Music Flyer

In college, we were given a short task of creating a pamphlet/flyer for another higher education course in college. We were all given a lot of information and notes along with it, but no design notes or guidelines.

Straight away I went to the college website. I figured that the flyer should link to the college with it's colours and brand, but also the prospectus gave me some idea for the design. So, this is how I came up with my initial design.

This design was liked, but there were some notes to take on board. For instance, the colours when printed were muddy. This is because I could only get the colours from the website so when printed they didn't have the same effect. Another big point was the focus, it wasn't on 'HNC Music' which the client would've preferred. The picture used was also unclear. I had gotten this from the website but it was the only part not covered in text, so it was a little ineffective.

A note was made the client liked mine and another student's, so we decided to work together to produce a similar leaflet. We ended up with a couple of versions: one with the other student's picture and one without.

The one with the other student's picture worked well, and we designed the layout and colours a little to fit better. However, one thing I noticed that bugged me was one picture was in black and white, and the other side of the design was colour.

This led us to grabbing a new picture and tweaking the design for it. This worked really well, and I'm really proud of our collaboration.

Typography in Handmade Books

To look into typography in handmade books, I looked at examples. There were a variety, where some had printed the type, and some had done it by hand. It depended on the time it was made, and what content there was. The printed fonts were more professional and modern, whereas the handwritten fonts were artistic or even very old.

So I looked into hand-drawn type on Pinterest and came across some interesting ones. I made this mood-board here, and I even drew some myself. These fonts looked really cool and interesting, as they can be more artistic than letters, which I like. It also shows you, you can incorporate banners and objects into font to create an even more hand-drawn/made look.

I drew some out in my sketchbook, and some I really like (like a melting E) and some didn't work out too well (like the big fail of an F). This helped me to realise I wanted to develop in hand-drawn type, which lead me to my next idea...

I looked further into hand-drawn type but in a more creative way. There are examples of typography where you produce the text using objects. Here are some examples.

I liked this idea as it was unique, and I could always come up with something linked to my content. Thinking about this I thought it could be good if I could use match sticks or ash (probably not ash) to create my own typography.

I wanted to keep my font simplistic as I'm not including many words (only The Little Match-Seller, or something like 'see through new eyes'). Either that, or I could use my fanciest handwriting as the story was created by a poet in the 1800's.

Handmade Book Idea

For our new brief on handmade books, we were given a theme of fairy tales. We were also given a printed brief with some inspirational ideas. I wanted to create something clever and unique, but not overly complicated. A liked a picture from the brief, and knew I wanted to do something very similar.

It's a paper pair of binoculars, but in one eyes is one view and in the other is another. I loved this creative take on perspective, so I thought to portray a fairytale is the same way.

At first I thought I could do something like The Little Mermaid where the princess was worried about losing her voice, but in the other eye the prince was talking to chatty girls, wishing for someone who was quieter. I thought this would be funny and clever, but I kept searching.

We watched a video in class where a book artist would create paper scenes that were quite obscene, but no words. This remind me of my own idea as I'd have no words to describe what was happening, but I liked the idea of having a bit of a twisted idea.

So, I went back to Google and looked at other stories by Danish poet and writer, Hans Christian Anderson. One story I remember reading years ago fit perfectly with my idea. The Little Match-Seller. The story is of a homeless little girl who tries to sell matches, in the cold of winter. She ends up on New Year's Eve burning all of her matches for warmth but also because she would start to dream. Food, warmth, a home and her grandmother were in these dreams, and she ends up leaving with her grandmother, leaving her frozen body behind.

In the story people who see her feel bad for her, seeing how frozen she is and all of her burnt matches, but they don't know about the happiness the little girl dreamt about and died to. So, this gave me the idea of having one eye looking at a sad, cruel scene of a frozen body, but the other is the girl with her grandmother walking away to light.

I have designed this in my sketchbook and I'm excited to get
my hands stuck in.

