Chloe Ball and Romy Chessells worked with a group of senior film executives who have formed an film company with a difference. The clients were all women, with an aim to promote diversity and ethical work practices.

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To visit That Marketing Blog, go to: http://thatmarketingblog.com/

Background

That marketing blog began as an idea of a collective place of resources for students. It grew from ideation and research to include more useful information to a larger group of audiences. ‘That Marketing Blog’ is now a webpage with regularly updated posts, career tips, university advice resources and fun marketing updates. The main goal is to provide information to prospective students about the route of learning, but also to discuss marketing devices used in real life for students already studying. The project began with a marketing student who felt the resources she had found were lacking and was inspired by other students studying marketing who had produced blogs on the subject. 

Primary deliverables:

• Website
• Branding 
• Illustration

Secondary deliverables:

• Social media content
• Client-facing videos
• PDF templates

The aims were:

• To allow the audience to use the site to gain general knowledge or find study material.
• To be functional so the user can find the information aimed at them.
• To be functional so the client can continuously update the site with new content.
• To provide an appropriate brand identity that is informal enough to show a ‘personality’ so marketing is not portrayed as ‘robotic’. The personality must also represent the feminine side of the client but maintain a professional appearance.
• To present the brand accurately and in an appealing way through social media and aid with the production of templates for future posts on these sites.

Research

Target audience

From initial meetings with the client, we had detailed conversations about the specific audience that they wanted to aim at. The primary audience was students studying marketing who may be interested in the content as an additional resource outside of their degree. Since the client is a university student herself, she drew from her own experience and conversations she had with colleagues to evidence the users. It was decided that the blog site would be a resource for:

• University students studying marketing
• Graduates and ‘up-and-coming’ professional
• Prospective students looking to study marketing

The overarching purpose of the blog site is to support extracurricular reading around the subject area with the sharing of course content and key learning outcomes. For prospective students, we decided to include ‘uni advice’ content so that advice can be given retrospectively from the client who can give information based on her own experiences.

The client also stressed that they wanted to target women more than men as they wanted to produce content about women in the marketing industry and have the brand being woman empowering. We took this on board and researched competitors with this in mind and built this user group into our design work.

Competitor research

When researching existing marketing blogs, two direct competitors focused on women in the industry of marketing. These were Pretty little marketer and Girls in marketing. After studying both these brands’ content, we gained a good understanding of the conventions of independent blog sites, types of engagement and activity on social media and how content was grouped and structured within the website. We also looked at the stylistic way that they marketed themselves to the target demographic. As we researched this, we found norms that lay beneath the surface, most notably the use of an approachable visual style that was engaging and ‘girly’ while remaining classy and ‘business casual’ in aesthetic.

Visual style

Since the target user would be using the blog as an extracurricular activity that is closely linked to their subject area, we felt that it was necessary to make the designs seem lighter-hearted and fun rather than heavy and serious. This seemed important to engage the user by creating a more humanistic experience. 

Primary Deliverables’ design Development

Information architecture

For the design process of the website, we began by discussing with the client and analysing what content needed to be included (this information is shown in fig. 1). Once this was confirmed, we drew various iterations of a site map to decide how would be best to structure the information, so that it logically made sense and could be found with ease. For this, we considered two potential user flows; browsing for leisure and researching for specific content. Taking into account both of these, we made sure the navigation headings were self-explanatory in their naming. A problem that we came across was that the client wanted to fix the uni advice and career tips information. But after having some discussions we settled on having two separate pages as the sections, although similar in content, catering for 2 different user groups – prospective students and graduates.

Fig. 1 First version of the site map

Ideation

Once we finalised our information structure, we began to brainstorm ideas for how to best target the demographic and the types of styles that might work best. For this, we created a series of moodboards (shown in fig. 2-5), each focusing on the various deliverables to look at how we could span a visual style across all outcomes. Again, with the moodboards, we thought a lot about how best to capture the type of message and user group. After discussing with the client, the two main stylistic elements to be decided from the moodboards was the use of contrasting thick and thin strokes and the use of irregular shapes to create sectioning. An idea to further this concept, which was eventually discarded, was the use of the irregular shapes  in the illustration style too. Another illustration style that we considered was the use of photography with graphically drawn enhancements to create a balance between professional and casual through the use of contrast with a more professional photography element.

Fig. 2-5 images of moodboards

Low-fidelity designs

Based on our finalised site map and moodboard ideation, we produced some diverging wireframe idea (shown in fig. 6-8). Through this, we explored different ways that we could layout the information that was to go on each page as well as playing around with rough ideas for the user interface. The main focus for the wire-framing state was to decide how we would lay out the website and where the information and images would be placed. One thing that we didn’t take into account, that should have been considered was how the layouts would transition to mobile and tablet versions. This was something, that we had trouble with later in our design process and upon reflection should have been thought about at this stage.

Fig. 6-8 A selection of the initial wireframes

Identity design

Following on from our exploration of graphical styling with our moodboards, we began the identity design by discussing how the logo and illustration would work together. From this, we decided to have a typographic logo to complement the illustrations and shapes. With a typographic logo in mind, we drew up sketches of layout and arrangement ideas based on the name ’That Marketing Blog’, (shown in fig. 9). The logo was then iterated in black and white as we wanted to ensure that the contrast worked before experimenting with colour variations. The client suggested that they wanted a neutral colour palette heavily featured with shades of beige. While we experimented with this, we thought that some more contrasting colours would work better and achieve the more ‘neutralised’ look by muting the tone.

For the logo, we initially produced the logo (fig. 10). However, we found that when testing the legibility, due to the great contrast from thick to thin, the thin lights become invisible and smaller sizes and so we had to make adjustments. To solve this issue, we increased the size of ‘that’ and ‘blog, which we think was effective (fig. 11). In addition to the main logo, we produced a circular logo variant that just included the ‘MB’ initials for social media profiles, where the space is rather limited. For this, we struggled with whether to include the initial ‘T’ as well since it seemed counterintuitive to leave it out, but after testing with users and discussing both at the real jobs meetings and with the client and supervisor, we decided that the ‘MB’ alone worked best and was most suitable. 

The second element of the identity we designed was the illustration of the client and the shapes that were to feature on the website background as well as the social media content in the end. While we did not have an exact idea of what needed to be drawn, we finalised the general concept of how the shapes would be used and how they aesthetically would work within the brand identity. While this seemed like a more secondary idea at the time, this came to be a strong aspect of the brand as it is more unique and creates a recognisable quality and fluid atmosphere to all the deliverables.

Fig. 9 Initial sketches of logo

Fig. 10-11  Before and after of adjusted logo

Fig. 12 Brand guidelines

Overcoming technical barriers

Previously to building the site neither of us on the project had any experience with WordPress or how to go about constructing a successful site. We, therefore, began by watching a variety of tutorials to get the best outlook on where to start. After a few failures by going in the wrong directions with free templates and plugins, we found that to achieve a strong design the Elementor plugin would be the way to go. By going down this route, we needed to weigh up the pros and cons based on cost and other achievable ways to present to the client. We decided that to achieve the various elements required, Elementor pro was a useful solution.

Later down the line, we found we had a significant issue when applying the shape backgrounds to the site. We used trial and error to find a solution that would place the shapes behind the right sections, including changing the background colour to an image that included these shapes, adding background images to certain sections, and placing them as individual shapes behind other elements. There were various problems with all of these solutions, but the most significant is that we hadn’t found a way to make the shape grow with the text and fit a mobile screen. After troubleshooting, we found a solution to separating the parts of the shape into a ‘top’, ‘middle’, and ‘bottom’ section (shown in fig. 13). The middle would be a square set to the background of the element, with the other two set as shapes that would sit above and below it. This allowed the shape to grow with the text and avoided shapes moving in awkward places when applied to mobile.

