Rationale

My 12-page brochure was based on "Scenic Walks in the greater Wellington region" where I looked at Mount Victoria, Red Rocks Reserve, and the Botanic Garden. My intentions were to convey the emotive qualities of each location as they varied greatly in their atmospheres. For Mount Victoria, I used darker green colours to convey the atmosphere from inside of the bush walk, where it felt very quiet and isolated inside. Red Rocks consists of a combination of black and a faded red, with the imagery being duplicated to represent the noisiness, with the breaking of the waves and strong winds. Botanic Garden's then has more vibrant colours, conveying the more cheerful mood of the flowery gardens. I made sure to use the same grid style throughout the whole brochure, along with the same stylistic approach, in order to create consistency and continuity with the visual flow. I used FADP's such as scale, contrast and balance in order to further express these atmospheres. It was interesting to see how much my brochure developed, with my most effective development being the switch of page orientation. In terms of informing future projects, I'd work just as I did in this project, making sure to have a whole range of concepts early on, and slowly narrow them down during the developments.

Printed and Finished

Today after my other class, I went on down to Ink Digital to get my brochure printed. Once I got down there, handed over my USB with an exported PDF, and they printed it out for me. Once it had been printed on SRA3 paper, I came back up to Massey University and trimmed the edges off, and then used the stapling machine to staple all of the spreads together.

The brochure looks really good now that it has been properly outputted on 120gsm Matte paper, and I'm really pleased with the final outcome following the design development process over the past few weeks. My rationale will be posted on Monday, summarising how everything went and analysing my own final design. 

Final Brochure

After making the final changes this evening, following today's final critique, here is my final refined brochure that I will get printed by next week:

I am extremely happy with the outcome of my brochure, and over the next few days I will look to go and get it printed. The above spreads have all been refined and analysed many times, following individual, class, and teacher critiques. They have all reached a stage where I am very pleased with the outcome, and I feel like I am handing in a brochure that I am proud of, which I feel truely represents these three destinations accurately, and in quite a unique, emotive fashion. On Monday, in class, we are going to write our rationale for our final brochure. Before then, probably in the next few days, I will go and get this brochure printed out. I have already created a mock-up which has been put into my physical workbook, although I can't wait to see the final output, which will be properly printed double sided rather than gluing each spread together inside of the cover and back page. I will next update my blog once I have printed my final output, to document the final stages of my brochure's design process.

Final Chance for Critique - Week Five, Session Two

In class today, it was our final chance to get some feedback from the teachers on what to adjust and change within our brochure. As the teachers were going around to give individual feedback to all of the students, Tulia was the teacher than came and sat down with me to analyse my work. She seemed very pleased with my work, as did Caroline yesterday, so I was excited to see just what sorts of critical feedback she could come up with for me. I have attached JPEG images of each spread below, with some comments of what she suggested to change.

One of the ideas that applies to all of the spreads was to add something to do with which buses you can take to get there, so proposed the idea of having a bus icon with the number on the front with the bus that takes you closest and does the route most often in the day. That way, at least they will be able to look out for that bus, and if they want more information, they know exactly what bus to search for on google etc. 

The only change that Tulia suggested for the cover was to put my name on it for during the marking process. That way it is easier for them to identify who's brochure it is, rather than go through the hassle of trying to match it with one of the many physical workbooks.

Following the idea for the bus, all that was required on here was the addition of a bus icon and a brief explanation of what the bus icon represents, much like I have done with the other three existing icons. I will try to work it into the layout, without changing it too much, as I really like how I have followed a very similar grid structure in this spread and the other destination spreads. There was then a small part of text that I was going to change that said something like "Take some time away from the crowded city", and I was going to change it to "Take the bus away from the crowded city" so that it then integrates with the newly introduced bus icon, and ties the whole brochure together even more.

All that Tulia said to change for this spread was to add the bus icon, following our new idea to help with the navigation to each of these scenic destinations.

 

Much like the Mount Victoria spread, all that Tulia suggested adding to this was the bus icon that I was going to introduce.

There were just a few really small things to change in this spread. One being the introduction of the new bus icon, while there were a few lines which had different tracking to the rest, since I was trying to create the left justified look in the text. Therefore, I will go and play around with adding in words, or playing around with the sentence structure so that it fits in perfectly, while still promoting the destination to a high quality standard.  

Tulia didn't suggest anything to change with this spread. She liked the ideas that I had used as my optional spreads, and thought that the style fitted in nicely with the rest of my brochure.

