Study Task 06

Definition

• a written or printed work consisting of pages glued or sewn together along one side and bound in covers.

• a bound set of blank sheets for writing in.

• a written ​text that can be ​published in ​printed or ​electronic ​form.

Theories

• It used to be so easy to define what a book was: a collection of printed pages bound inside a cover (hard or soft) that you could place on a shelf in your library, or in a store. Now, there are e-books, and blogs that turn into books, and long pieces of journalism that are somewhere between magazine articles and short books
• 
  
• "What I have come to realise is this: electronic books can do certain things that print books cannot, and therein lies their value. Enhanced electronic books are changing our definition and expectations of books." - http://theconversation.com/what-is-a-book-in-the-digital-age-19071

Design Principles - How Do You Read? - Inside pages

Cloud images with no background. Used to create dreamy effect.

Unused front and back cover.

Here I highlighted edges of  a cloud image to demonstrate the colour wheel.

However, I decided against using it as it felt too much. Keeping the cover monochrome is a nice contrast with the bright colours inside the leaflet.

Jamie xx album cover. This colour wheel is a 

Created these geometric shapes as replacements for the wheel. The wheel is commonly used, so I interpreted it into these shapes. 

Study Task 04 - Typesetting

Design Principles - How Do You Read? - The Colours of Our Dreams

Idea -  To create a leaflet based around the opinions and facts around the colours seen in our dreams. Often colour has a deeper meaning than an aesthetic of something and holds many properties that can represent emotions and feelings in our lives that we were unaware of.

Infomation

http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/2007/11/18/the-colors-in-your-dreams-what-do-they-mean

Red can symbolize passion, courage, or your emotional relationships... but it can also be the color of danger. You will need to think about what your personal associations are with red and look at the context of the rest of your dream to find out if you're seeing love or danger. Often they go hand in hand.

Orange symbolizes sociability and friendliness. This color could be showing you new interests or things that are warm and friedly towards you... or maybe your thoughtfulness towards a particular interest.

Like most colors, yellow has both positive and negative connotations. It can be symbolic of intellect, energy, happiness, and wisdom... or if the dream is an unpleasant one, the color could represent cowardice and sickness.

Green symbolizes positive change, growth, healing and peace. It can symbolize your efforts to gain recognition or establish your independence. The other side of green often represents greed and jealousy.

Blue symbolizes truth, wisdom, and openness. This could represent your optimism for the future or your trust in a particular thing. Blue may also be a metaphor of "feeling blue" or sad depending on your dream.

Darker shades of violet may denote a person who feels misunderstood or has obstacles to overcome. It too is a spiritual color, and brighter shades help inspire and stimulate, especially in relation to dream activity.

Because black is often regarded as the color of death, its appearance in our dreams may represent the death of old ideas or change. Another possible explanation is that it represents a hidden or rejected aspect of the dreamer. It is the color of mystery, the unconscious, and sometimes even protection.

Grey can indicate fear, depression, ill health, or confusion. It may represent being emotionally distant or detached from something.

White is often regarded as the color of purity and truth. Seeing this in your dreams may be a message from your subconscious telling you to regard the truth of a certain situation. It is also the color of completeness and innocence.

Design Principles - How Do You Read? - Further Development

 After adapting and changing my initial idea, I firstly kept with the same design.

I then thought I could make it appear more interesting by using some of my photography shots from a recent shoot. Where I projected dreamy, earthy, weather scenes from youtube videos and photographed them to demonstrate a photographic representative that could be used for a front cover.

Edited out the cursor I accidentally left on. 

Placed in the simple title and centred it.

To create a different vibe I replaced the O's with moon like symbols and A's with a triangle shape. These code like symbols give off a certain mystery and represent the idea of de-coding our dreams.

Original. Typeface - Adobe Devangari Bold.

Study Task 02 - Symbols

Chosen Olympic Event - Taekwondo 

Beijing Paralympics, 2008

Colour is important when considering the context of the design. It is something that has to be thoughtful and represents the country, region or event it would be for.