We also reached difficulties when it came to applying the designs on mobile. As well as the shapes rescaling (which was fixed in the solution above), the text needed rescaling for different screen sizes and the margins too. We have learned from this issue, the significance of the transforming of information, and how it is essential to go into the production knowing how these will affect the designs. If we were to do this again, we would consider working with percentages of element sizes – so they scale automatically.

Fig. 13 Shape backgrounds applied

Website design 

When designing the site, we had a strict list of elements that needed to be included based on the site site maps. We added this based on what was available via the Elementor plugin and styled them with our branding choices already previously decided.

When making choices around the blog posts, there was a lot to consider in terms of pages, number of posts and how each would relate visually to its section. We began with the main blog posts and sectioned them by their categories. These would sit on the main blog post page. We decided each category would highlight the most recent three posts and keep the remaining in its’ sections archive, which could be viewed by clicking the ‘view more’ button. We decided on this number as it allowed the overall blog page to not become too difficult to navigate through, which would be much easier for the user to browse. After trying out different numbers of posts on a single line, we came to the conclusion that three gave a good size to balance out nicely with the rest of the site (shown in fig. 13). Posts on the ‘uni advice’ and ‘careers tips’ pages needed to be distinct from the regular blogs pages, as these were set to be ‘extras’ that are separate from the regularly updated blogs page. These were therefore styled in a two column grid, of which the posts were much wider individually.

We added pictures for mock up to give the client a recommendation on how the types of images that work with the colour scheme and the effectiveness of well chosen photographs. As these are only placeholders and the client will be replacing them, we recommended that images like the ones chosen would be ideal and talked through how to find good quality material (image placeholders shown in Fig. 14). Though we cannot be sure this advice will be followed, we felt it was important to have this discussion and felt it was well received.

Fig. 14 Post widget previewing three most recent posts

When making choices on how to present certain information, we looked carefully at the elements available from the Elementor plugin. Sometimes, particular elements would be a more user-friendly experience than placing the information naturally. For example, the carousel being used for introducing highlights from the site was more engaging than to use text alone (shown in fig. 15). This was due to the short snippet of information it gave, with it changing at a regular pace. The ‘FAQs’ element (shown in fig. 16) allowed us to use information in a way that is interactable, as the section could be clicked on to reveal the answer. Although this could be produced in an alternatively engaging way, the interactivity certainly gave a strong impression to receiving information.

Fig. 15 Image of the carousel section

Fig. 16 Image of the FAQs section

After deciding on the blog posts styling, we kept the layout in groups of three where applicable. For example, the PDF download section under ‘resources’ has a similar weight to it from these blog posts (shown in fig. 17). The footer text was also similarly positioned in this way, but with the key difference being size of text to balance with the small amount of text, as well as achieve a lower hierarchy.

Fig. 17 Image of the downloadable PDFs

When introducing the blog creator on the ‘about’ page, we decided it would be essential to use the illustration effectively with some strong introductory text. This would be important to capture a users’ attention that they may otherwise not be interested in viewing otherwise. The ‘about text’ (shown in fig. 18) that follows from this needed to be similarly short, to keep engagement with the user. We decided to use two text boxes balanced in weight which fit neatly all on the screen with the shape background. By placing the social media links on this section with the description, a more personal connection was created in representing the blog creator as an individual who runs the pages.

Fig. 18 Image of the ‘about text’ section

Forms needed to be functional and friendly. We applied it as the Elementor plugin allowed us to and styled it with the branding. Having the styles applied to this and being able to keep it minimalistic really helped to keep a nice balance with the style (shown in fig. 19).

Fig. 19 Image of a form

Extra elements such as social icons, buttons and the search bar needed to be consistent with the branding. This was done by making choices that fitted with the overall feel of the site. For example, we began by using squared social icons in their original colour. After revisiting, we decided when set as rounded, they fitted with the curves on the site, and the colours being in line with the site’s made the overall appearance more fluent with the site visually.

Introductions to the content on each page seemed needed once reflecting on the quick jump into various elements on most pages compared to the necessary introduction on the ‘home’, ‘blog’ and ‘about’ pages. This, although functionally not necessary due to the underlining reminder on the header, allowed consistency visually, with a more natural user flow into the content.

To ensure our colour palette didn’t need altering and was suitable for colour blind users, we checked our website designs on a colour blindness checker to ensure we had enough contrast (shown in fig. 20).

Fig. 20 Example of the colour blindness tool applied to the site

Secondary deliverables’ design development

Social media content

A part of the project’s goals was to maintain the style across other platforms, such as Instagram and LinkedIn. This included creating styles for the banners and highlights. We decided to take our shape styling and apply this to these sections as this met the goals of consistent branding and being appealing for the social media sites (shown in fig. 21).

Fig. 21 Image of shape styling on social media sites

To maintain the brand identity, we started the client with a set of templates to use for all social media sites. We produced these on adobe sparks as the client had access to this programme. Later in the project, she decided to take the production of the posts in a new direction. She wanted to use already produced templates on a different programme, Canva, as this gave more creative flexibility. We decided as a group to continue in this direction but it would not be practical for us to apply these styles to every post going forward in the future. We, therefore, decided to give her the information of colours, margins, typefaces, alignment and logos to be able to apply the identity herself (shown in fig. 22).

Fig. 22 Example of a later template used

PDF templates

A part of the project involved creating a template for the client to use to create PDF resources for a section of the blog. This involved breaking an example of a document into a simple hierarchy. This needed to be clear for the client to use, as the aim was to allow ease of consistency. We decided Word would be the best programme for this as it was easily outward-facing for the client to access (shown in fig. 23 and 24). A big aim of the template design that the client needed solving was to apply the branding styles to the document. This was applied so the client would not need to change any values independently.

Fig. 23-24 Image of the template given next to a document that uses this information

Client facing videos

For the client to continue with the site independently, certain aspects would need to be updated within the Elementor pro plugin, separate from the blog post area that would be used as standard regularly. We first wrote steps with accompanying screenshots for uploading a blog post, as this was mainly information-based. For the technical areas within the site design itself, we felt explanatory videos would be most effective for the client to follow the information. This is because most processes were relatively simple, but would be most difficult to follow the positioning of the information. A video successfully solved this problem as the user could follow along easily.

Reflection

It has been a great experience to work with the client on this job. We have both learnt a lot from it, especially with the technical issues that we encounter along the way. Through a lot of troubleshooting and research, we were able to solve all our issues and find effective solutions. Overall, we believe that we have produced a strong visual brand that is flexible enough for the client to use on the various platforms while remaining consistent and standardised for maximum recognition. The target user group was carefully considered throughout and we believe that our designs have successfully struck the balance between professional and casual as we set out to do. Our client was very pleased with the deliverables and her ability to weigh in on the design process and put her ideas across, which we always worked through and experimented with. The collaboration was very helpful for us and our working relationship with the client as we were able to glean information from the client with her extensive knowledge of the user group to optimise our designs for our target audience.

Reflecting on the design process, the most challenging obstacle for us was the conversion from desktop design to mobile. We realise now that this should have been a part of our early considerations, but regardless we overcame this issue and produced a website that was versatile for all screen sizes which we believe to be very important for the times we live in with such diverse technology from one person to the next.