Tonight I will go home and make these slight changes, so that my brochure is refined to an even higher quality. Once I get it to a standard where I think it can't make any more changes to it that would positively influence the design, then I will get it printed and bound together for hand-in. I am really excited at the fact that it feels like I'm near the end of my brochure design, and I comfortably have enough time to make some more adjustments if needed before hand-in early next week. I will post another blog post either tonight or tomorrow with my brochure updates. The mock-up brochures for each stage of my design development process can also be found in my physical workbook, which I have used as a documentation process to run hand in hand with this online blog.

Map Development

Earlier today I was experimenting with a few concepts for my map, and I picked out some ways on how to improve them. Below, I have attached a photo of my more developed map, and what changes I have made to it and why.

Above I have included a JPEG image of my latest map design, which is the one I will show tomorrow in our final critique. I am really happy with how this is looking actually, and feel like the developments made from my initial concepts have been quite strong and successful. So I reversed the pages over, as I had suggested I would, so that the text is placed in the same grid structure as it is on the other spreads. By flipping the pages around, I was able to get the creamy coloured map to blend into the background colour, without having the big dark blue divide in between the text and the map. This way it is a lot more fluent and effective, leaving the overall layout looking a lot more balanced. I also grabbed more of the map of Wellington, and extended the contours of hills to above the text, to create more movement and visual flow throughout the page. Some texture has also been added into the dark blue area (resembling the sea) and also into the land, mainly above the text. The texture helps to give the image a bit more depth and feel to it, rather than being flat and boring.

I will take this map, along with my other spreads, to class tomorrow for the final critique. I will aim to get as much feedback as possible from the teachers, as well as ask a few peers for some feedback on the map (since we had class critiques on all of the other spreads earlier today, and I hadn't created a map at this point). I'm really looking forward to this final week, and especially with how I have been managing my time so far, I am hoping to have this finished to an extremely high standard with enough time to comfortably get it outputted. I am aiming to have it printed by as soon as possible. My book work is also up to date, so all that I will need to do by next week will be the final few blog posts on how the outputting went, along with a rationale.

Formal Class Critique

Also in today's class, we had our formal class critique, where we all put our work out on the table, and had the class go around and write down on some sheets of paper what they liked and what they didn't like about our brochure. I went around and gave some advice to a lot of people mainly regarding their colour choices and type layout, hoping they would benefit from my feedback.

On my feedback sheet (which can be seen in my physical workbook, completed on the 23rd March) I got 100% positive comments. They were all saying about how they thought I had used imagery and grid structures well in order to create a certain feeling and atmosphere for each place. There were also a lot of comments regarding the choice of type, and the layout, saying that it suited my theme. A lot of these comments made me feel like I had effectively got the intended atmospheres and meanings across to the audience through my particular choice of imagery, grid structure, and and using the vital FADP's.

In many ways it is good that I didn't get any bad feedback about my brochure, and everyone that critiqued it seemed to like it, although then in a way it's also bad as it's not exactly super helpful in terms of me looking to progress my own work further before hand-in. However, Caroline seemed to love how it was looking after developments, and Tulia seemed pretty pleased tomorrow. For today, I focus on developing my map, and then tomorrow I will ask the teachers for some final critical feedback. I will post tomorrow with their feedback, as well as the changes I am going to make in relation to these suggestions.

Map-Making

At the beginning of today's class, we were in The Pit again for another lecture, with this one being all about map-making. I had been delaying making my map until I had been informed of all we needed to know about making maps. There were a few interesting examples that popped up in the slideshow presentation, especially the designs for the Underground Railway Tracks. So during the class, I started to work on making a map, making sure I kept my stylistic approach from my other spreads consistent, and incorporated it into this spread as well.  Below you can see my first two concepts for my map, with a small description below each one.

The above map was my initial concept. I tried to continue the use of the creamy coloured background, and decided to try having the map in the darker blue colour that has been used on a few of my spreads, mainly the cover page and the 'journey planner' spread. However, there were a few things that I didn't like about this spread. The destinations on the map, in particular the red area for Red Rocks, and the green area for Mount Victoria, were a lot harder to see than it should have been. Also, I didn't like how the cityscape was so long across the top, it could've done with being a bit shorter for sure. So I went and tried reversing the map's colours.

