Creative Book Design- Part Three: Text, image and typography-Exercise 2: Double-page spread
Research into book layouts that you find interesting. These could be art or design books, or others that have more complex layouts that balance images, typography and other content across multiple columns.
Trace the grid structure of your chosen double-page spread using tracing paper and a sharp pencil. Measure the margins, column width and depth, plus spaces between the columns. Transcribe the tracing onto a clean sheet of paper, drawing on the measurements. Compare your drawings to other double-page spreads within the same publication. Identify the similarities and differences - is there an underlying grid system and how does it adapt to deal with different content?
Now recreate the same double-page spread using DTP software. Use your traced drawing measurements as a guide.
Extend the project by thinking about how you might radically change these layouts - what creative decisions around the grid would you make to improve these designs? Develop layout ideas that ignore the grid structure, challenge it, or offer radical alternatives to the existing layouts. Develop a range of ideas through thumbnail drawings and DTP layouts, in a similar way to the first part of the exercise. Use this as an opportunity to take creative risks, and find radically different ways to layout the existing content.
I began by looking through a selection of old magazines/books to look for a page layout that interested me. This is a Vogue Beauty book from the early 2000’s that I use for images/inspiration. I was particularly drawn to this layout for its simplicity, and the image leading off of the page. The layout would seem to feel unbalanced, but it didn’t to me at all which was interesting and something I wanted to explore further.
Before tracing the layout, I did a quick thumbnail sketch of it, measuring each section to refer to when tracing to make sure it is accurate.
I used the traced template and applied it to randomly chosen pages. This made it even clearer that there was a specific grid/layout for this book. Each page stuck to the same measurements for a border, the foot of the page and the distance between paragraphs. The type is also justified, filling the designated ‘sections’ perfectly. I feel like this justification of the text allowed the page to feel balanced. The only ‘rules’ within the book which were ‘broken’ were the layout of the images/colour boxes used. They were misaligned/ continued off of the page. They were well positioned to frame the text, the use of images between the text/extending off the page almost became a rule itself when looking through the book. This will be interesting to try and push further when challenging the layout of the chosen page later in this task.
Recreating the template for this book was very interesting. I used a ‘font finder’ to discover a similar font used for the headings and main text.
These were ‘Henderson Sans Basic’ for the headings and ‘Henderson Sans Light’ for the main text. I really like the stye of this typeface, it is very ‘clean’ and modern, meaning that it is easily legible. I will keep this in mind when designing for my final assignment.
I was interested to see whether the layout followed the Van de Graaf Canon grid, I then created the layout within Photoshop and saw how the book pages aligned with it.
After coming across this quote by Massimo Vignelli I decided to research his life/work further.
I found a very interesting website which I will be looking into further called ‘Design Culture’ their description of what they do is as follows: “Founded in 2013 by Nicola-Matteo Munari, Designculture is a website aimed at promoting the ‘culture of quality’ in design through the publication of interviews with designers from all over the world, monographic profiles of great designers from the past, and essays about important design topics.”
Vignelli’s works through various mediums, from branding to designing homeware such as lamps and chairs. This multi-disciplined approach to design is very inspiring and makes his work all the more impressive.
His simple design approach is something I will reference when creating my ‘good typography’ book.
The Van de Graaf canon’s appeared to align with the corners of the text, but not exactly with other elements. The layout is close, which makes me feel as if it was measuring inconsistencies by myself. Overall the design follows the Van de Graaf canon but is slightly larger, which is interesting.
The subtitle ‘the 1950’s’ is aligned to the left, again crossing a line within the canon. The image extends off the page, out of line with the canon, which is perhaps a reason as to why I was drawn towards it. “Don't be governed by the grid, govern the grid. A grid is like a lion cage - if the trainer stays too long it gets eaten up. You have to know when to leave the cage - you have to know when to leave the grid.”- Massimo Vignelli
I removed the canon and original grid for the layout of the page, and began to use the same elements/amount of text to create various layouts, testing with balance, and some in a more collage style, inspired by various people such as David Carson and Chris Ashworth with a more abstract thought into composition.
I used the letters which made up the words ‘the 1950’s, beauty and fashion’ to create a collage, inspired by Massimo Vignelli/David Carson in particular. I rotated and layered the collage to see how this affected it visually. I was intrigued by the outcomes and will try something similar to this with future tasks.
I initially focused on creating a new design which would still be functional and legible. I kept the same point size type for the main text and changed the sizes of other elements. I kept in mind the spine and fold where the 2 pages meet, leaving a gap here in the middle of the designs.
As I moved forwards I focused less on functionality/legibility and more on aesthetic, treating the elements as separate parts with no aim other than to explore visuals.