Supervisor review

“@isobeladcock and @emilybagnall1 produced a really good first draft of the restated brief. One of the most professional and comprehensive ones I have seen for Real Jobs projects. Well done both.”

 

Client review

“I am really happy with the designs and website that Emily and Isobel produced. The website is really well put together and looks great! The design process and meetings with them went well and was smooth sailing for the whole duration of the project.”

Brief:

The brief for this project was a bit different from the ones I have previously worked on; this was a two-week turnaround project to create two sets of simple logo guidelines. These guidelines were to be used by part 1 students in their TY1INT mobile design module, and so we had to consider usability for a less experienced group, and how they would go about using these guidelines.

The two brands I would be designing for were ReadiFood (Reading food bank) and Mobility Trust.

Organisation background:

ReadiFood is Reading’s food bank, run by Faith Christian Group. They provide emergency food parcels, sent in crates, to rough sleepers, and others who have been referred (referral only service). 

They have schools, and donators who contribute to the parcels; tins, biscuits, and teabags are some of the most commonly given items, but there are also some toiletries available upon request.

“Urgent Food needs are; Tinned vegetables, tinned fruit, tinned potatoes, packets of biscuits and packs of teabags (80s’ & 160s’), Tinned meat meals (mince& onions, hotdogs, meat pies etc.)” – ReadiFood website.

ReadiFood is a member of the Independent Food Aid Network and not affiliated to the Trussell Trust.

People that use the organisation are rough sleepers / homeless people in terms of the receiving side, and then donators and schools will use the service for donating and aiding those in need. 

Mobility Trust provides wheelchairs and scooters to those in need, who may not have the funding.

“Mobility Trust provides powered wheelchairs and scooters for UK residents who have severe disabilities and who cannot obtain such equipment through other means. We aim to reach and help people who, quite simply, have nowhere else to turn. We are the only UK charity that provides such broad support, regardless of age or cause of disabilities.” – Mobility Trust website.

Initial Ideas:

With this being a very short project, the initial ideas stage was important in being concise and straight to the point; having a solid starting place for these logo designs would be beneficial in moving forwards at a good pace. I tend to do my drafts/form ideas digitally, as opposed to on paper, as it allows me to copy elements across and re-use them in different ways easily.

Initially, I was more comfortable designing for ReadiFood, as I had a strong concept of the food being heart-shaped, really obviously a charity, or having an apple icon as it was defined, recognizable, and legible. Mobility Trust, I felt should be more type-based due to the lack of imagery involved with inclusivity and the general topic of the charity. I had general ideas (fig 2) like the wheelchair, the wheelchair’s wheel, and a ‘badge’ style design to link closely to the “trust” aspect.

Development of ideas:

Clearly, Mobility Trust was not in a good position, however, I needed to make rapid decisions in order to get the deliverables finished in time. I combined the type and the imagery together (fig 3), to try and form some designs which could be used as logos, with potential stand-alone logos within.

Feedback at this stage for ReadiFood, my supervisor selected one of my logos to go forwards with (fig 7), and gave the following points:

“In the timeframe, I think this idea has the most potential. I suggest you work on:

1 – typeface choice (something that suits the illustration style)

2 – strengthen the outlines used in the illustration

3 – consider colour palette, is the brown the most suitable?”

And for Mobility Trust, my supervisor done the same, and selected a logo with the most potential (fig 8):

“I think this has the most potential. Consider the following:

1 – typeface choice to suit the wheel, which is currently a solid line of the same thickness, the current typeface has slight contrast between thick and think strokes

2 – detail on the wheel, consider how small this logo might need to be and, therefore, the loss of detail in the wheel spokes. You may need to reduce the number (making sure it is still recognisable as a wheel)”

Improving developed logos:

The three things to change up with ReadiFood are the typeface, the outline of the illustration, and consideration for the colour palette. Therefore, I brainstormed with a wide range of typefaces (fig 9) in combination with the illustration (which was altered to have a thicker outline), and came up with a colour scheme which could be used. From here, I picked which I thought the strongest choices were for the typeface (fig 10), and pitched them to my client/supervisor.

Feedback at this stage:

“all the colours need to have the same strength. At the moment the lime green needs slightly more strength (probably some black) so that it holds up against the other colours,” and there was a reference for the top left typeface (Amatic), which has a comment icon attached in figure 10. And the selected logo “demonstrates a good choice of typeface to accompany the illustration”

For Mobility Trust, the typeface was also a problem that needed refining, and the detail of the wheel needed exploring. Therefore, I added swatches of two separate monoline typefaces (fig 11) in different weights (Avenir and Futura), in an attempt to match the typeface to the illustration style. Also, I experimented with different levels of detail in the wheel illustration, as well as trying to put together a cohesive and appropriate colour scheme.

Feedback at this stage:

I expressed a preference for the coloured, 10 section Futura swatch, which my supervisor agreed with:

“Agree, this is the stronger idea. Suggest increasing the weight of the lines on the wheel spokes to strengthen these.”

And regarding the colour palette, minus the green swatch, “These seem a strong set to me. They have equal prominence in terms of their brightness, and similar salience (which you want in a colour palette where colours may need to work together and alone).”

Working with guidelines

The sample set of guidelines was provided, so it was a case of changing images and typefaces, and colours, whilst keeping the same standard framework. The following images are the guidelines I submitted, and the guidelines which the part 1 students would be required to choose from (amongst others).

Final feedback from client(s):

“The Readifood one is great. It’s a heart, it’s an apple, it’s a friendly font, its format means it works well in a mobile website header area.”

“I find the Mobility Trust work a bit cold and hard. The wheel looks like a wagon wheel or something from the industrial revolution, and the use of Futura is again rather mechanistic. The overall impression is more machine than human, which is obviously problematic. So do try to ensure that you map out any sensitivities among your stakeholders carefully, and don’t fall into obvious traps.”

From reviewing my work based on these comments, I also felt that the Mobility Trust logo lacked the charity aspect which ReadiFood has, and should have more movement. I aim to progress further on this logo and create something more usable for the charity when I come to submitting my work.

Feedback from Part 1 student/guidelines in use:

As the Part 1 students hadn’t done anything like this before, I was interested to see how they would have used the guidelines which were provided. I contacted 10 part 1 students, 1 of which had used my ReadiFood guidelines.

The questions I asked all students were:

• Which set of guidelines did you use? And why did you choose those over the others?
• Did you have any issues with using the guidelines? e.g any colour matchups, live type, etc.,
• When choosing colours from the palette, did you find yourself having to add more, or struggle to use the colours provided?

One part 1 student, Naomi, came back to me with the following:

“I am using the ReadiFood one. Your design attracted me the most at the very first sight haha maybe that’s because of my personal preference, but I really like how simple the logo is and also I think the Amatic font also matches with the logo style. Another point is the heart shape of the logo represents the image of a food bank in my opinion.  As a food bank is a charitable organisation, what they are aimed to do is kinda like ‘spreading love to the people who are in need’. I found your logo is comparatively meaningful so I chose to use it in my prototype.

           

Reworking Mobility Trust:

I was unhappy with how Mobility Trust turned out, and so I chose to re-do my design as if I had more time. Notably, a lot of the issues which cropped up were because not enough thought had gone into the user and their needs, as well as the small time frame we were working in.

The main things to address were the overall feel of the logo; it was too rigid and mechanical before, and it should be full of life and movement. To do this, I had ideas of implementing a wheelchair and the acts of movement through italics.

