MA 03 - LAYOUT

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INTRODUCTION

Enlightenment office (OEK) for eggs and meat want to create a recipe book targeted towards students and young adults. In this task, we have been assig-ned to design this booklet using InDe-sign. The following is a documentation of my research and work process lea-ding up to my final product.

Interpretation of the task

The enlightenment office (OEK) for eggs and meat want to create a recipe book targeted towards students and young adults. My job is to design a booklet for them with a suiting look that will appeal to the target audience. The booklet will consist of a front and back cover, a pre-face, content repository, recipe and con-tact information. We have been handed the text and images which will be used, and we are not allowed to edit the text. However, we may add text, images and

Illustrations. In addition to the creati-ve process that follows, this task focus on awareness regarding imaging, page layout, grid systems, use of typography and colors, and awareness about visual media and communications in print me-dia.

I started out researching existing recipe books, and books in general, to get an idea of layout, grids, colours and sty-les used. I also did research on OEK, to get some insight in who they are. After sketching by hand, I struggled quite a bit before finding the style I wanted to go for in InDesign, as it gets a different look there, and every elements should be positioned very accurate.

Concept and target

The enlightenment office for Eggs and Meat is a Norwegian private organisati-on. Through their webpage, matprat.no, they contribute food aspiration and they seek to provide information on behalf of the Norwegian food industry. Their pur-pose is to promote the sale of Norwegi-an-produced eggs and meat, as well as create a value for these commodities. They do this through providing know-

ledge about the subject, as well as in-spiring consumers through promoting exciting recipes etc. through various medias. Their market it generic, which means that they are not tied to one brand, but a commodity group. They are a brand neutral player who work on behalf of the entire Norwegian egg and meat industry. The farmer is their client, and the Norwegian consumers are their target group.

However, for this specific booklet, the target group are student and young adults, for whom eggs are an economic product to use for cooking, and they want to introduce the endless possibiliti-es it presents.

RESEARCH AND WORK PROCESSCreative & inspiration methods

As I already mentioned, I started out by researching existing cook books and books in general, in order to get some inspiration regarding layout, style and composition. I also did research on grid systems, in addition to watching tutori-als on the subject. Then I did some re-search on eggs, and discovered theendless possibilities of wordplay “eggs”

provide. That was when I decided I wan-ted to give the booklet a witty vibe, by adding some fun illustrations, wordplays and quotes. At the same time, I had the target group in mind, and I thought that this would appeal to a young audien-ce. I also figured that this would add to the concept behind the booklet (being eggs). I did some further research on egg quotes, wordplays and jokes, and started sketching for illustrations that I would do in Illustrator. I have created some of the jokes myself, and taken in-spiration from existing illustrations and jokes for some of my illustrations, but I feel I have adapted and changed them to be my own (see inspirational images on mood board further down).

When it comes to layout, grids and sty-le, I played around a lot back and forth in InDesign. I had done the sketches by hand first, as to how I wanted the layout to look like, but in InDesign my original plans turned out looking qui-te messy. It was hard to estimate it all when sketching by hand, as the amo-unt of text varied quite a lot between the pages etc. (more about this under composition, layout, grid)

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SKETCHES AND WORK PROCESSDigital and by hand

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MOODBOARD

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DESIGNStyle and genre

As I’ve mentioned, I designed cartoo-nish illustrations for most of the pages, to give the booklet a witty vibe. I choo-se to do this because I wanted to make it more fun, and I thought it would appeal to the target audience. Also, I thought it would add more persona-lity to the book. This gives a cartoonish thread throughout the book. I’ve tried to add that same style through the design, yet making the background look more soft and calm to prevent it from looking too busy.

Typography

I experimented with several different fonts, and I ended up using a total of 3 fonts throug-hout the booklet. I used Kristen ITC as the car-toonish font in the talk bubbles for the illustra-tions, which I found a suiting cartoonish font.

I chose to go for the MS Reference Sans Serif as the body text font, because it looks classy and clean, and therefore does not disturb the rest of the design. At last, I used Bauhaus 93 as the head-line font as I thought it blended well with rest overall design, yet it stands out.