Above, is my slight development from my initial concept. It consists of a creamy coloured map reversed out of the darker blueish background. This definitely makes the destinations easier to see on the map, and the contours of hills etc look a lot more interesting. However, one thing I'm not too fond of is how in all of my destination spreads, I have the text on the left, yet this spread it is on the right. So later on today I will develop this and make the necessary changes. I also feel like it doesn't look too good having the distinctive divide in between the map and the bodies of text, it makes them feel like they are separate from each other, with the gap between them also being too big.

Tonight I will work on developing these maps again, so I can print it out and have a more refined map for tomorrows class which will be our last chance for proper feedback and critiques before printing during the remainder of the week. I feel like I'm coming to the end of my design, as I am very happy with how all of my spreads are looking. Once my map has been refined, I will look to pick out all of the smaller, yet critical parts of my spreads that I can improve, and then find ways to improve them. I will post another blog post later on tonight.

Self Critique - Landscape Development

Over the last couple of days, since my most recent blog post, I have been picking out aspects of each spread that I think could be improved, in a self-critique, and I have been working on developing these into a more refined design. Below, I have attached JPEG images of each of my spreads individually, and each image has been accompanied with some text explaining exactly what I have changed in the spread. It will make it easier to identify the differences between my initial landscape brochure, and this developed version. Most of the developments are quite small and subtle, but needed in order to develop the brochure nonetheless.

Above, is my current brochure cover page. In my last mock up that I printed out, I noticed that some of the sky had been selected in the same colour range as the cityscape, so there was some of the darker blue in the sky. So basically what I did for this small development, was go through with the masking tool and mask over it all, so that the sky was only made up of the lighter blue shades, leaving the city and harbour to be coloured in the darker shade. I really like the fact that the cover is still quite simple in terms of the colour scheme, although just the simple introduction of the light blue shade for the sky has made the page seem a lot more lively and scenic, which makes it far more fitting more my brochure. It helps to set the tone for my brochure, and give the viewers a clear indication of the stylistic approach that I have taken right from the get go.

Above, is my initial destination spread, which is showing the walk up Mt. Victoria to the lookout. In my previous mock-up, I felt that there was too much negative space, and the visual flow that was created diagonally from the sign and the tower seemed to come to a halt in the massive blank area. So I have moved them in towards the centre of the spread, and I have added a bit more of the hill, some more city, and then a tree up on top for a bit more imagery, and to help give more of an emotive feel to the spread. Along with this, I left justified the main bodies of text, and went through to make sure that there wasn't any weird spacing in between words, which would've created an unwanted distraction to any readers. Also, on my last spread there was some strange dark areas through the middle of the page, so I wen't through and erased these. It turned out they had been part of one of images that I chose the colour range from. I am really happy with this development, as I had felt that the Mt. Victoria spread was slightly weaker than the rest, although now I am far more satisfied with how it is coming together. There is definitely more of a defined visual flow, whle the image is quite nicely balanced out, due to the varying scale of the images and text.

The spread directly above, based on Red Rocks Reserve, is at this point going to be my second destination that I am showing within my brochure. Much like the Mt. Victoria spread, this one I also went through and changed the text to left justified, and made sure that there weren't any weird spaces in between words. I felt like the justified text looks a lot better, and it helps it sit a bit more nicely on the page, rather than being quite disjointed due to the varying line lengths. It allows the images to be the most dominant, without being too distracted by the shaping of the text. Another aspect I played around with was the colour of the imagery. For a starter, I changed the pinkish colour to the same colour as the heading, although at about a third of the opacity, to still make sure it portrays the noisy, rough aesthetic that I was aiming for. On the printed mock-up, the black part of each image (such as the seal, Owhiro Bay sign and the rock) looked too dark, and were too dominant. I went into the colour swatches and changed each of these to still a dark colour, but more of a really dark grey, rather than a straight black. I feel like this will help improved my brochure by still having the imagery as the focal point, but not too overpowering and distracting because of the stark contrast between solid black and the background. I will print my updated brochure out tomorrow so I can see how it looks when outputted.

In the attached image above, the Botanic Garden spread, I have made a few changes in terms of the composition, and also in terms of the text as well. The heading remains the same, although I have again played around with adding in the left justification. This allows it to sit a lot nicer on the page, and allow the imagery to be the most dominant feature. The indented text still allows the three bodies of text to be differentiated. I have played around with the composition, and the scale of my imagery, in order to improve the visual flow of my spread. In my last development, the visual flow was a bit disjointed, so I have rearranged the imagery, and added in a bit more, in order to create a more defined diagonal visual flow. I have added in the little path with "Wellington Botanic Garden" written on the shelter, and have also incorporated a bit more of the field area, which consisted of all sorts of roses and other beautiful flowers. I am really happy with how this spread has developed, and it definitely looks a lot more balance, structured, and overall refined. I will print this out and take it in for the class critique on Monday.