Looking at the typefaces Co Headline (top) and Silicone (regular in centre, bold at the bottom), I liked how they were more rounded and had that movement which Futura does not. I wanted to combine this with a form of illustration, and revisited an earlier idea to have the wheelchair implemented.  I like that Silicone is more friendly and is still equally weighted throughout to emphasize the consistency and trust in the organisation. The colours previously were working well, and so they stayed the same in these reworked ideas.

These logos of fluidity and movement, as well as a friendly and uplifting nature which Mobility Trust requires. When testing this on a sample of 10 people from different backgrounds, 100% of them recognised this as a wheelchair-orientated charity. And with that, I present my refined guidelines for Mobility Trust.

Showcase

Summary

This Real Job was challenging due to the time constraints, but I had a lot of fun doing something I was familiar with doing. It was really rewarding to see my guidelines in use by another student and get their opinions on the work I had done.

Background

The student-led Instagram has been operational since 2018 when a group of students rightfully decided that it would be a great tool to promote the work that goes on in our department. I joined the team in the spring term of my first year with my responsibilities increasing until, this year, it was my turn to lead the team. This job involves posting on the account for the duration of the year, covering the ongoings of the department anywhere from projects to events.

In addition to the focus of promotion previously, this year it was decidedly more of a recruitment and networking strategy. We wanted to showcase more the work that prospective students could anticipate, as well as giving more of a focus on the ‘who’ and not the ‘what’ of the student work we posted.

Learning from previous years

Two years of experience gave an opportunity to look at what strategies were undertaken prior and assess their effectiveness.

As written about previously, Sophia discussed the branding of yellow featuring in posts to represent our vibrant front doors. 

Though a nice idea, in practice this detail was perhaps too subtle when looking at the earlier feed. It was also quite limiting in what was ‘fitting’ to post. Therefore, this year we decided to ditch this approach and aim for engagement through a vibrant, multi-coloured approach. When posts were being created by those outside of our team who would not have been briefed on the yellow branding, this was seemingly a more appropriate solution.

Summer preparation

Knowing that both I and my team had busy years ahead, I felt doing the bulk of the preparation that was able to be done in the summer would reduce time strain later.

To improve on the lack of clarity of individual responsibilities in previous years, I created a rota for each regular task outside of the ongoing role of keeping tabs on upcoming deadlines and events. This is definitely something I recommend the team take on next year as it made planning time around this job much easier, ensured all jobs were covered each month, and allowed fairness of task distribution. However, creating a rota for each term would probably be a better solution than making it in the summer as done this year. Changes of availability and circumstance meant the annual rota needed to change more frequently. In theory, a shorter time scale would allow for better accuracy and reduce need for change.

Once it was finalised which ‘types’ of posts would be a regular feature on the account, we set out to make post templates. Previously, all posts would seemingly be stand-alone if looked at from the feed and the user would be required to read the caption for context. However, we decided Baseline Shift events and announcements of open/portfolio days would benefit from being easily distinguishable – but in different ways.

Open and portfolio days feature large text so this can be read from the thumbnails, in the scenario that a user wants to find it quickly to see timings, for example. However, with Baseline Shift, the guest speakers’ work would be the main feature rather than our branding. Thus, using brand guidelines from the Baseline Shift team, I created this more understated ‘label’ that means it is still clear on the feed, but not overpowering due to its smaller scale. A set of instructions on how to use the templates were provided on the packaged file in case team members were unfamiliar, and to prevent any changes that risk consistency.

Posting more

One big goal we established early in team discussions was to post more frequently – namely on the main feed.  From being on the team in the previous year especially, I knew this was flagged by our client as something important to them and so made this a high priority. Looking at the balance of posts made across all three academic years of @uortypography, this is something we did achieve:

This goal ultimately improved our engagement and follower count. Starting at 1687 followers at the beginning of the 20/21 academic year and ending with 2030 followers at the time of submitting this post, I definitely think having more content and thus more with which to engage will have contributed to this uptake. Having the aforementioned rota was also very helpful in ensuring we had at least one post to send out every week rather than posting more sporadically as done prior, and thus I cannot recommend this approach enough to the 21/22 team.

That being said, something to improve upon would be the variety within the feed content:

There is a distinct lack of Part 1, Part 2 and Real Jobs engagement compared to that of Baseline Shift, Part 3 and Postgraduate work. This may be down to several factors:

• the way in which Part 3 and Postgraduate work were posted in some cases: both saw week-long daily features of work at one point
• we did not recruit any Part 1 team members as early in the year as had been done prior, and so were unaware of their deadlines until much later
• being occupied with other responsibilities around the time of submission given many projects are often due within the same week, and thus Instagram posts are not seen as high of a priority

Either way, the solution to these gaps are clear for the 21/22 team – one of which being to recruit Part 1 students as informants earlier in the year. Given they will not have been briefed on Real Jobs until the end of the year, it would likely not be fruitful to try and get them fully on board with the team until later as it will seem as too much of a commitment. This thinking is why the current 20/21 team delayed recruitment in the first place, to our detriment. But by taking a more informal approach with Part 1 students acting more as informants initially and keeping the team updated on their projects, this year group can be featured on @uortypography more and earlier.

Another solution would be to post more of the same projects, as done with the Part 3 independent magazine project this year:

Drawing out posts in this way means more content, more appreciation and exposure for the individual designer as was an aim of the team this year, and hopefully more engagement as a whole. There is risk involved, however, as overindulgence can be perceived as irritating rather than engaging to followers. By selecting only the most visually exciting projects to feature in this way rather than taking this view to all deadlines, it is more likely that the right balance can be struck.

Improving engagement

With higher frequency of posts and more followers naturally came a higher amount of engagement. But, the same could not be said for the regular Baseline Shift posts. These were one of the most frequent post features, but were usually the worst performing with a few exceptions. My perception is that this is due to an overabundance of posts harming variety that followers are after – seemingly an obvious conclusion. However, having enough to post around them with no upcoming deadlines during term time, and COVID severely reducing the amount of events in the department, was decidedly difficult. Based on the number of posts we made this year, we did manage to find enough content, but I think perhaps not posting about certain Baseline Shift sessions would relieve some of this strain. For example, Instagram’s insights on the ‘feedback jam’ sessions showed the worst engagement, and these are the least visually exciting posts. Muting these may leave room for our guest speakers to benefit from a better performance.

With the success of Shout Out Saturday, we wanted to engage more in a similar way with the work of our staff and lecturers and promote their interests. This was a vessel to get-to-know more about those teaching us and celebrate their achievements. 

We ended up posting one of these as it quickly came to light that, especially during the pandemic, the format we proposed to interview for content – via email or Teams – would be too time consuming for staff. A more informal approach could be tried post-pandemic – if we hear about a staff project, we could then ask in-person for quick information so the process is less committal. However, this could unfortunately not be attempted this year as we simply did not see anyone enough gain any insights on current projects.

It is important to also objectively review our most engaging posts (calculated via numerical data) in an attempt to figure out what made them so successful, and use this information to decide what to post more frequently. Looking back at this academic year, the following was the ranking of our most favoured posts:

1. The infamous ‘Geoff celebration’ (341 likes, 22 comments, 12 saves)
2. ‘Welcome back to summer term’ (181 likes, 1 comment, 4 saves)
3. Showing the diversity zine (174 likes, 5 comments, 14 saves)

For the crowning most popular post, the reasoning behind its influx of engagement is seemingly because… it is Geoff. But in more digestible terms, users typically respond positively to nostalgia and the personal touch that comes along with this (Bradic, 2015). This may also explain the popularity of the ‘welcome back’ post, given many generations of students have been through the iconic yellow doors of our building numerous times, and they feel it is theirs. But the community feeling of our department means students were also able to become much closer to our staff and lecturers. Thus, seeing someone or something that reminds them of their time here is a good way of driving followers to engage and retell their experiences of T&GC – something that could be taken forward more for next year.

