Assessment 2: Typographic Composition - Editorial Design
Task 1: Design Critique
1. How many typefaces were used?
There are 3 distinctive typefaces on the front of the cleaning product. the first being the hypo allergenic fragrance + general information and labelling, the second is the Power Force Pro and the third is the Australian Made logo in the bottom right. On the backside of the cleaner there is one more additional font and that can be seen as the use by date up the top.
All up there are 4 different type faces that have been used on this cleaning product
2. How do the typefaces relate to each other?
As mentioned the typeface that has been used for the logo can be seen on the front and back of the covers, the typeface used for the general information and directions for use etc are the same but vary in either bold, capitalization or normal. These 2 fonts in particular share vary little relation, for example the Logo font is italicized and features characters that do not connect with each other such as the P and R where as the font used in the information section does connect.
3. How did the designer use space and alignment to organise the text?
On the front cover of the design, the designer used a general flow of information that follows a downwards path to initially display the product and it's information. at the top on the neck a small hypo allergenic logo can be seen which leads directly into the main logo of the product. looking down the bottle further there are tag lines that are spread out in distance and shape separation that describe to the user it's features and applications.
There is a lot of information on the front cover of the bottle but it does not overload the eyes because the type is spread out to the point where it is easier to read. down the bottom where it says bathroom, laundry and kitchen it displays a nicely aligned set of imagery showing the locations it should be used and then displaying its production in Australia on the same grid.
On the back of the product there is a lot more information that needs to be displayed and to do so the designer has show the key features above the main bodies of text, which are then organised with outlined boxes, separated with gaps.
there is plenty more room on the backside of this product to make the text larger or a different shape but the designer has effectively displayed it and organised it in a cohesive and efficient way.
4. What were the treatments used to differentiate text and organise information — size, scale, treatment (colour, effects)?
The designer has used a host of treatments to organise the information for the labelling. They jump between lowercase and capitalisation for headers and body text, they make the logo distinct by giving it colour and it's own border. Certain text can be seen with dot points to push the products uses. the main body of text does however consist of black as it is on a yellow/orange surface but on the front cover there is a yellow text that displays Lemon Fragrance.
5. What are the other elements on the label (logos, images, graphics, rules, background colours)
Other elements on the page are as mentioned, There is a logo, lemon and half cut lemon, a silver bar, bathroom, laundry and kitchen symbols, Australian Made image, bar codes and the yellow background. there is a lot of imagery that goes with the text to better display it
6. What is your opinion about the quality of the label? Does it work? Is it aesthetically pleasing? Is it effective? Why do you think that is?
I believe that it is an incredibly effective logo, the designer could have done a simple black and white branding but because of the lemon scent they ran with that theme and designed the logo around it. This really grounds the product around that theme and when I was looking for a product on my shelves this is the one that stood out to me straight away because of that reason.
It is a very aesthetically pleasing design and as mentioned I do believe it is effective. there was plenty more room for information but restraint was showed and the labelling was done perfectly.
7. How does the use of type and its organisation on the label influence the aesthetic quality and efficiency of this label?
The fact that the main information and the logo are only 2 different type faces make it easier to read the products description as you're not constantly adjusting to the change. it also grounds the product and stops it from wildly experimenting with different types. It is a clean font that is easy to read and this definitely helps on the back of the product where the bulk of the information is written in a smaller font.
Task 2: Label Design
2. 2 typeface & 1 colour
Future PT for Logo
Century Gothic for text
As the background is aqua, this is the one colour
2. 1 typeface & 1 colour
As the background is black, this is the one colour
3. 1 typeface & 2 colours
The 2 colours in this design are Teal and Chartreuse
Task 3: Much Ado About Nothing
1. 2. 3.
1.
The first poster uses a single font called Bookman Old Style and varies in bold, italics to give a sense of contrast, it also uses the strike-through on the end of nothing and the start of starring to emphasize the gap of nothing between those points. For this poster I really wanted to exaggerate the gaps between segments, splitting the page into 3 different sections
2.
For 2 I wanted to take a different approach to the first and increase the size of most of the text on the the page. at the same time I wanted this big header that displayed a curved William Shakespeare leading into the page and a small website and phone number that also led out of the page, encircling the poster. the font used in this design was a single one called Futura PT and the irony of the play being written in 1598 using a font similar to future could not be overlooked.
3.