 

Above, is my final page in my brochure, which consists of the "Journey Planner" and "My Schedule" sections. There are a few small changes I have made to these. When I printed out my most recent physical mock-up, the calendar, as well as the right hand modules, seemed a bit too far down the page, so I have simply moved them up a bit higher, and aligned the top module with the top part of the calendar. I have played around with the opacity of the background cityscape behind the modules and calendar just so they aren't too distracting. Furthermore, I have removed the "date/walk" title on the schedule page, and replaced it with a "day one", "day two", and "day three" heading.

I feel like my brochure has definitely developed a lot over the last few days, especially since making the change from portrait to landscape. Tomorrow I am going to print these out into a mock-up brochure, which I will take to class on Monday for our class critique. I'm glad that I have continued to individually refine the brochure in my own time, which allows me to take a more developed version to class, so I am further ahead in the refinement process. Hopefully this means that there won't be too many major changes that I need to make coming into the final week of this project. I'm really looking forward to seeing how this looks once it is printed out, following all of the changes that I have made in the past few days. Despite a few of the changes being quite small, it's noticing all these small changes that can actually have a major positive impact on the advancement of my designs, or any design in general. So over the next week, before hand-in, I will look to be as picky as possible with heaps of little changes, as well as change it based on feedback I get in class.

Development: Portrait to Landscape

In the last couple of days, I have taken all of Caroline's feedback into strong consideration and have been working on developing my scenic walk brochure. The biggest change I made to it was the transition from a portrait brochure, into a landscape one. There are also quite a few big changes, such as the bodies of text being merged into one big group and utilising the use of indents to separate paragraphs, and also playing around with the placement and composition of all the imagery. I have gone back to use more creative headings to try and create more of a differentiation between the three spreads, and on top of that have moved the three symbols from the bottom right, over to the bottom left, in order to create a bit more balance on the left hand side of the page. On the journey planner spread, I added in a "my schedule" on the other page, so that the viewers can plan out their day, and see when they will have time to fit in the walk, and then go on the walk accordingly. The cover page has also changed, as I have created a panoramic shot from the top of Mt. Vic with a couple of photos I had taken, and given the photo the same stylistic qualities as my imagery throughout the brochure. This helps to tie it all together. The cover also has a bit of lighter blue added in for the sky, which will helpfully help me to meet Tulia's suggestion of adding in a bit of colour to avoid a very 1930's classical look. Along with this, I have played around with the placement of each image per spread, in order to try and get a bit more movement and visual flow throughout the pages. The colour has stayed pretty much how it was. There are a few more minor touch ups here and there, although I will attach the JPEG's of each spread below so that you can view them on here. The mock-up brochure has been placed into my physical workbook as well.

By Mondays class (which will be the first session of Week 5), I will look to give my spreads a critique, and see what I can develop. That way, I would have developed the work more, and a more refined version is ready for another critique in Monday's class, where we are having a class critique. I also want to try and develop it as quickly and efficiently as possible, that way there are no rushing when it comes to the printing for hand-in. So far I have used my time outside of class extremely effectively, and I plan on continuing in the same manner for the next few weeks as it comes to the most important part of the term. I have looked on Stream at the PDF on Map-Making, and by the looks of things we are going to cover this on Monday in the lectorial. Therefore, I will wait until then to start working on the map. Hopefully if I refine my designs by then, it will allow me more time to spend working on the map. The map will be an extremely important part of the brochure, as it 'sets the tone' for the rest of the brochure, so it is crucial that I get it fitting into my existing stylistic approach, while making sure it is both aesthetical and functional, showing the necessary information.

Development - New Mock Up (17th March)

Last night, following some feedback from Tulia, as well as some self critiquing, I decided to develop my brochure so that I would have another one ready for today. That way, I have a further developed brochure and can get more vital feedback, otherwise I would have to wait until next Monday, and since we are already in Week 4, it's best to take the feedback as thick and fast as possible.

So today, Caroline came around and got me to pin my work up on the pin board wall, so that I could see it from a bit further back and see how it looked. Again, this mock-up has been placed into my physical workbook, although this time the feedback has been written directly onto the brochure itself, rather than on separate print-outs.The images have also been attached to the this post. I am still working on creating a map for my brochure, which will complete it and give me the total of 12 pages required.