For the diversity zine post, the popularity could be due to the overall aesthetic – the styling, vibrancy of colour and heavy contrast with the white background. It could also be the nature of the zine content itself – our followers may be overall interested in what we are doing to promote diversity in our department and the design world. Alternatively, given the vast number of people involved in the project, this may have caused a ripple effect amongst the collaborators’ followers. The creative discussed in the article shares the post to their followers, and brings their network to our account in the process. While it is difficult to say for certain, this offers a potential set of ‘rules’ for posts:

1. Edit photos to be their most vibrant and contrasting as this is more engaging. This also means creating variety, established as important previously, within the feed as a whole: something we were not always successful at, and should make a conscious effort to do more in future. Simply: if the previous three posts use a lot of white and yellow, make sure the next post does not predominantly use these colours. This will make the experience of visiting the profile as a whole rather than on an individual post basis more enticing.
2. Talk more about what changes are being made in the department to promote more diversity within the course – it may encourage similar changes in other departments or universities as an added bonus
3. Promote more work that engages with creatives outside of the university to reach a wider umbrella of users. A more obvious solution would be to have a regular post highlighting ongoing or completed Real Jobs, tagging the client and designers to encourage reposting in stories.

Another change that we undertook this year was utilising hashtags much more. Focusing now on our top ten posts from this year, these were the hashtags utilised in their captions:

While some of these are naturally very content-specific, a number of the frequent hashtags used were more under the umbrella topic of design. Those that are outside of that broad topic open the account up to more exposure from a wider range of followers, but appealing to those directly interested in design is also not a bad idea. Based on the word cloud, the most popular choices used across our top ten posts were ‘typography’ (8 uses), ‘design’ (3 uses) and ‘illustration’ (3 uses). Given these are, as established, more general and could apply to the vast majority of our posts, it may be worth considering including these as a baseline for all captions. While unable to distinguish which hashtags offered the best engagement specifically, having a consistent set alongside additional content-specific choices would be more likely to generate follower traffic.

That being said, based on the built in ‘insights’ feature on the app, some of the posts did not boast many additional likes via the hashtags anyway. Our main engaging demographic are those following the account already – though not true of posts such as the aforementioned ‘Geoff celebration’ which saw 984 impressions via hashtags. Therefore, the team next year may benefit from brainstorming new and additional ways in which the account could reach a non-following audience alongside these hashtags.

Reflection

As a whole, I am pleased with the progression we have been able to achieve over the last year. I think we were better organised than previous years in terms of our team dynamic, distribution of work, and the consistency of our posting schedule: seemingly having a good impact on our follower engagement. 

This role is different to most Real Jobs listed in our department, and has the slightly odd aspect of wanting to generate more of a handbook of ‘rules’ for future teams to utilise within these blog posts. Hopefully the findings over this last year will provide good guidance – but as a final word of advice, these kinds of analytics would be best curated periodically over the year now that there is this established benchmark.

Background

Art for Research Reading is an organisation that runs yearly to raise money for Cancer Research UK Children and Young People, by running an art competition for 4 to 14 year olds. It is reasonably newly founded, with 2019/20 being the first year of the competition. There were many entries in the first year and the aim is to get more and more as the years go on, though this has been difficult to achieve this year with Covid-19. Art for Research Reading enrols students to compete in the competition through their schools, so the advertising material targets the schools as well as the students who will compete. Every child pays a small fee to enter their work and donation to pick it up again at the end of the exhibition, so it is really important to have as many children competing as possible in order to raise the most money. I joined the committee for the year to join in with monthly meetings, and fundraising events as it is a great way to stay up to date with what is happening in the project, as well as it being rewarding to help for charity.

Unfortunately for Art For Research Reading, Covid-19 has made it difficult to gather entries for the competition, which is really what makes it successful as this is how they raise money for cancer research. The committee decided to postpone the competition from March 2021 until June 2021 so there is more time to gather more entries and organise the event. The event will now be held it online where entries are submitted and displayed through Facebook.

Deliverables

This project involved making a poster, flyer and programme to support Art for Research Reading’s 2021 children’s art competition. The poster aimed to advertise the competition and encourage children to enter work into it. This was completed in May 2020 and sent out in June, nearly a year before the closing date for entries. The flyer originally aimed to get people to come to visit the exhibition, but since the charity changed their mind to hold an online event rather than a physical one, it was more informative of how this would work. The programme contains all the information about the children’s work, judges and the charity. Despite only now having an online event, the committee still decided they wanted a programme showing information about the charity, the competition and all the entries, so that children could see their hard work and awards presented formally and it gives them the opportunity to print it out themselves. Art for Research Reading also hopes that this will encourage interest from more people in the competition for following years.

Research

Art for Research Reading already had a strong visual identity when I joined the team, which had been established by a previous University of Reading typography student. Therefore, I had a reasonably clear starting point when creating material to fit in with this.

The theme for this year’s competition was the environment, so the main focus that the client wanted was for it to fit into the theme. After researching into the branding of charity events, material aimed at children and the previous year’s identity for Art for Research Reading, the client decided they wanted a child appropriate approach with clear information and bright colours, as this was the primary target audience.

The design process and development

The client was clear in wanting the target audience for all designs to be for children, 4 to 14 year olds who might enter the competition. Despite this, all entrants are enrolled to compete through their schools so all material has to go through schools and parents to encourage them to get children to enter the competition, before it even reaches the children. Therefore, the target audience is not only children but their schools and parents, with home learning being done as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. The client was reasonably open to approaches in the design style as long as it fitted with the theme of the environment, was child friendly, and had a consistent design that could work across multiple formats to represent this years competition.

My original design clearly mimicked the previous year’s poster but including a strong environmental theme. The client fed back that they liked the illustrative style but wanted more environmental imagery to get contestants thinking about sustainability and recycling as well as nature.

To follow on from this I created multiple variations with a new design in which the client could choose from. They decided they liked the brighter designs and wanted me to experiment using the colours from cancer research, pink, yellow, blue and grey. I also looked into using different features with the overlapping illustrations such as overlaying the colours and having different textures instead of block colours.

Overall the client decided that this design would be the most appropriate as the illustrative style and bright colours help appeal to a child audience, and the individual illustrative blocks can easily be conveyed to other material. This makes the design easily pliable in different contexts enforcing consistency between all the material for the 2020/21 competition, making it easily recognisable.

Communications with the client

The client was very open minded in allowing me to experiment with what would work best as an approach. Though they had clear constraints and ideas in which were to be included in the material, they were open to all my ideas. The committee have been very supportive in giving me clear feedback and were very active in the design process, allowing us to work together to figure out the approach they wanted. They have also had very clear deadlines in which everything must be done by, helping me to manage my time appropriately.

When I first began this real job, I was given the opportunity to join the Art for Research Reading committee, which I accepted. This ended up being one of the most beneficial parts of this project as not only was I able to connect with the client on a personal level but also stay up to date and contribute my ideas about fundraising and the exhibition. This has allowed me to get a full understanding of the client’s needs and the users I am working for. I also helped share my knowledge of social media and ideas to get the most contestants contributing, which was crucial for the client this year due to the exhibition being held online. Due to having a friendly and trusting relationship with the client it has meant that I have had speedy responses and excellent constructive feedback. As this is a charity everybody is there because they want to be, and the committee are always happy to help out. This has made the real job very positive and fun to be a part of.

