FMP – One final push

Having worked tirelessly on the design of the magazine, I had finally come to the end of completing the design of the magazine. I had sent off the copy to be printed by Mixam.

After receiving the copy I took some photos of details which I would post to my Instagram design account to promote the magazine being shown at our degree show.

On reflection of the magazine I had produced, and comparing it to the goals I had stated in my brief, I felt I had achieved all that I tasked myself to achieve.

According to the further content I had intended on including in the copy of the magazine, I had come to the decision that it would have been best to save it for a future issue of the magazine, upon my wishes that I would like to continue in producing future issues of the magazine. To allow myself in producing future copies of the magazine, I have changed the subtitle of the magazine to Arts and Music Culture in Cardiff. This would allow me the freedom to talk to all types of creative people in Cardiff, whether they are designers, developers, entrepreneurs, artists, writers, drink/food makers, or even people that have helped benefit the Arts and Music Culture in Cardiff for the better of the city. There could be so many ways I would be able to develop the magazine.

What I have most enjoyed about creating this magazine is how much of a learning curve I have had in developing a style for a publication which reflects upon the intent of the magazine. It reflects my personal style as well, which I think is of greater importance. It means I will be able to share this with possible employers so they get an idea of how I interpret a brief and what my intentions are from my work in general. This magazine, for example, would show how I love interacting with people from the community and sharing peoples’ stories with the public. It also shows what dedication I have to achieving the goals set in a brief as well as how I intend on encouraging change in the world through the power of words put together into a collection of articles. It shows just how powerful design can be.

Design for real life – A rethink

Many months have passed since looking back on this project – what had been spite in what I thought of people letting me down, as well as regret for not having carefully thought through a plan which would be manageable resulting in a solution which would be achieveable in the time I was given on the project.

These thoughts had only come to me as I had only just watched a documentary on Japansese design, Oki Sato, produced by British GQ. At 6:40 in the video, Sato described an experience of his life that changed his way of thinking about design forever. His initial reaction to looking back on a product he had formed was that it was finished and he had to complete it. Instead, he was told that when a designer feels something isn’t completed it is finished. As a result of hearing this I felt the motivation to finish my work by improving it in making it a functional product that would be fit for its purpose.

What had failed in my project was my inability and incapacity to produce an outcome suitable for the client, meaning I would have to request more time to finish the project they commissioned me. What fault that taught me was not to make promises on a final solution which could not be achieved within the given time. I had applauded myself for being so ambitious with my solution to the brief in the first place, but it was dangerous of me to have put so much pressure on myself without any guarantees set in place to ensure I could deliver on the project.

Beating myself up about my delivery on this project had put me down for months. It affected my ability to keep on track of projects, which greatly affected my workflow and ability to deliver appropriate amounts of material to show my tutors for further support in finishing projects across the remainder of my third year.

With the three weeks I have off this Easter I have made a promise to myself on intending to finish projects to a substantial level for submission into my academic studies as well as my portfolio, which would showcase my work and enthusiasm for design to possible employers. With this aim in mind it motivated me to be more ambitious yet idealistic about what solutions I had in mind for projects from now on.

FMP – Final Critique

In preparation for my final critique, I had gone through a redesign of the article I had written on Tom Auton for my second spread designs, alonside the article I had written for Lead Coloured River. I had not yet designed the article for Luke Priestley, my final interviewee, given that I needed to dedicate time to designing my dissertation into book form.

After presenting my second spread designs, I had received feedback on my work. I explained at the end of my presentation that I wanted to drastically change the design of my spreads to suit the style of a more raw look and feel to the magazine.

At this point, my tutor had said that it would be nicer to see the magazine as more of a zine, in the size of A5. It hadn’t come across me that that size would be more suited to the tone and intent of the magazine from the beginning. It would allow it to be more easily passed around, more affordable, and more suited to the raw quality of the written material within the magazine.

The remainder of students in the critique group had agreed and encouraged my thoughts of changing the style of the magazine to suit a more artistic and community driven magazine built on the stories and creativity behind the music of Cardiff.

