Core Concepts- Exercise 4: Visualising Your Ideas
Exercise 4: Visualising your ideas
Paper is something graphic designers take for granted. For this exercise you will explore some of the different ways you can fold paper to make a leaflet. You have been asked to design a leaflet for an organisation, inviting people to to volunteer for a task. (You can choose the task for example, school governor, fundraising or building a community garden). In addition to a title the information has been broken down into four chunks each of about 120 words. You will also need to leave space for contact and address details. Working with a sheet of A4 paper or larger if you prefer, and ignoring the actual words and subheadings, explore the different formats for leaflets that are possible. Consider and experiment with options for final size and types of paper as part of your visualisation.
I decided to start to draw some ideas. Initially I could only come up with the obvious leaflet styles. I then decided to research and create a mood board of old and new leaflets. I found that the older leaflet shapes were more plain and rectangular, but more modern leaflets had different and interesting shapes and styles. It also matters about the purpose of the leaflet, for example a map should really be rectangular as a lot of information has to fit onto it in an order. A leaflet selling a product could be a more ‘out there’ shape to attract the customer. For my leaflet I am finding a new worker to volunteer in a charity shop, for this I think a more interesting leaflet style would be best as draws in peoples attention.
I have found this helpful during past tasks so decided to continue again with annotating/highlighting the brief for key points or ideas. I found the concept of this task interesting as it’s not about the content but the format, I looked forward into researching an overlooked but always used format; the leaflet. I started by researching some history and modern uses of leaflets.
A brief history of the leaflet:
Originally if an announcement or information was needing to be given to someone, a handwritten letter or word of mouth would have to suffice. The problem with this is that your message could be altered from the person relaying information to others. In 1450 the printing press was invented in Germany. This began to give people the opportunity to spread their ideas like never before, any political, social, or general ideas and comments could be sent out as a message to anyone. The leaflet was a tool used to help distribute information on great progressive movements such as the abolition of slavery, and women’s rights.
In the 1950s leaflets were used as advertisement tools to promote anything and everything they could. Then even further in the 1970s when the colour photocopier was invented it allowed even more people access to cheap printing, allowing further uses for adverts and marketing by others.
I began to draw out and think of further ideas for the shape, and layout of information for my leaflet. I then went onto testing some styles of paper I could potentially use.
The first 2 ideas I liked were from leaflets collected in my mood board. The third I created inspired by another from the mood board that used triangles, I liked the idea of this shape as a leaflet as I hadn’t seen one like this before.
I collected together all of the types of paper that could be suitable for a leaflet. Taking away colour I was thinking more on the texture and thickness. From top to bottom it was:
Eco handmade paper 220gsm
120gsm textured paper
120gsm paper
120gsm textured card
Khadi rag paper 220gsm
150gsm textured card
Hot press 220gsm paper cooked
I liked the textured 120gsm paper the most. I feel like this would be professional, modern but interesting with a nice texture to it.
I created rough ideas out of normal office paper and tested how they would look before creating my final idea out of good textured paper.
Final Ideas:
I enjoyed this task and found it interesting, especially reading about the history of printing leaflets and their uses. Everyday we see leaflets, either through our letterboxes, given to us in the street, or with online orders. We either dismiss or are inclined to read them, and going through this process imagining the method and format I would use to create an attractive leaflet has made me appreciate even more the importance of; format, function and aesthetic in smaller things around us daily that we don’t always take notice of.
I decided that the best leaflets to use to attract new volunteers to work in a charity shop would be these 2. I created a rough template for each in Photoshop, printed and cut out each design on 120gsm textured paper. I feel that they are different shapes which would attract people to open and read them. I especially like the layout of the pentagon shape. I decided to change the shape from a hexagon to a pentagon so there was no wasted space, and just the right amount of room for 4 blocks of information, and a contact section. I created these from A4 sheets of paper, if they were to be created for the leaflet needing space for 4 sections of 120 words, it would have to be double the size. I would intend for these leaflets to be handed out to customers or placed in their bags when they have purchased something from the store, this would mean they would see the abnormal leaflet shape and be more inclined to read it. They could also be posted to people in the local area.
