Rational

Choosing 'Sports and Rec' as my destination theme, I decided to focus on a younger target audience (kids/teens/youth). I did research into design and found in particular Tom Whalen interested me, and the style of cartoonish illustration which I thought would be engaging to my audience and helped to convey a sense of fun. Use of colour also interested me, as I found bright contrasting colours to be eye catching, and help to convey that sense of fun/excitement. I also attempted to utilize line qualities, such as the twisty lines for go karting compared to the diagonals for laser tag, and textures such as the rock-climbing handholds and laser tag maze to give a feel for the destinations.

I wanted to create an obvious similarity that would link the pages while marking them as different corresponding activities. As such, I kept the text layout for the destination very similar, and focused on using the illustrative parts (lines, colour, shapes, textures, images) and headings to show that. To unify the theme pages I utilized colour, fonts and textures. I did my best to keep everything easily legible, separating out information clearly.

Week 6

This was our last chance for in class time. I printed out a new mock-up with all of the revisions included, talked over it with lecturer, and identified further refinements to be made. At this point there is very little time remaining, so it's good that they do not seems to think any major changes need to be made. This stage is really final touches, polishing up anything that's problematic.
I should make some adjustments to the cover so that the heading aligns properly, and the subheading isn't so close to the edge, and use a lower line weight for the jagged red lines since they are overpowering. I should also look a paragraph breaks to improve legibility.

After one-on-one I continued to work in class and beyond to create a final that I was happy with. Some further tweaks may happen before hand-in, but I believe I have completed the booklet as best I can.

Week 5 pt. 2

 I do not believe I will invest in professional printing, partially because it takes a level of control away from me as well as confining my time.
I printed out my first mock-up brochure this day (rather than just plain spreads). It allowed to to see the design as a whole, further identify errors and ensure that the work functioned together. More one on one time also helped me to note changes to be made.
The response I got to different heading fonts for spreads seemed positive, and I do believe it helps to encapsulate the mood of each destination. I did not think shifting the three points across benefited the design though (quite the reverse) so that never made it into the print out. More minor touch ups. Need to re-arrange the map page, remove the heading for that one since it's redundant and tone down the destination panel beside the map as it is distracting. The cover also does not communicate a sense of excitement, so that must be redone.
This stage of cleaning up ad refining the design is important, and one-on-one time is a huge help in that endeavour.

Week 5 pt.1

The lecture on mapmaking came a bit late, as myself, and I believe most people in the class, had already created theirs. However, it did make me more confident that my map worked, despite a lack of road names. It uses the waterfront as a point of reference, to get an easy idea of where the destinations would be in relation. Since most people will just look up a place location if they want to go there, specifics are not important.
Anyway, the first class hit off with another cross class presentation, followed by one-on-one time.
My design had not changed greatly since my last post, although I had identified my third attribute (pricing, student discount) which was an ideal group number. This could be portrayed by a simple icon depicting a rough silhouette (think similar to an anon icon). I think it works best visually rather than written as it gives an immediate idea of numbers at a glance, rather than making the viewer attempt to envision the group. I'm glad to finally have thats solved because I was struggling to fine one that fit (opening hours wouldn't work, nor would age since they're for all ages, nor would anything like level of noise be relevant). Now I officially have all my content sorted and it's simply a matter of rearranging or adjusting elements and perfecting the design.
The one-on-one time helped me to identify problems in my work that need attention, and things I might look at trying out. A lot of it is fixing minor details at this point, although there are still changes to be made.
I am dubious about some of the suggestions, such as having different fonts for each spread (as I have been taught that using multiple fonts is bad idea and having a simple base set helps create unity in a work). It was also suggested that I move the three points (student discount, pricing, group) across in line with the body text, which would force me to make two lines for the group numbers on the laser tag spread and that would put them very close to the edge. However, I shall try them out, and if they do not work I can always revert. The important thing is to keep trying to push it further toward a complete state.

The Break pt.2

I think I may have worked out what to do with the Go Karting page, but am now struggling with the Rock Climbing one. I also have concerns that my text layout is pretty much identical on each destination spread, and I should probably experiment with ways to change that. Also, the Laser Tag text seems quite long despite only being 100 words, and difficult to fit with the diagonal. Ideally I'd like more of a gap between the main text and the information points (student discount, pricing, etc). Uncertain about the text heavy spreads, I have difficulty working with text. I will keep working, but an looking forward to getting some feedback next week.

The Break

Working on refining my designs, and finding ways of solving the problems that were noted in feedback. I'm having trouble fitting large amounts of text in. Also the Go Karting page is frustrating me, as I'm having difficulty getting the different elements to jive. Still haven't worked out a third communication point.