Initial ideas I had for the redesign of the magazine would include hand rendered text and more illustrative qualities to the magazine.

FMP – finally; a name.

In the middle of designing the content I had written for the magazine, it had come to my realisation that I had needed to come up with a name for the magazine I was producing. I came across several words in my time of living that had caught my ear. One of them being ‘jimjam’, I was using as my brand name, since no one had used it before. Neither did it reflect on the content to be featured in the magazine.

I had come up with a list of names that came as possibilities to the title of the magazine:

  • Flashkick
  • Jocose
  • Benjo
  • Gigglemug
  • Beknown
  • Unbeknown
  • Common Tongue
  • XYZ
  • X/Z
  • Plan X
  • Mad as Hops
  • Enthuzimuzzy
  • Chuckaboo
  • Bricky
  • Damfino

I had come to the decision of using Common Tongue as a name for the magazine. Because Cardiff was a city that spoke English and Welsh, I felt as if music and arts was the language to which united people that spoke both or either language. Arts and Music was the ‘Common Tongue’ of the bilingual capital city of Wales. As for designing the cover of the magazine, I felt it were more suitable to design all the content of the magazine before deciding upon a design for the cover of the copy.

FMP – Second Spread Designs

Having received some feedback from my Interim Critique from the tutor and students, I wanted to change the colours featured within the article for Tom Auton I had designed into the confinements of A4 size portrait pages.

Having focused more substantially on the design of my dissertation, I needed to focus on the design of the layouts to present for my final critique. I was disappointed in myself to have not done as much work as I should have for a final critique.

For the interview with Tom Auton, I decided to change the colours used in the article to more positive colours, reflecting the vibrant nature of the music scene in Cardiff. I was unsure as to whether the colours entirely reflected the style of the artists’ music. I changed the design of the title on the first double page spread to outlined text, showing a more minimalistic look to the magazine.

The second set of spreads I had to present was an article on the band Lead Coloured River. I had an interview with them before their gig, so I took my camera along to take photos to feature alonside the written content I produced. Because the lighting in the venue was so poor, I had to manage with using blurry photos. However, I quite liked using them for the artistic quality of the magazine I wanted to produce. I edited them to appear more vibrant and defined, placing them in front of an all black background to make them stand out from the pages. This also suited the fact that the interview was set in a dark venue, giving the reader an idea of what it would be like to go to a gig at night.

For the design of the pages, I used a mixture of filled and outlined text for the title, and followed a similar style of design for the pull out quotes on the spreads from the interview with Tom Auton. In contrast to that article, for the interview with Lead Coloured River, I decided to change the point at which the reader would be able to read the article, allowing them to read part of it from the view of A3 portrait.

Dissertation design – Final critique

After printing out my dissertation and making cuttings from specified areas in my dissertation, I had come to the decision before the critique that I wanted to change the size of the publication. It was simply too big which made it difficult to hold and flick through. This may have been partly due to the fact that it was landscape, however I still wasn’t happy with the size. I felt the pages were too text heavy which limited what I could do with the pages without including too much negative space in the design which I felt would make the document lacklustre.

Upon viewing other peoples’ designs I was inspired to make my dissertation smaller in size, reducing it to A5 portrait. While it was small, it would allow me to be more inventive in how I designed the content to fit the pages. Looking back at what books I had seen in the library, I was particularly inspired by how the designers made use of different weights of paper as well as flap outs which reflected upon how exciting the reading of a book could be for the reader. It added more interest while not taking attention away from the content within the book itself.

It surprised me to see that the tutors weren’t too critical, and on reflection it was suitable for them not to be because they were our books that we had created. This was more a chance to show our skills and expressive freedom in designing our dissertations into our own book rather than being criticised for our decisions on a publication neither of our tutors had read. We knew our dissertations better than anyone else, and the tutors knew that we would have better informed decisions upon the design than anyone else.

There were small criticisms made with the type detailing and how I had quotes showing through cutouts. They were all very useful comments made about my editorial design so far which could inform my change of design after my dissatisfaction with how my first design had printed out.