Colours

There are two characters, being the two eggs, who follow throughout the boo-klet. I have used the same white (egg shell color) and grey from the male egg character, and the same pink/magen-ta colour from the ribbon of the female character, as I have used in the rest of the design. Using the same colors in the illustrations as in the rest of the design makes it look more harmonic and cle-an, as the illustrations blend more into the design. However, the colors of the illustrations are a bit sharper to make them stand out a bit, while the colours in the rest of the design are a bit softer. I find that using a bit sharper colours in smaller areas are okay, as long as the colors of the overall design are comfor-table to look at. At first I tried using only the egg white and grey, but felt it

looked a bit boring, so I added the pink, and felt that the colors blended well together and that it added more “life” to the design.

Composition, layout and grid

I began by formatting a double-page spread and applied it to the entire publi-cation, in order to show how the verso relates to the recto. Since I wanted to add illustrations and quotes/wordplays to most of the pages, and the amount of text varied quite a lot, it was a challenge to fit everything nicely, and at the same time avoid for it to look messy. For this reason, the layout and visual structure and organization of the elements vary a bit between the pages. However, I felt that was okay as long as I kept the mar-gins, color use, style and rhythm consis-tent throughout the design. I have used lines and geometric shapes to control the dynamics of the compositions and added white and negative space to add some breathing room. I’ve tried to keep the margins equal through all the pages, and to give some extra space where the pages will fold.

I came across a quote referring to grids by Allen Hurlburt:

“The grid is not an absolute. It should be used with flexibility, and when ne-cessary it should be modified or aban-doned completely for a more workable solution”

By this I understand that grids are tools, not restrictions. Therefore the grids should not restrict creativity, only act as an aid to keeping structure and organi-sation within the design layout, which is how I feel I have used the grids in this task.

SELF EVALUATION

I have learned a lot through the process of this assignment. As this was my first time working with InDesign and my first introduction to layout and grid systems, I found it difficult at first to wrap my head around it. The tutorials and text book was very helpful, but I feel that I still need more practice to fully under-stand it and get comfortable working with it. I started out sketching and do-ing the illustrations in Illustrator, but I eventually realized that this had taken

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SOURCES AND REFERENCES

up too much of my time. I found myself in a bit of a time pickle towards the end, working day and night and I even had to take the last few days of from work to work on my project. Though in the end, I am happy with my final product.

Otherwise, it was challenging but fun to work on a multi-page publication. Dea-ling with 24 pages at the same time that needed to collaborate was new to me. It was a lot to think about at the same time, but in the end I think I managed to get a harmonic flow through the pa-ges, even though the compositions and layout vary a bit between the pages.

- Tutorials at Lynda: InDesign essential training (2015) by David Blatner Print production guidelines by James Wamser- Book: graphic design school by David Dabner- http://www.matprat.no/om-oss/- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opplysningskontoret_for_egg_og_kj%C3%B8tt- https://css-tricks.com/snippets/css/complete-guide-grid/- http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=708905- http://www.thehut.com/blog/news/egg-puns-easter/- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookbook- https://www.google.no/search?q=cook+book+design&source=lnms&t bm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi5if-0sP_SAhWC3SwKHWEaCDUQ_AUIBigB&bi w=1536&bih=723#spf=1

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CHANGES MADE

After feedbacl from the sensor, I was made aware of some room for improvement:

”The font choice and colours are not the best, they give the book a dated feel, and a bit more childish than students would like. The cookbook needs a bit more consisten-cy and white/breathing space. There’s too much solid grey colour blocks. And page 7 with the full blue background falls out of place in the rest of the book.”

As you can see, I had some things to work on. I started out changing the fonts. Origi-nally I was using High Tower Text for both headlines and body text. I changed the body text with MS Reference Sans Serif, as it is a more suiting font for body text, and added Bauhaus 93 as the headline font, to make the headline stand out a bit.

Then I moved on to the colors. I decided to keep the pint and grey that I was originally working with, though I made a lot of

adjustments. I wanted to keep the colors because they go well with the illustrations, but I made the colours sharper, to get rid of that dated feel. Also, I removed the lar-ge grey and pink blocks, in order to add more white breathing space. To prevent it from looking boring, I added some dotted lines to seperate parts of the recipes. The blue background that was representing the sea on the Tuna Salad recipe, I got rid of completely. Since I added some bubbles by the fish, I figured this would be enough to represent the same thing.

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