Week 4

In class today we had the opportunity to look at the work of all the groups, and were encouraged to consider their successes/failures in terms of a worksheet we were provided with. This was very useful in terms of inspiration, assessing problems in other's work that may also be apparent in ours, and gaining an understanding of the expectations. My one gripe about this is that it would have been useful if people left notes, as we then would have been able to get feedback from a pool of maybe 100, which would be insightful, even if all of it was not constructive.
Next we were paired up in order to critique each others work using the worksheet. We were also given some 1 on 1 feedback from lecturer. This all helped me to identify faults in my own work, and possible solutions. The overall response I have got is positive, which is encouraging, though I feel I still have a way to go, and am wary of the big theme page. I also think I need to finalise my copy text, as I have a little less than 100 words, and I believe 100 is the minimum? As far as I understand it my next step is continuing by creating the other pages, and refining the ones I have done.

Week 3

This week we looked more closely at grids and composition. We began drawing up compositions using the grid for our spreads. The best of these were used to generate our mock up spreads. Feedback on my work helped me to make a decision as to the style I wanted to work with for my brochure. This meant moving away from more heavy illustrative work involving drawing in photoshop, and going for crisper, vector based pictures created in illustrator. I feel this is the right decision as my drawings tend to have a messier quality that I don't think conveys the professionally I strive for, and in terms of time management work in illustrator is much quicker and easier to manipulate. Other important feedback was that it might be difficult to have title fonts changing over spreads, that multiple, narrow columns make the writing unnecessarily difficult to read. The photo of the tires perhaps interferes with the illustrative qualities of the helmet/track, and is unnecessary, so I might look at another element to replace that. Twisty lines are good. I do worry thought that for the top mock, the design is too minimal for the feel/energy of the theme.


At this point, having clarified and tested the direction I wish to take, and having finished most imagery, I am feeling confident about the place spreads but have concerns about the theme ones as there is a lot of text to work with and it is all difficult to fit, let alone organise in a visual style.
Work is now to complete 2 destination spreads and 1 theme spread for Monday.

Week 2 pt. 2

In class we showed our collage work for a group crit in which we talked about the success of imagery in conveying the feel of locations and why that is (contrast, colours, scale, leading lines etc). I had slightly misinterpreted the homework, as I had taken it to mean a layout mockup or something similar, but trimmed up the work to just include imagery. Ultimately my work was quite rough, and I was unhappy with it. I found I had difficulty working with photographs, and after a discussion with lecturer decided I would be better taking a more illustrative approach. This is firstly because I think I have better skills with illustration than photographic work, and also because it gives me the opportunity to 'exaggerate' which I hoped would make me more enthusiastic about the project. It also ties in with my target audience, as I feel illustration, if the right style is used, is more engaging for younger audiences and can better portray the energy of the theme. The work I've looked at in my research all favours that kind of approach. The one element of my work I did like was the use of lines, which I wanted to keep.

We also did a group exercise where we matched adjectives to designs. This helped is in identifying why certain approaches convey certain feelings/ideas, which is useful in developing visual cues in our own work.

My next step was catching up by generating imagery, as further steps are difficult without it since the imagery should inform the design.

Week 2

I know I probably should have posted earlier, but I'm still a bit confused about which steps are important to upload here, so I'll just mark roughly where I am now and go from there.

I've now officially visited all three of my locations, and collected photos, as well as brainstorming 2 pages for each on icons/colours/emotive qualities etc. My next step is narrowing down the artistic style I wish to use for my design. 

I've already done some research and collected images of styles I like, and have made a couple of rough mock-ups (though I am not too keen on either of them). I honestly feel like I'm a bit behind at this point though, I'd like to have a better idea of the direction I want to pick, and more mock-ups. I find I struggle at until I latch onto something I like, but hopefully inspiration will strike. It's hard to advance the project until I've really filled out this step. I think what I need to do is work on volume, and try out as many approaches as possible.

Because of my target audience (youth/family) I probably don't want anything too slick or minimal, a more exciting and vibrant look would work better, especially to convey the feel of excitement/fun that should go with my theme (indoor sports/rec).

In class we did a drawing exercise where we were expected to make drawings on an object from our location with a receding time limit, using different tools. This helped to generate a lot of material, which even if we chose not to use later on in our work might inform our art/design.

Week 1 pt.1

We began by brainstorming, allowing us to come up with a range of ideas and options for our project. Generating a vast amount is important as it allows us different paths to take, rather than narrowing ourselves down to one immediate idea.