Covid-19 restrictions

Due to Covid-19, the client made the decision to postpone the exhibition and hold it online where entries are submitted and displayed through Facebook. Despite this, they still decided they wanted a programme showing information about the charity, the competition and the entries, so that children could see their hard work and awards presented formally and it gives them the opportunity to print it out themselves. They also hope that this will encourage more people to be interested in the competition for following years. The committee decided to postpone the competition from March until June so there is more time to gather more entries and organise the event online. Because this is past the real job deadline, I have created a programme template using the text and information from last year’s competition and will continue to work with them after the real job deadline to create a programme with the up to date information on time for the online exhibition in June.

Conclusion

Overall, I have found this project to be very rewarding. The support from the client has meant it has been really enjoyable and I have gained valuable skills in sticking to very short deadlines, where the client needs something to be completed within a few days, as well as very long ones, where I have six months or so before something needs to be completed. There have been moments in this project where no design work needs to be done but in this time I have continued to attend committee meetings to support with the development of the competition.

Background

In their second term, Part 1 students take on a website project where they are given the logos and brand guidelines in order to help them concentrate on the UX aspect of the project. The brief for this real job required two sets of brand guidelines for local businesses to be created to be used in the Part 1 project. This was a hypothetical rebrand and the businesses included Berkshire Black Business, Readifood, Mobility Trust, and The Mustard Tree. We were allocated one business and were then able to choose the second business we created guidelines for. For each rebrand a colour, white, and black logo had to be created alongside a choice of typefaces and colours. The aim of this job was to create realistic brand guidelines that were suitable for use on a mobile website. This project had a very quick turnaround of two weeks as well as tight deadlines for feedback within this period of time.

To allow this job to progress quickly, all communications were made over email and although research was required, there was no call for a trello board to track progress. The requirements for the job included deliverables of:

Item 1 Brand guidelines on given template for allocated business
Item 2 AI or EPS files for logo versions for allocated business (black, white-out, and full colour)
Item 3 Brand guidelines on given template for chosen business
Item 4 AI or EPS files for logo versions for chosen business (black, white-out, and full colour)

Process

Research

Although this job had a tight deadline, it was crucial that the research phase was not ignored. The job required research into the rebranding process of a major branding company and also research into the business that we would be rebranding. From this research it was clear that the logos needed to be easily scalable so thin strokes could not be used as they would become very thin when scaled up. The logos also had to be uncomplicated as they would be seen at a small size on mobile platforms. Researching into rebranding processes also gave insight into how elements of an old brand can be pulled out and made to work with the new brand whilst also keeping some recognisable traits of the original branding. I was required to design the brand guidelines for Mobility Trust and after researching the other businesses I also chose to rebrand ReadiFood as my chosen business. Mobility Trust is a charity that provides funding for mobility equipment and ReadiFood is a food bank run by Faith Christian Group.

Design

After completing research and having a plan for how I would move forward with the project quickly, I began sketching ideas for the logo. Although there was a tight turnaround for this job, I still felt it important to first complete sketches by hand before moving into Adobe Illustrator. This allowed for more ideas to be quickly sketched which was less time consuming than drawing them in Illustrator first. Doing this also meant that only the strongest logo ideas would be developed in Illustrator which, again, sped up the designing process. The aim for the Mobility Trust logo was to incorporate a vector wheelchair graphic with the name ‘Mobility Trust’ and create a clean, professional logo that would be trusted by the users of the business. The ReadiFood was able to use softer elements than Mobility Trust due to the caring nature of a foodbank in comparison to a charity funding for expensive equipment.

I pulled these sketches into Illustrator and began to draw the strongest ideas that would work well at the smaller size required for mobile websites. These ideas were presented for feedback and the logos that had the most potential were carried forward to begin working more thoroughly on the type that accompanied them.

As this project had to be completed quickly, only one logo for each business was chosen to be developed further. Type was explored to see how effectively it could work with each logo. At this stage, colour combinations were also carefully tested and thought about. To match the serious funding side of Mobility Trust the use of blue was deemed appropriate but incorporated in this, a bright accent colour that could be used for call to action elements on a website. The colour choices for ReadiFood were chosen to use natural, warm tones that matched the nurturing aspect of the brand and created a caring feel.

These ideas were presented for feedback using brand guidelines template. At this stage, an accompanying typeface had been chosen for each business using guidance from articles that discuss suitable typeface combinations for use on websites. The typeface choices of Merriweather and Montserrat for Mobility Trust worked well with each other and were versatile with many font weights.  Merriweather can be used as a display or body text typeface and they also adequately complement each other as one is a serif and the other is a sans serif.

The colours for Mobility Trust worked well but the dark blue initially chosen for ReadiFood was quite dull and did not stand out compared to the green tones also chosen.Oswald and Poppins were originally chosen for ReadiFood, but the two sans serif typefaces did not allow for much contrast when used on a website.

Following this, the ReadiFood guidelines were changed to use a muted red/light burgundy which contrasted well with the green and also worked well with the caring, soft feel that was intended when creating the logo. Roboto Slab was chosen in place of Oswald as it still complemented Poppins but provided a serif typeface for the guidelines and suited the style of the finished logo as previously the condensed look of Oswald sat slightly uncomfortably with the pot used in the logo.

Feedback

Unfortunately, my guidelines were not chosen by any of the current Part 1s to use for their websites. However, I received some general feedback from them and what they experienced when using brand guidelines created in past years. The general comments were that they chose to use guidelines based on their imagined suitability with the topic, such as pinks for a florist. They also found that it was useful having five colours that worked together well but also provided some contrast. An issue that also arose for a few of the students was logos having multiple layers or using thin strokes that did not size up correctly. This made it difficult for them to use as they had to edit the logos and try and fix them before they could be used.

Developments

I was able to develop my logos from the feedback provided to tidy them up and ensure that they worked better for their intended purpose. This included making the pot logo more balanced for the ReadiFood logo and ensuring that the steam rising from it was not too thin. The pot was previously very dominating and sat awkwardly next to the type. To correct this, I scaled the pot down and also edited the pot handles to allow the logo to feel more balanced. I made the rising steam into a more obvious heart shape as although this was a subtle feature it did not stand out clearly enough. I also ensured that the strokes for these were outlined to make them a shape which allows the logo to be resized without affecting the weight of the strokes of the steam, allowing it to be more adaptable.

The Mobility Trust logo received good feedback but I refined the use of the wheelchair wheel as the ‘O’ in Mobility to make it fit the shape of the ‘O’ in the typeface more accurately which allows it to sit more comfortably in place of the ‘O’. This also prompted rotating the person using the wheelchair in the logo to make them more fluent with the direction of the ‘O’ and the logo. I also slightly changed the tone of the light blue used to make it brighter. This contrasted better with the darker blues and was not as dull as the original blue. Another issue that arose was the logo being too deep to work effectively on a mobile format. This was solved easily by moving the ‘trust’ up next to ‘Mobility’ in the logo instead of below to create a long logo but one that was more suitable to fit mobile formats.

Guidelines In use

Although my guidelines were not used by the Part 1s, I used the colour scheme and one of the typeface choices for my own web project. I found that the orange worked really well as a contrasting colour and the dark blue was a really strong background colour that worked effectively with the off-white text colour. I did have to change the light blue that was first chosen to a lighter blue which is shown in the developed guidelines. The previous light blue was too grey and originally made the design feel boring as it blended in too much. Choosing a brighter, more sky blue elevated the design and created a lighter, more upbeat feel.

