days before the filming started.

Work process
The project began in June 2017, the only thing I was told in the first meeting with the client was what sort of content would go into the catalogue. And the client was unable to tell me the details of the content, budget, and deadline as these things could not be confirmed until late October Therefore, I did not restate the brief for this project. It was a huge risk to take as the client could potentially ask me to make unrealistic and late minute changes to the deliverable and it would be my fault if I failed to deliver them. Fortunately, this did not happen, and the catalogue was sent to print, and the copies were delivered to the client on time.

The majority of the content was long essays with at least 10000 words each, but there were also other types of content shown in the catalogue such as interviews, letters and poems. The latter needed to be dealt with differently with the change of the number of text column. For instance, all the interviews have a single-column introduction. I also learnt how to handle sections such as biographies and credit page. Having different image crops also made the catalogue look more fun and appealing to read and placing the film information spreads in the middle of the catalogue gives the reader a ‘break’ after reading pages of long text. I chose Freight Text designed by Joshua Darden from Phil’s Font as the typeface for this catalogue as there are many font weights available which helped me develop a typographic hierarchy of the articles much easier.

One of the things I learnt in this part of the project is that if other organisations were involved in a project and their logos needed to be included in the publication, their brand guideline must be strictly followed.

Production
The client requested 300 copies of the catalogue and had a budget of circa £1500. Initially, he preferred to have the entire catalogue in colour. However, we were later learnt that the cost would exceed the budget, so we decided to print everything in black and white except the film information spreads in the middle and the cover. The number of pages of pages also needed to be kept to the minimum. The original page format I chose was 210mmx210mm, but I later learnt that the 8 pages would be printed on A2 in section. Using a square format would mean wasting a lot of space. Therefore, I changed the format to 200mmx280mm which is smaller than A4 so that more content could be included in one page. I also learnt a lot about other things such as how to prepare a document that is print-ready and a comprehensive print specification from this part of the project.

Reflection
Not creating a restated brief and attending Real Job meetings regularly and the lack of communication between me and my supervisor are the biggest mistakes I made in this project. No doubt this had a negative impact on my professionalism and more importantly, I believe I missed out on a lot of useful and constructive feedback which could influence positively my design decisions and potentially bring the catalogue to a higher standard.

Moreover, I need to pay more attention to typographic details as my client occasionally had to point out the typographic inconsistency and errors throughout the whole catalogue, all of which should be my responsibility instead and there are also a few widows that needed to be fixed. Also, I need to be more careful with the alignment of text and image and more specifically, to learn to design book covers that look more impactful and eye-catching and reflect of the underlying theme of the content. I think the current cover of the catalogue lacks a bit of contrast and needs to have a stronger emphasis on the cover image as it is the element that catches people’s attention.

One of the things I am really not happy with the catalogue is the logo of the Arts and Humanities Research Council on the back cover as it has a white frame in its background which looks like a careless mistake. In fact, I did ask the client if the text of the logo could be inverted as the organisation did not provide the client with an inverted version of their logo, but the client thought I should leave it as it is as we do not have the permission to make any changes to the logo. The other is the quality of the images. Some of the images did not come out as crisp and striking as I expected them to be. Spending a bit more time on photo editing would have prevented this from happening.

On top of everything negative mentioned above, the project went fairly well. Despite the lack of communication with my supervisor, my communication with the client was effective and consistent and both sides were very responsive to emails which sped up the whole design process. What is more important is that It enhanced my communication skills with clients and printers and the skill of working with a limited budget, all of which would be very useful. I also gained a lot of confidence through showing my ideas and offering my opinion to my client and communicating with the printer and acting as an ‘intermediary’ between the two.

Moreover, this job was originally assigned to me and another student but the latter quit shortly after the design process began due to ill health. Working on a large-scale project like this one alone is a first for me. In the beginning, I was slightly intimidated by the scale of the project and worried I might struggle a lot due to my inexperience and therefore disappoint my client and supervisor. Fortunately, this did not happen, and I was able to overcome many challenges by seeking help from my peers and lecturers, as well as looking for solutions online and taking references from relevant books and previous real jobs of this kind.

Although there are many things in the catalogue that could be improved, I am generally happy with the final outcome and so as my client and supervisor. It is also encouraging to learn that not just my client is very pleased with the finish quality of the catalogue, but also some others such as my client’s manager from the F.T.T. department. Knowing that the time and effort I put into this project are appreciated is very satisfying. Finally, I feel very fortunate that I had the opportunity to work on a project of this scale and something that I have a strong passion for. The whole experience is extremely valuable, fulfilling, and rewarding. It equipped me with the skills and knowledge I need in the future as a book and editorial designer. This catalogue will be an invaluable addition to my portfolio and something I can proudly say ‘I did it all by myself!’