Using two or three colours to incorporate into pictograms is simple, yet effective. It is not over complicated and is very representative.

Instead of representing a country or city the games are held in, I could look into colours that are involved with Taekwondo.

The belts achieved at each stage in Taekwondo are a good indication and an obvious representative.

However, from rereading the study task brief, the pictogram has to be monotone. Which restricts my decision to design using colour. Instead, I could focus on the cultural aspects of the design and perhaps include colour towards the end in the final design, just to see how it would look as an example for one of the Olympic games (past or future).

Final Designs

Study Task 01 - Wayfinding - Initial Research

University of Leeds

Around the university campus, there are various types of signage, maps and navigation systems. The first I spotted was the main map that displays the site. This was probably due to its scale and positioning (located on a main pathway). The other signs to me only became obvious when searching for them. It seems that size and scale does grab attention, which I believe is necessary as it is probably the most important and used by people. 

• curved
• 3D
• good contrast of colours (green and white) for text - readible/legible
• map uses a key - obvious choice and calculated design decision due to the large amount of information is provided 
• positioned below head height - approachable

Following the same colour scheme and use of type, the university has dimensional signage to instruct important locations. The design is very simple, yet effective. By keeping the same type and size the sign is seamless and uncomplicated. 

However, a better solution to this particular sign could be to alter the type sizes in order of significance. 'Entrance' could be made slightly smaller to represent that, as the 'Earth and Environment' building is more general than a specific area of it.

The university logo does not take anything away from the design of the sign due to its simplicity and  monotone form. 

Leeds Beckett University

In contrast, I decided to document and explore Leeds Beckett's designs. I found the map that navigates part of the Beckett buildings to be much more simpler than the one found in the University of Leeds. It uses a similar muted colour scheme, although, it uses more playful expressive colours to represent the university.

• simple map layout
• small key
• pictograms 
• uses different type for the letters of the key vs. when they're on the map - possibly to not confuse reader with circular pictograms 
• map outlines important sections - still involves surrounding area

                                  

                                                                                                                                                                                         

Although, not necessarily a sign, this expressive display gives information in a temporary location.

• expressive - whilst still giving information
• wall art?
• keeps within colour scheme
• each section explores a part of the university
• acts as a mini perspective 

• although in the distance from the university building, it sits underneath 
• acts as a guide?
• multipurpose 

Part of the design uses small text to create large letters. It offers information on the university courses, whilst still making it interesting. 

However, one issue is that the D shape that creates the negative space cuts through and blocks some of the text off, making it not entirely legible. This means the designer has not taken into account that the information will actually be read, but relied their design on the basic of aesthetic and the appearance it creates.

This is something I will deeply consider and be careful with when creating my own signage. I do not want to entirely rely on aesthetic preference, the information the sign is offering is the most important factor and should be easily understandable for the audience/reader.

Leeds Trinity Shopping Centre

Leeds Trinity shopping centre uses a combination of pictograms, arrows and colour coded maps.

• detailed 
• information split using building structures (from birds eye view) with key
• quite long/complicated 
• small print - quite confusing?
• colour co-ordinated floors make them distinguishable as each floor layouts are very similar

• yellow signs
• lit by white lighting 
• uses consistent font
• symbols to represent areas
• uses block of colours next to 'Lower Ground Floor' and 'First Floor' to represent colours used on main map
• arrows used - black arrow on white background - circle symbol 

One issue I would take up is with the colour choice.

Although, the yellow used is not as bright or vibrant as the example I have shown. It seems the colour yellow has been taken into consideration when creating the sign. The pale mustard colour used does make the sign more readable - the lighting also used around the sign helps illuminate the text, symbols and arrows within the sign.

The lighting behind the signs actually create shadows from the individual four signs (two arrows, two text based). It forms a constant outline to the sign, which amplifies and draws more attention towards itself.

Design Principles - How Do You Read? Development - Yellow

Yellow concept - Analyse the colour yellow. Producing facts, colour variations, colour theory and colour principles etc...