Further book production (OUGD404)

So due to my screen printed glow in the dark designs not working out I had planned to vinyl cut out my spreads in gloss white. Unfortunately the type size at 10pt was way to small for this to be possible.

A solution to this could've been to screen print clear or white ink onto white paper, but there would be no guarantee it would be visible enough and due to my growing frustration with screen prints not working I decided not to try that idea. Instead it was suggested to me that I lazer print black onto black paper. This worked amazingly and was so easy to produce.

As you can see when laid flat the type still looks completely invisible as I initially wanted it to.

But when on an angle the text is legible. 

This means my book is no longer all white but i'm still happy with it as it now means each section is printed on different stock (white paper, black paper and acetate). So when the book is bound, due to it being open spine you will easily be able to see the different sections and this will look really appealing and attractive.

https://www.behance.net/gallery/1667606/Invisible-Business-Card

Another thing suggested to me as a way of making invisible printing is to print in Lemon juice. As shown above this method appears invisible until heated up when the type appears as brown. This is a really interesting idea and although it wouldn't be as good for my book as its not reversible it could be good to make some promotional material for the book using this method (if I have time).

Design principles - production so far (OUGD404)

So far the production of my book has been incredibly stressful and theres been a lot of problems and changes been made but things are looking good.

Above shows just some of the experimentation i've done so far.

I started the books production by making a small mock up of how the pages will be bound together so I could work out the pagination when screen printing.

The first section of the book I printed was the glow the dark section. As you can see in the image above I had a lot of issues with the ink printing evenly but eventually I got the screen clear enough after some test prints on black scrap paper.

The final spreads using the glow in the dark ink were brilliant at looking completely white and invisible which is brilliant.

When you look at the pages from an angle in bright light you can see the type faintly. But unfortunately bad luck struck! The glow in the dark screen printing ink turns out to glow really faintly so when you go in the dark you cannot read this type at all making the idea (and around 9 hours of screen printing) pretty useless. Instead I have come up with an alternative method for this section, I will cut out gloss white vinyl stickers of the type and put them on the white stock so it can only be read from a certain angle.

Luckily the cover that I also printed in glow in the dark ink worked better as it spanned a larger surface. Once again it looks hidden most of the time.

But looked at from an angle the hidden moon is visible.

The images above show the positives I used to develop my screens, I made this on Illustrator with the aid of my initial mock up for pagination.

The next part was the most simple, I printed the black laser printed type onto my pages which luckily ran smoothly.

Last but not least I screen printed the white ink on acetate section of the book. My initial screen for this was completely ruined as I used some second hand ink which blocked my screen beyond repair. You can see in the image this ruined my prints making them un-usable. 

I started over again with a brand new screen and mixed new ink and luckily it printed perfectly! I was really happy with this as the pt size I chose seemed to be just big enough to print clearly and effectively.

When the prints are on top of white paper (which they will be when bound) the type is almost invisible which was the desired effect making these prints a huge success!

Things left to do

• Do the vinyl cut section of the book
• Do the embossed section of the book
• Open spine bind the final 

(OUGD406) studio brief 3 - study task 1 - Tower works re-brand

This study task was to re-brand TowerWorks Leeds in our groups for SB3.

This is their current logo, as a group we decided firstly the logo had areas that were too intricate and wouldn't be effective on a small scale, secondly it didn't relate to the fact the company rents out office space, instead it looked pretty industrial and old fashioned as its based too literally on the architecture.

We started by doing some research into the company, we found the offices were really modern inside and used bright punchy colours that are very appealing to an artistic and young audience, we wanted our branding to reflect this more than the old fashioned exterior of the buildings.

Because the study task was a one day brief we kept our research short and sweet and saved some images we found inspiring, we liked the idea of bright colours that reflected the companies modern feel and the use of geometric shapes to reflect the architecture.

We felt the most effective way of using the advantage of being in a group was to all create an initial design idea then come back together and choose the best to adapt further. This one was the letters TWL placed onto a perspective grid and made to look like a tower, unfortunately this was a lot more tricky to do effectively in a small amount of time so we decided not to go with this idea. I now think this idea could of been pretty good with more time gone into it and its a shame we didnt try it.

This was another of the designs, its a 'W' for the works part of the name, we actually loved the idea of shortening the name just to works and figured this could be a brilliant idea for the branding. The W is made to look 'impossible' like a penrose triangle which would definitely appeal to the artistic market hoping to rent the studio space. The 3d look of the logo also relates to the towers in the architecture of the building whilst staying modern, geometric and slick looking design.

These next experiments were purely typographical, initially we thought they were too simple and wouldn't stand out enough but in reflection now I think they could've been a more appropriate and professional choice. Particularly the middle one, with some adjustments to the placement of the letters it could've been a really effective design.

Another simple typographic design be regrettably did not develop further. We didn't choose this one as we thought having tower and works in different formats was too confusing.