Havard Referencing

Referencing in your own work is important, as it’s giving credit to using other’s finding and data. Without legal referencing, it’ll be a case of copyright - and it’s also not fair to take someone’s findings and not credit them.

There is a formal way of referencing and that is called Harvard Referencing. This is a great way to reference and quote in essays and research projects, too. To quote a book you have to include the information in this order:

Author, Surname, Initials. (Year) Title. Edition if not 1st. Place of publication: Publisher.

If you want to cite a website or article, you need to include the information in this order:

Author (Year) Title of web page. Available at: URL (Accessed: date).

If there is no author, then you need to provide the organisation instead. How you'd put these in an essay is either at the end, or you can cite it in the paragraph you need. For example, new research from the Telegraph (2017) has shown 'a new study has suggested that eating chilli peppers could be the secret to a longer life.'

My FMP Idea(s)

Though our final major project seems so far away, we've already started to think and plan towards it. In media theory, we are starting our research project. Though it isn't final, I'm trying to choose a topic related to my FMP.

Research comprises "creative work undertaken on a systematic basis in order to increase the stock of knowledge, including knowledge of humans, culture and society, and the use of this stock of knowledge to devise new applications." (Wikipedia, 2016). In its most general sense, research involves investigating a topic to learn more about it.

A research project is a form of collecting and presenting all of this data, in a certain structure. First, you introduce your topic, and any theories you have. After that you present all of your primary and secondary research, ending with a conclusion and an outcome, based on your findings. You can present this in many ways, but the most popular is in print form - like a professional booklet.

You can use many research methods in a research project, and that's one of the great things about it. For instance, focus groups, questionnaires, case studies, etc. The purpose of all of this, of course, is to gain knowledge in an area of study, and draw up the best outcome you can.

For my research project, I wanted to link it to an idea I had for my FMP.

However, until earlier today my FMP idea was undecided.

I was going to research something I'm passionate about: preventing animal cruelty, modern day novels, or something else. The first idea was hard to link to media, though there are many documentaries on animal cruelty like Black Fish and Tyke the Elephant, it's hard to make this into a publishing project. Also, I wouldn't know what angle to take this on, though I am passionate about it.

My next idea was modern day novels. I am passionate about writing, and I could do a research project on how books and the industry has changed, and why? There were many angles I could take with this, like are e-books now the way forward? Is reading as popular as before? However, these have been done before (many times, too), and even myself who is passionate about reading and writing got bored of the idea.

Then, this morning, I thought of a while new angle for my research project and FMP (and it includes writing).

The idea for my final project is to print a children's book, but the content was something I couldn't figure out. So, I made my research project question: Are children's book better with morals?

I already have some knowledge of children's book for a number of reasons: a) I wanted to work in a  children's book publishing firm, b) I want to work somewhat in creating children's stories in films or books, and c) I have a five year old sister.

I personally love children's books with morals in, whether subtle or literally quoted in the book. I think they teach people great values and put it into a whole new perspective. However, whether or not children get these messages from books is interesting.

I made an online mind-map to help me organise my ideas, and how to develop them. These questions helped me make my research project more solid and structured, and seem more complete. Now I can develop on this confidently as I progress into the brief.

Reflection

So, now I've finished my project, it's time to reflect on it.

The first stage was planning and drafting, and this included my research, cover, page layouts and any feedback I developed on. I liked this stage, as this was the designing part and having creative ideas. Halfway through I got feedback from my peers about my drafts, including my own critique, and this really helped me make some decisions about what I should use or work on. This led me to the next stage.

Designing in the software. InDesign is something I have been using more recently than ever, and this interactive book led me to new skills to learn. However, at the start, my book was very basic, with content and images, but the only interactive element was the contents page and links to the other pages. This was also a new skill I had learned to use, but I got some feedback: where was the interactive book?