Dissertation design – First spread designs

While focusing on my final major project I had not given much thought to the design of my dissertation. I had initially looked at books in the library which had been designed to fit the context of punk and much to my disappointment I wasn’t particularly inspired. All of the books I had read on punk had been designed in a way that was punk itself, which took attention away from the photos that accompanied the text, as well as the text itself, which was mostly illegible due to the placement of type in the typeface, the leading, and the rag of the text. It was made more illegible for the design of the background which was filled with lazily designed backgrounds with paint strokes to look as if it had been created for the purpose of punk.

What I found most inspiring was a book I had referred to in my studies of the Mott Collection, called Loud Flash. While it contained a large variety of prints made as part of the punk subculture from 1970/80’s Britain, it still held beautifully and simply designed pages which complimented the DIY nature of punk ephemera.

My dissertation was titled ‘How was graphic design used as a tool to market and eventually destroy the PUNK subculture movement from 1970s Britain?’. From the title of my dissertation I felt it was best to reflect on the values of marketing and the establishment which contributed to the ‘death’ of the subculture, and through the design of the dissertation, I was hoping the graphic design would reflect upon establishment values in contrast to the punk subculture style and art and design.

I discussed the importance of how the establishment influenced the punk subculture as well as a new generation of art and design. On reflection of my writings I decided the design of my dissertation editorial would be best suited to a clean and simple design to reflect on establishment values as well as drawing attention to the artwork and photos that were featured in my dissertation. I felt if I included any other artwork in the design it would draw attention away from these original additions to the dissertation.

Where there are white blocks on the pages was where I wanted there to be cutouts in the pages to reveal text on the next page. I had to ensure that these cutouts would not be cutting out text on the reverse of the page.

I decided to include a flash of red on one of the pages which would feature an important quote I included in my dissertation. I tried to include quotes on each spread to add interest to the document. The quotes had particular keywords which reflected the topics on the pages, which I highlighted by changing the font used or adjusting the size of the text.

While I had only completed 14 spreads and the cover of the dissertation, it was set me up in stead for designing the remainder of the document. These would be the spreads I would show to my tutors on the final critique of my dissertation design.

FMP – Interim critique

Today I had an interim critique with my tutor two weeks before the deadline for my final major project. The stress was mounting and it was at this time that I needed to get more organised.

Having been ill the week before I knew there was a lot of work to catch up on over the next two weeks to make up for the time I had off. The stress had mounted up which resulted in me contracting a sinus infection and sore throat leading to me taking some time away from work to focus on getting better.

I presented my creative brief, motivations behind the project, research, and initial ideas which featured sketches of layouts I had taken inspiration from in magazines that I was inspired by. Then I presented my spreads which I had finished the night before for my interview with Tom Auton. I was anxious in presenting my work in having to speak with a sore throat as well as being afraid that I hadn’t completed as much work as anyone else had done. It was a relief to find that I wasn’t the furthest behind looking at other people’s work in my group interim critique.

While presenting the spreads I had designed I was complimented on the combination of typefaces I had used and the layouts I had designed with the photographs I took from online. I was doubtful before the critique that the designs of the spreads made the article look rather political. While it was focusing on issues within the music scene in Cardiff, politicism wasn’t something I wanted to be suggested in the magazine. I explained that I had thought about changing the colours to something that reflected the vibrant and eccentric nature that music can carry in forming a music scene in Cardiff. Based on what Tom Auton had said in his interview, ‘With the rock scene everyone is so welcoming and you’re embraced for being yourself.’

Criticisms that I had were very reasonable and some problems with the editorial I hadn’t recognised until they were mentioned by my tutor. The body text was too large – instead of using 12pt I needed to make it 9-10pt. Although the type was beautiful on some spreads, the pull out quotations seemed disparate to the remainder of the double page spread which resulted in floating space. A solution to this was adding more imagery, whether it were illustrations or photographs. This was an easy solution, yet I’m doubtful as to how I can change the layouts while still making them look sleek, minimal, and keeping the layout flowing nicely in guiding the eye to where the reader looks next.