In the end this is the design we went for, we made sure it was symmetrical and began playing around with in in different ways such as colour variations.

Variations with type placement and stroke size ect.

I didn't like the idea of having the type following the angles within the logo as it looked too childlike (playful) and unprofessional. In the end we decided the type would simply run below the logo to keep a neat and tidy overall look.

More colour variation.

I came up with the idea of instead of focusing on blocks of colour, instead adding lines to represent the parts of the logo 'in shadow'. This meant the logo was effective in just black and white and also could be effective in a range of colours. This diversity is brilliant for a logo as theres no restrictions when it comes to reproduction. So this was our final stand alone logo, I was happy with it as its really simple and diverse. Our overall idea of representing the beautiful architecture of the building whilst incorporating the modern artistic feel was really put across by this. In reflection though I wish we had produced something a little simpler and more typographical based. But this study task did help me a lot in going into the rest of the brief and realising simplicity is a key element when it comes to branding! It also made our group use to working together as a team and made us better as making informed choices together.

Above are some examples of the ways our logo could be used/incorporated into things like a website or leaflet. The typefaces we used are called Big John (family) and we chose them due to their geometric nature they seemed relevant to the modern and architectural nature of the business.

Book layout design- design principles

I decided straight away I wanted the content of my book to be purely typography, I wanted a minimal aesthetic to make the hidden concept of the book simple and effective. I wanted to typeset my body copy following modernist 'rules' as closely as possible within the restrictions. The rules were affected in different ways, for example the type size and words per line were slightly off due to the fact I was screen printing the type so it needed a certain stroke width to print effectively. I also wanted a neat rag and needed to ensure there were no orphans or widows.

On the left is my initial typesetting of one of the paragraphs but I decided just having the two small words was dangerously close to being an orphan so I played around with this and came up with the typesetting on the right. This looks much better as its no-longer an orphan, the rag is the slightest bit less neat but these are the kind of design decisions I made throughout the typesetting of the whole book to ensure I was satisfied with the way it looked and it is set in the best way I could get it.

Typesetting my book was a really tricky part of producing the book as I was determined to get the rag as neat as a possibly could which took a lot of time and experimentation. Initially I started with large bodies of type not set at all like you can see in the first image. 

I then began to typeset this body text into the two columns. I ended up typesetting the whole book twice in the end, in the images above the right spreads are the initial typesetting and on the left is the second typeset I decided to use for my final book.

Seen as I was screen printing the type it had to be 10pt (minimum) which meant my lines only had around 6 words per line which was already shorter than desired so having thinner columns due to typesetting was definitely not good. 

I focused on having a neat rag but filling the columns width as much as I possibly could, this involved changing the tracking often but not to a point that the type was overlapping 

or creating rivers. This was very time consuming but definitely worth it as the final design looked really effective. This typesetting has taught me a lot for the future about the importance of filling column width to get the most attractive and effective finish to 

my designs.

I had a mini interim crit and was told to change the spacing between the subtitles and paragraphs as it was confusing currently as the subtitles just looked like breaks in the text. I had the option of making a double space but decided removing the space between each subtitle and paragraph looked the most effective and linked everything together well. Another thing I ajusted was making sure the start of my paragraphs in the second colums were in line and under the subtitles on the left side paragraph, this looks much neater and doesnt ruin the hierarchy created by the bold subheadings.

http://issuu.com/izzieglazzard/docs/conspiracy_book_ciss

I created a digital version of the typeset (in the link above) so you can see the final typesetting clearly as when the book is printed the secretive nature of it might make this tricky. Now all that is left is producing the book, the order I will do this in is ...
Digital print black ink
Screen print
Emboss
Bind.

Front cover experiments - design principles (OUGD404)

I wanted to start my book design with my book cover. I wanted to incorporate parts of the secretive nature of the inside of the book but still keep it bold. I decided I wanted the most part of my book to appear white but have my cover, contents page and information in black Helvetica so you know what the book is about before attempting to work out how to read it.

This first design is based upon the 9/11 conspiracy theory within the content of my book. The 'Shh" is a quiet swisse modernist, cropped composition and I extended the height of the ascenders so that they mimic the iconic twin towers. When printed the title would be black and the planes would be glow in the dark, almost as if you are discovering the darkness and secrets within the design and the book right from the start.

This next design shows a 'shh' image in glow in the dark ink with braille for the word 'shh' over the top. I didn't like this design as the braille being in black although interesting seemed pointless. I also wanted all the information in black ink to be really bold and give a clear message, braille would defeat this point.

This final design is the one I have chosen to use for my book. The moon image will be screen printed in glow in the dark ink and the type in black inkjet. At first sight you'll just see the black type creating a minimal and simple book cover design completely hiding the inside meaning of the book. To reveal the covers secrets you will have to see it in the dark, this shows the whole meaning and concept or having to reveal the books sections all before even opening the book.