6.2

Today was hand-in day, and we presented our booklets within a small group.

Rationale:

My brochure features 3 destinations in Wellington you can go to ‘make’ something - Jewellery making at Village Beads, dumpling making at House of Dumplings, and pottery making at Hutt Art Society.  

My first tier of information is the layered collage blobs. These organic misshapen formations are quite abstract and emotive, and contribute to a hand-made feel. They contain varying imagery inside, sourced from the locations, and hence give a vivid representation of the place, evoked in colours, textures, and physical elements present.

My second tier of information is hand-drawn line sketches of physical objects found at the places, eg. tools, materials, and products. These are very literal and technical and help add clarity and understanding of the activity when placed next to the more abstract collage, and help give a sense of process. Having these elements hand-drawn adds to the hand-made feel of the overall compositions.

As a third tier, since all of the activities are very hands-on, I decided to incorporate hand imagery to reflect this. Having a human presence interacting with the piece gives a sense of making and ‘you can do this’.

My typographic approach is very simple, structured, and clean, leading into the imagery and allowing that to be the focus. The simple type also allows the imagery to be chaotic, as making is.

Something I learnt from this process is that in terms of generating imagery, whilst some people enjoy strictly one method of image generating eg. photography or illustration, I enjoy utilising a variety of methods in producing my work and have combined these all in collage, and this was probably my favourite aspect. What I would do differently, in reference to future projects, is manage my time more effectively.

6.1

Today there was no lecture, just straight to class to work on our brochures. We briefly discussed the rationale and what was expected from that.

It was really good to get feedback on my brochure today, as there are lots of little tweaks that need to be made. I am continuing to print different versions and annotating directly onto them changes that need to be made. Today I also did some proof reading and started checking details.

For independent study I will continue to work on my final brochure, particularly refining the details. I will also need to revisit the assessment criteria and brief requirements. 

5.2

Today we had a lecture on printing and prepress, which was really helpful in knowing what to do in order to prepare a professional print.

The studio was spent working away and refining our brochures and meeting with tutors for feedback.

For independent study I will continue to refine my brochure, especially refining micro details.

4.2

Today we had a lecture on maps, mapping and map making.

We started the studio pairing up and drawing directions to our 3 locations in 1 minute on a napkin.

We then spent some time working on our maps, which we had a sharing session/critique of.

The rest of the studio was spent working on our brochures and getting/implementing feedback.

For independent study I will continue to work and develop my brochure as a whole and continue to work on developing from feedback

4.1

Today we had our interim critique, where we shared one of our intro pages and two of our destination spreads. We had sheets of questions about our work and went around critiquing others. It was useful to get feedback from others to know what needs refining and general suggestions to improve my work. Some of the most useful feedback was to make the title more eye catching (whether that be bigger or bolder), fix some weird spacing and sizing with my type, and integrate my text and imagery in a way that is more cohesive and connected.

3.2

In studio today we shared our brochure compositions. The feedback I received was that all of the elements in the composition I shared are purposeful, and reflect the location. Also, my collage has a nice sense of process - and this is something I can use across all my locations. The colour palette is also working well, and the use of white space is effective and gives somewhere for the eye to rest - I do not have to fill all of the space. I need to start working more on my text, perhaps having less, and start to bring in some icons

We also analysed some brochures and looked at the way they had combined type and imagery, different compositions, to source inspiration for our own. We began to analyse hierarchy, grid, ease of reading, line length, point size, leading, paragraphs, orientation, negative space etc.  

For independent study I will continue working in my InDesign document, developing and refining the combination of visual elements with layout and typography. I will need to also continue to look at visual precedents, influential graphic styles and artist models, and looking at brochures for inspiration. I will need to write the information for each of my destinations. I will also need to prepare for interim presentations by choosing and refining 2 destination spreads and 1 topic overview spread. I will also need to collate my work to date to share my process.

3.1

Today we had a lecture on grids and composition, which was useful for considering how our brochure will go together and how it will be structured.

In studio time we drew up some quick thumbnails of potential brochure layouts, marking out key information (title, blocks of text, images etc.) within the grid space provided. This will make it easy for collating my information together in my InDesign file now that I have considered how it should fit within the space.

We then looked at the collages we'd created so far to get feedback/critique. The feedback I received was that I should begin to find my set style and keep this similar across all my collages, as at the moment they all look very different. It should be obvious what each collage says yet they should all relate, too, and be a cohesive set. I should also consider having a strong single focal point instead of lots of things drawing the eye. We also then looked at how the collage creations could fit within the brochure layout plans we'd sketched, eg. a picture of someone lying down could work nicely with a horizontal brochure instead of vertical.

For independent study I will continue to create my visual compositions. I will also look into visual precedents, influential graphic styles, and artist models, particularly those that involve type and image. I will also need to begin writing the content for my brochure. I will also need to set up my InDesign file (12 page, A5 document) and begin to place my text and imagery.