Studio Brief Two, What is a book? Design Decisions

Grid

I started with using a modular grid, with 3 rows and 3 columns but found it difficult to make the information look appealing.

 So I've changed it to a 2 column and 3 rows, this way the text has more room to be read and looks more even over the page.

Colour

I've stuck with this light pastel blue throughout the layouts designs, because I think i helps organise the page, highlight the type hierarchy and keep a clean easy look to the spread.

I've went with the right hand colour because at a larger scale it looks good and smaller scale it's still visible enough to make the page look separated and neat.

I had started with using just a line to separate the different sections, but then I thought it didn't give enough of a break to the page.

So using a larger block of colour behind the title, gives top hierarchy to that and then helps organise the page further.

I think the bottom title works a lot better, the title is a lot clearer and visible. You look at that first rather than the rest of the page. The block of colour separates it a lot more as well rather than the small line of blue.

Type

I've used the same typeface for the the title and text because I think the type is easy to read at a small scale. The uppercase style makes it clear to read and looks good on the page. It has subtle upper and lowercase letters which is more visible in the titles which I really liked.

I started with a black type on the blue background.

But I thought this was a too harsh and didn't suit the tone of the blue. So went with white which suits the tone a lot more.

Page Setup

I've chosen to go with an A4 page set up, because I personally feel A4 books are really easy to read. The large pages make it easy to read the information, see the layout and grid system and keep it the book clear.

Images

When first designing these pages I filled them with a lot of type and images. The images weren't that good and quite hard to look at times. 

In my Crit I was told the pages are very busy and difficult to read. 

Which I agreed with, looking at other people's layouts let me understand that I didn't have to stick to the 3 by 3 grid and that I didn't have to fill each box.

So with the images I kept them to a minimal apart from ones I thought  are necessary or interesting to look at.

As well as using the grid I've used it to centre some of the writing on pages. Centring the writing made it look a lot better and easier to read.     

Having the text here lower and more centre, and in line with the images, works a lot better than using the grid line and having it higher than the images. This way it is up to the reader what they look at first. The images explain the text but the text explains the images, so can be read either way.

The text works better being centred rather than to the side, I think this because there's a clearer hierarchy. You read the subheading first, because it's in the centre and top, then read the information below.

I have also chosen to mix up the title pages a little so that the reader find its more interesting to look.

I think sometimes your eye will jump straight to the right hand leaf of a book, rather than the left, so I have used that idea for a few pages and swapped it to the left for the others. This mixes up the book a bit and looks good.