Reflection

The quick turnaround for this project did create some limitations to exploring and refining the designs. However, it also made me really focus on the project to ensure that I achieved a well thought through design process even in a short amount of time. I was unsure at first how I would manage to complete adequate research and come up with a variety of ideas in such a short timeframe but, although very fast-paced, I realised it was more than possible as I was able to do this whilst also completing work for other projects.

I found it difficult to choose colours without being able to see them used in practice and this was a limitation to the amount of time we had to complete the guidelines. If the timeframe was longer, it would have been really beneficial to experiment with different colour ways on a website mock-up to see how they would work together and complement each other. This was something I found when using the Mobility Trust guideline colours, myself and is a factor that I will definitely consider when designing in the future. Being able to refine the logos after the deadline was beneficial as it allowed me to look at them with a fresh perspective. I found that tweaking the smallest aspects, such as making the Mobility Trust wheelchair logo more round to fit the typeface, allowed the design to look more thought through and therefore work more effectively.

Background

Whilst in Covid-19 lockdown, the client wrote an illustrated children’s book aimed at 6–9-year-old children where all profits will go to Heads Up, a mental health charity, and the WWF. The requirement for the job was to design the layout of the book and make suitable typographic decisions based on the audience and content of the book. The book needed to integrate illustrations with the text in a fun and exciting way to make the book attractive to children.

Restated brief

The aim of this project was to typeset a children’s book which meant a variety of different considerations had to be taken in order to provide a book that would be appropriate for children. The initial brief was to create the text files for a 203x254mm full colour printed book and also an e-book. The client had also asked for some aid with the cover design. Although the book was to be printed, the client knew that they would be researching into this themselves and although they would need some help to ensure the files were appropriate, there were no production arrangements that had to be made as part of this job. However, the client did require different file types for both physical printing and also e-book text files.

Target audience

Children aged 6–9 years old were the target audience for this job and therefore the book had to be formatted to suit the reading ability of this age group and also include typographic detail that would be appropriate but also create some excitement for the audience. Although the book was aimed at younger children, the user personas represented those that may be buying the book for the children as this would often be parents or adults. Therefore, the book needed to be liked and deemed appropriate to aid reading for children by parents and adults that would be buying the book for a child. This is reflected in the user personas created.

New restated brief

The original brief asked for the book to be typeset and files suitable for print and use on e-books to be provided as well as some assistance with the book cover design. However, the client’s ambition for their project changed throughout the job and with this came the need for the book to be marketed in French as well as English. The deliverables for the job therefore required both English and French print ready text files as well as English and French e-book files.

Schedule

The original competition date was due to be in mid-September 2020, but this was more of an aim date as the client was quite flexible. The research and initial designing phase took longer than expected due to the job starting in the summer and therefore prior commitments getting in the way of being able to progress the project quickly. This meant the completion date was pushed back to the end of October. By October all design work had been signed off and both the client and supervisor of this job were happy with the outcomes. However, the original text files that had been handed over from the client turned out to be only a draft copy and needed to be proofread. Therefore, a lot of changes had to be made and the text had to be reformatted each time as large pieces of the copy had been changed and edited. This took a lot of extra time that had not be scheduled in which therefore pushed back the completion date even further. The client was continually sending updated copies of the text files and, learning from past mistakes and in order to save myself time, I requested that they highlight any changes in a different colour. This made it much easier to change the text quickly and meant that the text did not have to be reformatted each time as it was a new file.

Along with changes to the copy and also formatting a French version of the book, the completion date was pushed back to mid-December and finished print-ready files were handed over before this. However, the client required assistance with uploading the text files to Amazon as both a paperback and e-books which took time as it was more difficult than originally expected. This meant that the job was not complete until February 2021 as the client required assistance with making the books available online, despite all design work and files being completely finished by the end of November 2020.

Process

Contact with the client

Due to the covid-19 pandemic, the client was contacted over video call. This method was also used for future meetings with the client which did allow for easy discussion as files could be shared and worked on whilst on the call.

Research

Although I had worked on editorial books before, research into children’s book typography was very important in order to create pages that were attractive and accessible for children. Fortunately, shops were open at the time of research so WHSmith and Waterstone’s were visited to look at competitor books and also get an idea of the features that children’s books include that previous editorial projects would not have used. From this research it was clear that large typefaces with loose leading was very common which allows for easy legibility for children. ‘Fairytale’ style books were also researched as this is what the client wanted their book to be marketed as. These use a larger format and therefore allow for the illustrations to be seen and appreciated more. A lot of the books researched used interesting ornamental flourishes which created more excitement for children and is therefore something that was considered when designing the pages of the book.

Trello board

As this was a one-person job, I did find it difficult to keep up with the trello board. On previous jobs, where work was done as a team, it was easier to keep the trello board updated regularly as it was an easy platform to share files and keep on track of the job with each other. However, working individually meant that it was more convenient to email the supervisor directly with files. All research was completed and shown to the supervisor as well as progress throughout the project but were not uploaded to trello in a very timely manner. It is acknowledged that this is not the most effective way of working but files and progress were shared throughout and kept organised.

Initial designs

The story of this book has a target audience of 6–9-year-olds and therefore the typography needed to be considered in relation to this. As well as looking at other children’s books for this age range research was also carried out and a ‘Typography for Children’ article by Ilene Strizver was read to gain a better understanding of typography for children (Strizver, www.fonts.com). The inclusion and integration of the illustrations with the text was also something that needed to be carefully considered to ensure a sense of cohesion with the text throughout the book. The client had commissioned an illustrator to bring the story of the book to life and as the job began, some of these had already been completed. As the illustrations were high quality the typography needed to match this to present the text in a fun and intriguing way that also represented the sense of mystery created from the story.

The format for the book was decided to be 203x254mm as this was just smaller than A4 and suited the ‘fairytale’ style that the client required. This format worked well with the illustrations and also allowed an appropriate body of text to sit comfortably at a large size.

Type

Initially, typefaces that had the characteristics explained in the article mentioned above were explored and tested. However, the client requested that ‘Sassoon Primary’ was used for the book. Unfortunately, this typeface had to be paid for and after explaining to the client that this would come at an extra cost, more research was conducted to choose a similar typeface that would still be appropriate. An article from indesignskills.com was read but a lot of the recommended typefaces were more display based and not what the client desired. After discussion with the supervisor, Sue Walker was contacted, and permission was given to use the typeface Fabula that she had created as part of a study into the suitability of children’s typography. This typeface was approved by the client and worked well with the book as it has similar features to Sassoon Primary and is specifically created to aid children’s legibility.

Fabula was used at 15pt on 28pt leading as this is a recommended type size for children’s books for the target age. These sizes were found to be appropriate from the research and also research conducted by the client who was aware that the type needed to be much larger for children. The type also used 28pt spacing between each paragraph instead of indents as this allows for better legibility for children and is therefore accessible for the target audience.

Images and text

The initial illustrations that I had been given had defined edges that meant that unless they sat on their own on one page, they did not sit well with the text, especially as they were all portraits. Experiments were made to give an idea for vignette edges, similar to some of the illustrations which did not have defined edges and sat more comfortably with the text. Unfortunately, as I was having to communicate with the illustrator through the client, my ideas were not taken forward, but the client was happy for the portrait illustrations with defined edges to be used at full page which allowed them to sit easily alongside the text on a spread.

