Assignment 2: Creative Book Design- Tutor Feedback and Reflection
Exercise 1: The function of books
You were asked to examine at least six books and reflect on their genre and function in your learning log. A comprehensive response with a diverse selection of genres. All six have been thoroughly evaluated with informative critique — You make some thoughtful observations regarding typography — Notably, Cloud Atlas and Jan Tschichold’s, The New Typography.
Exercise 2: Paper and binding choices
This exercise asked you to look at sample books, paper stocks and binding styles. Berlin City Guide—binding needs to be robust as its primary function is referencing and therefore the user is constantly moving back and forth. You quite rightly suggest the overhang serves to protect the pages from heavy use.
Functional design is something that interests me, I will look into the function/materials more within the next Assignment.
Research task: Paper and bookbinding
You were asked to collect paper samples into a book to begin a reference resource and document your initial findings in your learning log. — You ordered some paper a swatch of paper samples which was useful and informative (Book Printing UK.) Have a look at G. F. Smith or Munken Papers. They have a sample service and a long and established history of working with graphic designers. The linocut exercise you did is excellent — Consider creating a typeface from your trial prints?
Creating a typeface was a great idea. I decided to start again using the same writing style on a new piece of lino. I wrote the alphabet out in pencil in the same handwriting style, going over it in pen and then cutting it out.
Exercise 3: Book designers
Using your research into book cover designs, you wrote brief descriptions of cover designs, compare different editions, identify three book designers you liked, and discuss their design style in your learning log. Work for this exercise is extensive, insightful and rich in rigor and depth – Explore the work of Swiss typographers further, below is a book I think you will appreciate.
I have looked into various Swiss typographers going onto this next assignment, especially with the ‘Good Typography book” work by people such as Josef Müller-Brockmann and Emil Ruder.
Exercise 4: Designing a cover
You were given Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale and asked to generate several designs for the book. You chose to focus on William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. — Good analysis of cover designers, including David Hughes. The second part explored the cover through reoccurring themes, such as red, pig’s head and Sans Serif. – Consider a range of sans serif typefaces and explore the work of Alan Kitching, whose bold use of letterpress type is expressive of subject matter. Use your own linocut type? (Meeting)
Following this I incorporated my newly created typeface within a new design using the same imagery of the ‘Pig’ I had chosen to represent ‘Lord of the Flies’ during this previous task. Below are my 2 favourite outcomes. One with an enlarged image, the other simply of the type, the empty space representing the space the children are left in and the ‘darker’ parts of reality/human nature they experience.
Assignment Two: ‘Form and function’
Assignment two asked you to design two versions of Robinson Crusoe and a related ‘how to’ book and reflect on your creative process in your learning log. As already mentioned, primary research (reading the book!) underpinned an excellent assignment. We can discuss the various designs further in our video meet but for now some key considerations concern the energy of early experiments being lost in the final outcomes. We can also pick up on type usage and the omission of authors name on front. But once again you should take a great deal of encouragement from this part of the unit — There is some really inventive and intelligent thinking in your creative output — Well done.
I went onto creating a few more ‘simple’ book designs incorporating the physical abstractions, paired with the same typefaces. This was an interesting task with interesting results. I quite like the abstract versions. Below are my two favourites, one for the ‘contemporary’ and one for the ‘premium’ version. I chose the ‘spray paint’ for the contemporary, and the painterly style for the premium, to show new and old methods of painting.