Towards the end of the critique I explained how I wanted to focus on creating more content for the magazine rather than having only three interviews in the magazine. I asked my tutor about the ideas that I had in creating some content based on design of album covers and writing content on the music industry. He advised that I only focus on music in Cardiff seeing as the magazine was dedicated to highlighting the issues and threats that have impacted the financial and community aspects of the music industry in Cardiff. Upon mentioning I wanted to create more content, he had also suggested in contacting particularly famous musicians from Cardiff or South Wales to make the magazine a sellout. What this would also offer to the other interviewees I would feature in the magazine is the chance to be recognised in comparing them to successful music artists that built their career in Cardiff.

FMP – First spread designs

With my interim critique tomorrow I was set on having to present double page spread designs to be able to get feedback on where the magazine was going. I knew it needed a lot of work, having been ill last week, but I was determined to crack down on producing a spread that would guide me in a direction of style for the magazine.

When putting together the layouts I took thorough consideration into the sketches of layouts I created, influenced by the designs of layouts I had seen in magazines I had researched. Not only was I taking care in the layouts, but I also had to pay attention to the colour and style of typography and imagery that the publications had used. As I have done before, I took particular likeness in Little White Lies magazine. Although it was a film and TV magazine, the general style had greatly influenced what ideas I had for my music and culture magazine, in terms of what general themes I could incorporate into the design of the magazine. I also needed to be aware of how I could express the seriousness of some of the content I had written based on interviews I had with music artists to bring to light the issues within the music scene in Cardiff.

Each of the images were double page spreads for an A4 size magazine, featuring a range of imagery I had taken from Tom Auton’s facebook page, and pull out quotes from the text I had constructed based on the interview I had with him.

For the questions I decided to use Proxima Nova in Bold, and for the answers I used Charter in Roman. For the majority of the quotes and the title, I decided to use Bebas Neue. The remainder of the fonts used in the quotes included a combination of Charter in Black, Sneakers Pro in Medium.

By only focusing on one article for the first trial of designs for the spreads, it would allow me to give first experimentation without getting too far ahead of myself without having someone’s opinion on the design. It would also set the tone for the design of the remainder of the magazine. Little White Lies magazine had a consistent style throughout the magazine which was something I really wanted to consider in my magazine.

FMP – Layout sketches

Before starting to design the layouts for the magazine after conducting research into existing magazines as well as having written my own content for the magazine based on the interviews I had with Tom Auton, Lead Coloured River, and Luke Priestley, I wanted to sketch out some layouts on paper before designing them in InDesign. The benefit of doing this is that it would be a lot quicker to sketch out initial ideas of spreads rather than have to gather content and design it on the spot.

Given the vast amount spread designs that had inspired me from existing magazines, I decided to copy a few spread designs that particularly engaged me, based on aesthetic, simplicity, or sophisticated design of layouts presented to the reader. These existing magazines included Clash, Little White Lies, New Philosopher, DIY, Huck, and Another Escape.

The first image is a flat-plan of the content I intended on including in the magazine, showing a basis upon which the magazine would be structured and what content could possibly be included.

For the majority of layouts I have sketched out, I wanted to keep in mind the issues explored within the articles I had written from interviews I had with Tom Auton, Lead Coloured River, and Luke Priestley. While I wanted the magazine to explore these issues I also wanted there to be a raw quality to the design of the magazine. I wasn’t quite sure how to express that having only just sketched layouts. On reflection of what existing magazines I was inspired by, I wanted to take care in designing spreads that would embrace simplicity and minimalism by adding negative space where suitable and necessary to allow the reader ‘breathing space’, instead of being overwhelmed by a cluster of reading an explosion of information on the page. If I wanted to include vibrant colour and photographs which would bleed over the page, I was required to keep the layouts as minimal as possible to avoid the page looking too busy. This would also require me to keep the colour scheme to a minimum, with the possibility of only allowing two colours to be used for each article.

These sketches will be used in the construction of my initial spread designs of the first article I want to include in the magazine; an interview with Tom Auton.