For the third and final design i wanted to make a minimalism poster, making all the fonts much smaller and emphasising specifically the name and the play it self by having nothing as the largest text on the page. I then believed putting the quote directly under the tittle would be appropriate as drawing the viewer in with a positive response is a good idea. the font used in this poster is called Bahnschrift and provided me with a range of condensed, italicized and bold fonts to display contrast with
Certificate of Conclusion couldn't be downloaded
Task 4: Critique and Redesign
Critique
The structure of this magazine spread shows a man title (Made With Love) with subtitles such as (country Style Chicken Pies) and another section on how (make it a family pie) this page itself does not display any form of date but it contains the page number and website address in the bottom left of the spread. It has other splashes of text thrown about that boast about the quality of the food, making 1 instead of 6 and swapping out ingredients so they can still be made. The largest bodies of text that can be seen on the spread come in the form of the ingredients list and the instructions for creation.
The resources that the designer used to visually represent the structure of the content is a large white/beige side panel that allows for a large quantity of instructional text to be displayed. This panel follows a path that moves down the page revealing the information and instructions, after this the reader is free to visually explore the page and the food. specifically related to the tittle, it is the largest text on the page but doesn't necessarily display anything important, while it's words hold meaning in a magazine of this type it doesn't display the name of the food or other information about it. The colour scheme that was used on the page is a complimentary scheme of burnt orange and a dusty navy blue. the text is contrasted to it's background (black on beige and white on navy).
I think the colour scheme is effective for this page and that is the reason that i decided to use it over others that i saw, I also think the side panel is an excellent way of organising the information required but it does not have enough space for the large amount of information needed. and issue however is that there is too much text crammed onto that side panel and it needs to be split up. The spots of text near the food also doesn't need to be there, it's filler more than anything. People know they can make a pie bigger it doesn't need to be written down clutter the page. as mentioned briefly before a big issue is that you don't know what you've looking at or how much it makes until you've read past the title, so displaying that information first will prove itself to be a positive addition.
Redesign
In the redesign of the spread I first started by removing the clutter of the original photo, as the task asks to keep the same imagery and format i decided that a clean plate would provide the best starting point. To begin with I fixed the pie image, it was cut short to make room for unnecessary text, I added a small slip of white paper that I intended to be seen as a note that had the ingredients written down on. I like the idea that just as the person who had made the food for the photo used a shopping list it would provide a nice theme for the reader of the book to see the shopping list as they got it. I also adjusted the tittle and it's location, moving it down to display the name of the food and it's key information first. A person will want to see the food and it's usefulness to them before they invest their time into reading further into the spread.
with the space freed up from moving the ingredients list, there was more room to display the instructions in a larger font. It's safe to assume that a larger font will result in less culinary errors when the reader is cooking the food for themselves and therefore they will be thank-full for this.
Task 5: Critique and Redesign
Unpicking the Grid
list of typefaces used:
ArialMT
Arial-BoldMT
Arial-BoldItalicMT
Arial-ItalicMT
TimesNewRomanPS-ItalicMT
TimesNewRomanPSMT
TimesNewRomanPS-BoldItalicMT
Ariel is an easily read font that also allows for a lot of sub-typefaces to be used in providing contrast, headers and references. It's also commonly found on every computer which makes it a good choice for a document that may be downloaded and analysed by students and professionals alike. The same can be said for Times New Roman as it is also and easily read font and provides a lot of varying faces to be used. These make up the entirety of the scientific document and allow for the user to easily identify key information as they read through the data.
The grid lines that can be seen in the image above clearly show a border that can be seen on each page. while this border still has information such as tittles and page numbers etc beyond it, it's main purpose is to frame the bodies of text and images within the page. for the page with the image is shows an L shape where the images have been used with the text in the gap. For the pages with text a multi column grid structure has been used to split the text wither side of the page.
The typography hierarchy can be seen as the bold and italicized Arial font being used to distinguish key parts of the data as well as referencing. and for other essential information such as the author times new roman was used in many different type faces to convey the contrasting information.
While the design works well for pages with columns of text, the first page that has images and the tittle/author information on it could be reworked. the biggest issue is that there is a split for the page but the grip goes straight through the tittle. To improve this, the author information could also be split into the grid so it follows the same pattern just under the tittle.
Task 6: Picking a Grid
Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4
The grid layout that has been chosen is a single a 4 page folded in half with print on both the front and back sides. All pages have a border around them, the first page has room for an image, tittle and small area of text. The second and third have a split grid with room for images at the top or bottom and the final page has a split column with images on one side and text on the other.
The colour scheme that i have chosen to use for this is a mix of blue, greens and a lighter colour. Green is often used to display health and blue is a display of intelligence. combining them together presents an effective way of conveying the information with meaningful colour design choices
I personally am a big fan of the font Futura. It is an easy to read font with an aesthetically pleasing and well thought out system to the type face. It also has a small and concise range of sub fonts that can be used to display different things in a document
Implementing the grid into in design