So, this led me back to the drawing board and I planned where I'd add video, audio, slideshows and external links. I used online tutorials and the toolbar to navigate my way around, and soon interactive elements were added in my book. You can read more about the changes in this blog.

Finally, I exported it as an ePub and flicked through on iBooks. First impressions were that I was proud of it, and I loved the more interactive elements. I had interactivity on almost every page (if not all), and some of the interactivity was quite creative. However there were flaws, too. The layout of the text, although styled to the 60's, had some issues. I had left some paragraphs split up in odd places, and sometimes the text didn't quite flow. I did fix these major issues before exporting it again. Also, there was still more room for interactivity, and I could've added GIFs or more videos or external links or articles.

So, final question: is this my best work? 

Honestly? No. However, it is some of my best work, and I'm proud that I kept working at it and made it the product it is.

Our Mini-Brief

- Explain Brief
- Starting Point (any questions?)
- Design
- Sizes
- Final

We were given a brief to internally advertise a degree-level course for music in Bath College. We were given a lot of information to include, or to give space to include, about fees, benefits and course entailment.

I started with what I knew about the college - the brand. I got the colours and fonts from the website, and I included pictures from the college prospectus also. Next was the layout. I decided to use colour and lay-overs to make the pamphlet 'pop' out. Though I used dummy text, I did change the original 'If you enjoyed L3 and want to carry on studying here but at University level, why not apply for HNC Music?'. It was a bit too long and robotic, so I used the title: 'Are you ready to study at University level?'. This makes it personal to the reader and peaks their interest.

I printed my draft and realised the colours I used (though official) were web colours, and looked 'muddy' on print. So, I altered the colours I used. I also made small changes, like the position of the images, the emphasis on the you, the lining up of the text. All of these tweaks and changes made my final pamphlet - and one I'm proud of.

The only issue I have with it, is on the right-side the dark blue box with the teal text. No matter what I did, altering colours and positions, it didn't really work as print. Digitally it was fine, but on print it was hard to distinguish. I think with more time I could've added a bit more flow and colour to that page.

Also, I didn't get around to printing a poster version, only the A5 hand-out.

My Final Show...next week?

In class we got asked: what would you put in your final show, if it were next week?

Obviously I have other briefs and projects coming up I'll probably include in my show, but it got me thinking. What would I place in it? Well, I started thinking up on Illustrator what my content would be, considering we get given a 1 metre by 1.5 metre board and an iMac. We also have an include a picture of ourselves with a biography (a CV, really).

On the iMac, I'd like to display my interactive book as I am proud of it. Then, on the board would be my CV, my typography poster, colour-ways poster, wildlife centre logo and record reviews. Of these, I want to include my typography poster and record reviews for sure. I like my logo and colour-ways, but I may need the room for future projects.

Now, let me explain.

The weird circles? It's an idea I had on how to display my work in a creative way. I also sketched it out. I want to cut holes (fairly big) into the board, and put lights behind. My work would be on stands glued to the board. I have been thinking and researching, and I could get the right equipment to do it myself, but shops like HomeBase can provide a wood cutting service (which may save me time, stress and cut-up fingers).

Adding Interactivity

Before Christmas I had a finished book.

I had added splashes of colour, the content, and even links to the pages from the first page. I was fairly proud of the product, until I got the feedback: 'where's the interactivity?'

Flicking through my book, each page could've been printed. There was no consistent interactivity, so I came back and decided to add interactivity to every page. I made a list for me to follow.

I started with something simple - pictures. I wanted to be able to flick through images with arrows on a page, so I started with this tutorial. This tutorial shows you how to create a slideshow, and also how to add animations to text or boxes. I applied that technique to my 'skip this advert' boxes.

Adding more audio, video and links to pages were easy enough with the tools in InDesign. To be a little more creative and challenging I made my 'MUSIC' page interactive also. You can see how to the left.

Overall, I'm now pretty pleased with my book, and I just have to reflect upon it.