In these developments, I have changed the imagery on the colour, trying to give it more of a scenic look, showing a lookout of the city from the top of the botanic gardens. I have also added in some subtle texture into the cover, and I have the text in a dark blue/black, rather than white reversed out of a blueish colour. In my Mt. Vic spread, I have added in a view of the city. I felt like this gave the spread some very interesting line work and intricate detail, and also created more of a visual flow have the large Mt Victoria sign in the top right. There is quite an apparent flow on the diagonal from the bottom left to the top right. I also decreased the size of the heading to fit with the other spreads. In the Red Rocks spread, I've altered some of the text in terms of switching the third and fourth paragraph around, and I have also extended the line length. The pink behind the warning sign has also been faded more. In the Botanic Garden spread, I extended line length, and made the heading the same size as the other spreads. In the final spread, the journey planner, I added in some intricate linework from a view of the city, along with some hills in the background to give it a more interesting look, without covering the calendar planner or making it look confusing. I felt like this gave it more emotive qualities and ties it into my other spreads nicely.

The feedback from Caroline is as follows...
- Experiment with a landscape brochure, so that it is shorter but wider, as it will fit in better with the theme of scenic walks. It will allow more space for imagery, rather than having it all crammed in and taking away some 'breathing space' inside of each spread.
- Remove the lines from beside the text, as it makes your eyes want to stay over reading the text rather than go look at the beautiful imagery on the other page.
- Experiment with indenting the text, so put all of it into one big group and indent each paragraph (except for the first).
- The text looks too static at the moment, and there is almost too much consistency between the text layouts. Also, go back to having the more creative and expressive headings like in my initial Red Rocks development, where it helps to make each spread unique.
- Play around with the composition of the Red Rocks layout, as the warning sign at the top right is almost too dominant. Try having the "Owhiro Bay" sign up there instead, the seal beneath, and then the sign further down towards the bottom left hand side of the spread, to create a clear and consistent visual flow along the diagonal.

- Try to recreate the diagonal visual flow in the Botanic Gardens spread too. Possibly drop the flower down so that it is cropped off the page, and then start layering images behind it and slowly move them towards the top right hand corner. Try to create it in a way that there is also some 'breathing space'.
- On the botanic garden spread, change the colour of the icons in the bottom right, as they are quite difficult to see in white on red.

I have found this feedback extremely helpful, as it has given me a lot of aspects of my brochure to work on and develop, which means I can make quite big steps in my next few developments rather than small incremental developments as I last few have been. I really like the idea of doing the landscape brochure, and I fully agree that it would be better suited to the mood and nature of my brochure. Since I am doing scenic walks, it would make sense to have a wider, less cramped, and more open brochure, which 'allows the eye to walk'. I am really looking forward to working on the next few developments and seeing exactly how far I can go with these changes. I am glad that Caroline agreed to go back to the creative headings, as I can now use these to express a certain uniqueness to each of my chosen scenic destinations. I will keep my blog updated with my developments, as well as printing developments to put into my physical workbook.

Development - New Mock Up (14th March)

On Saturday I went and printed out my next set of developments, and glued them all into my physical workbook. The mock-up brochure, along with individual images of each spread, have been placed into my physical workbook. Below, on this blog post, I have also attached images of how each spread is looking at this stage of development.

Once again, the critiques have been drawn on to the physical print outs. I'm not all that convinced at the moment by the headings being so plain and static, although maybe when i develop the brochure further it will start to look a bit better. I just don't feel like it suits the style or atmosphere that I'm trying to create with my brochure. However, I will change the headings to the same size, to create a bit more consistency through the brochure. Once I have done that, if it still doesn't look very good, I will get some feedback from Caroline tomorrow and see if she thinks I should go back to having more creative headlines on each page, which in my opinion would give each page more uniqueness and I could then use the text in the headings as a way of helping me express the emotive qualities and atmosphere of each varying destination.

However, today in class I had a feedback session with Tulia and here is some of the feedback.
- On the cover, possibly try adding some colour of brightening it to mach the vibrancy and natural mood throughout the brochure, as it looks a bit 1930's or classical at the moment.
- Re-arrange the order to Mt. Vic first, Red Rocks second, and Botanic Gardens first. Mainly because Mount Vic is the most popular of the walks, that viewers are most likely to go and walk, and it also helps the spreads get progressively more vibrant as it goes on.
- Extend the line lengths on botanic gardens' and red rocks' bodies of text, as at the moment the text almost appears as if it should be read like a poem.