During the designing stage of the text formatting, the illustrations were still being drawn so although I had designed the spreads to use full page portrait images, I received illustrations that varied in their format. Some did not have full backgrounds so blended into the page more and others were landscape with an attempted vignette blurred edge. These did not fit with the agreed format and could not be changed due to the illustrator’s time restraints. Fortunately, the illustrations with no background sat happily underneath the text taking up half a page and this did not combat the design. However, the landscape illustrations had the blurred edge taken off them as this did not match the rest of the illustrations and although they did not sit as comfortably below the text, this was where they suited the format the most. The client signed off these decisions and was happy with their placement, so although not the most desired format for the illustrations it was how the client had imagined the book format to look.

Whilst proofreading changes were coming in from the client, they also requested that the illustrations used captions. Research conducted earlier in the process suggested that this was not a usual occurrence for children’s books, but the client felt it would aid the reading journey for the audience and ensure that the illustrations linked to the correct element of the story. As all the illustrations sat at the bottom of the pages, the captions were easy to incorporate but only where they were one line long as otherwise the size of the illustration was compromised which was not desirable. Some of the captions were very long and also repeated some of the story which was not necessary and therefore were acting as more than just an image caption. The client agreed that they could be shortened, and this was an easy fix, though did take some back-and-forth correspondence where some captions needed more words taken out than others to ensure they sat comfortably on one line.

Folios and section breaks

When researching children’s books, many of them used interesting elements such as small illustrations or ornamental flourishes to dress the folios. Usually this is uncommon in a normal editorial book or novel so it was definitely something that needed to be explored as adding extra elements would fit in well with this heavily illustrated book. Different types of flourishes and small illustrations were tested to see which would be most appropriate. Ornamental flourishes were used in some children’s books found in the research but for this particular book illustrations that matched the images were deemed to be more appropriate. As the book is about arctic animals and boats, these types of illustration were mocked up around one, two, and three-digit page numbers to see how they would work best. It was deemed that the polar paw print was most appropriate and suited the purpose most effectively as it related to the story and was not too complex to be seen at small sizes. It also wasn’t too dark and did not distract from the rest of the text.

Instead of using chapters, the book used section breaks initially indicated using an asterisk. However, after finding appropriate illustrations to be used alongside the page numbers, it was appropriate to use another related illustration to indicate a new section within the text. The penguin was chosen as again, it related well to the story and created a fun section indication for children to notice and link to the story. At first these were made too large and fought with the text. Downsizing these to a similar size as used for the folios made them more appropriate and sit much more comfortably to be noticed in the text without attracting too much unneeded attention.

Production

The client knew from the beginning of the job that they would be sourcing their own printer and all that needed to be provided were print ready files. However, as they were on a tight budget and any profits from the book were going to support charity, the printers that were chosen only printed a limited number of formats. Unfortunately, the originally agreed 203x254mm format was not able to be used and so the book had to be changed to 203x276mm. This was not ideal, but fortunately easy to change as the margins were made slightly longer in order to fill the extra space. Although an easy fix, this still took some time to get right as the book had to be redesigned in some places which meant that the already pushed back competition date had to be made even later than originally expected.

The original job had requested for aid with the cover design. However, the illustrator took charge of this as it was deemed most appropriate as the illustration style used in the book correlated to the cover. The illustrator sent over the files that I then assembled in InDesign; however, this incurred issues with sizing, especially as the book format had to be changed very close to the deadline. Fortunately, these issues were resolved easily after contacting the illustrator directly to ensure that the size of the files were exactly correct.

French copy

Halfway through the job, the client decided for the book to also be formatted in French, as the hero of the story lives in Paris. All typographic and design decisions had already been made so this was not too much extra work to take on. However, it did involve formatting the text and ensuring that section breaks were in the correct places and also that the text matched up with the illustrations shown on the corresponding pages. This was a challenge as I do not know any French, fortunately, the translator was able to provide some notes in English on the text file to signal where particular images needed to be placed to ensure that they would be on the correct pages. Like the English copy, the French also went through many iterations and small changes which took time as they had to be sent to the client who sent them on to the translator and back again. Although this was a challenge, it was very interesting, and some valuable skills were gained as it is very different formatting French text than the usual English. It also meant that communication had to be kept on top of to ensure the correct changes were being made and any queries were clearly stated so they could be passed on via the client.

E-book

Part of the job was to create print ready files but also files suitable to be uploaded as an e-book. This involved some research using LinkedIn Learning courses and also some testing but was not too complex. There are two formats of e-book which are reflowable layout and fixed layout. The fixed layout worked for this book as there are a blot of illustrations that have to stay in certain places in the book in order to correlate to the correct part of the story. A reflowable layout was tested but this completely reorganised the format and did not work. The e-book files were created and tested on the Amazon Kindle Preview app. It was also ensured that the colour space of all the illustrations was changed from CMYK in the print appropriate files to RGB which is used for screens.

Amazon book

As the e-book files had been created as EPUBs they were easily uploaded to Amazon by the client, but Amazon also provides a service where the book can be bought by the reader and printed from Amazon which is a cheap alternative to using a printer and distributing the books in bookshops. Therefore, as the book profits go to charity, this was a suitable method for the client to sell the book. Due to the nature of this process and similarly to the printers that the client had chosen, they only printed certain book formats. Unfortunately, the new format of 203x276mm was not available but the original format 203x254mm was which meant no changes had to be made as the files were also up to date in this size as well. For consistency, this is not ideal but due to cost limitations it was convenient for the client who approved both sizes being used. Part of the challenge of uploading the print files to amazon included ensuring that the correct ISBN number was on the correct book as different numbers had been used for both the English and French printed texts and also the English and French Amazon texts. This meant thorough checks had to be made before uploading and confirming the files to be printed. The real problem came with uploading the cover files which had specific requirements in relation to bleed and print area. This took a lot of trial and error and also required the illustrator to edit the cover and move elements where the barcode had to be added with no control over its placement. Eventually, using the specific requirements for the file, this was rectified.

The client has limited technical ability, so screen recordings were made to aid them upload the correct files and use the correct settings to ensure that the upload process was easy and uncomplicated for them. At a later date, the client also decided to upload the book to Barnes and Noble. The process was very similar and the files that were made suitable for Amazon were also correct for Barnes and Noble too which meant a seamless uploading process.

Final designs

These are some example spreads in the book shown on screen and in print. The cover of the book is not any of my own artwork and the only role I played was assembling the separate front, back, and spine files from the illustrator into one file in InDesign.

Reflection

Although this was my third real job, it was the first one that I had completed on my own. There were positives and negatives to being an individual on a job. I found that it was much easier to develop designs quickly as my supervisor was my main point of consultation. However, where I lacked creativity and struggled to think of new ideas there was no one else who knew the project that I could discuss developments with which is a beneficial factor of working in a team. The use of the trello board for this job also suffered as I did not need to share my ideas with anyone but my supervisor and client which was more convenient to do over email. Although my files were organised, it would have been easier to keep up to date and show progression with regular uploads to the trello board.

Formatting text for books was something I was familiar with, but this was not editorial, but a novel so required different types of typography. The target audience was also children which meant that many different factors had to be considered that do not have to be as crucially correct in a book formatted for adult reading, such as specific type legibility, size and leading. This job allowed for some creativity with the illustrated folios and a lot of new skills were also learnt. Specifically, communicating with those other than the client such as the illustrator and the translator which meant any questions had to be carefully related through the client and emails had to be constantly kept on top of.

This was my first experience of working with printers and also printing platforms and e-books. The e-books presented less of a challenge than I had expected but uploading the book to Amazon and also experiencing constraints with format size was something I had not expected. Fortunately, these issues were resolved without many additional problems, but they did take more time than expected. For this reason, it was fortunate that the client understood that these problems were unavoidable and was able to be flexible with the completion date.