In my next progression, I will take into consideration these comments and try to develop my brochure accordingly. I will update my blog again tomorrow with my latest developments to my brochure, along with more feedback I receive on it.

Initial Colour Development: Mock-Up

Yesterday, I printed out my first initial development of my brochure, with this one featuring more colour than my first few basic layouts. I've used a technique where you select a certain colour range from within a range of photos, and then fill it all one colour. I really like the look of it, and I feel like this is helping my brochure develop and progress quite nicely. Below, you can see some images of each page in the Brochure, which are hopefully going to develop over the next few weeks into a very good quality final output.

These images have also been printed out and stuck into my physical workbook, in which I have drawn on top of them with certain changes that I could make based on my own critique, as well as a third year's recommended changes. The stuck together mock-up brochure has also been placed inside of my physical workbook.

While I was in at the university printing my mock-up brochure, a third year walked past and asked if he could give me some advice. He recommended changing every word in each spreads heading the same size, rather than the more creative headings like I currently had. I will experiment with these suggestions and then see whether or not I like them like that. I feel like it could create more of a boring, dull sense of atmosphere to the page, rather than an outdoors, natural, and adventurous mood.

 I feel like the imagery in each of my brochures is quite nice, and gives a good portrayal of each place's mood, due to the emotive qualities of the images. The consistent red/pink colour in the botanic garden's sets the vibrant colourful tone, while the red rocks spread sets quite a noisy, rough tone, almost disjointed tone, which was my way of expressing the emotive qualities of red rocks, with the waves crashing, wind howling etc. The Mt. Victoria spread is dark green, which gives a sense of eeriness about it, which is how I kind of felt inside, and it would have been quite a strange atmosphere if I had of walked up alone. At the end of my brochure, for my optional spread, for now at least, I have added a journey planner. This will allow the viewers to plan their own journey to each of these places. I will continue to think of other ideas that this could be, although I'm quite happy with having the planner in the back. Over the next few weeks I will start working on the page with the map, and information about the icons, which will be the opening spread.

Self-Review for Development

After looking over my initial concepts, even though my intention was just to get a basic layout and some basic brochures designed, it sparked a few ideas that I would like to try out, which I feel could develop my work even further. My favourite of my initial concepts was my collage-styled brochure, as it worked more effectively with the FADP's, such as scale, colour, and even rhythm in order to get certain ideas across.

However, I would like to develop this by trying to introduce more emotive qualities, so that the actual atmosphere of the place is felt from within the design. Having walked these 3 walks back in week one, I had a fair idea of the atmosphere of each place, and I would like to try and portray this in my next developments. I'm going to start adding more colour into my designs, as my initial mock-ups were basically just black and white to get a basic foundation for the brochure. However, the use of colour will be a key instrument in creating the intended mood and atmosphere for each walk, and help to make each page unique in it's own way, based on it's emotive qualities.

Now that I have experimented with multiple styles and basic fundamental layouts, it will allow me to narrow in on some of the aspects that I liked, and then progress from there. I will start introducing more colour and creativity throughout my developments now that I have quite a good idea of where I am heading with my brochure design.

In a couple of my designs I used quite a large heading on each page, however with this idea for development I'm going to look to have the heading a bit smaller, that way the actual design, or illustration, or images that I have created become the focal point. That way the viewer will straight away notice that each page is visually different in terms of it's colour and layout, and will begin to draw contrasts and comparisons between the walks.

In the next few days I will do another blog post showing my digital exploration of these ideas, and how they are starting to come along. I'm really excited to see how my next few developments come along, as I feel the emotive qualities being introduced will allow me to take the brochure to the next level.

Interim Presentation (10th March)

Last night I outsourced four mock-up brochures so that I was ready for today's interim presentation. We started off by gathering in small groups of 4 or 5, and discussing each others work. Afterwards, each group chose one person's work to talk about in front of the class, and say why it was good and why it was bad. I was quite surprised at the lack of outsourced brochures throughout the class, as there were only a few physical mock-ups, and even only a few digitally created brochures, despite being clearly told on Monday that we needed outsourced designs for the presentation.

However, by outsourcing some for myself, I felt it was a slight advantage, as mine got chosen for the class critique, and this helped me realise exactly what others liked about my brochure. It seemed that they really liked the use of the indexical signs faded into the background, and Tulia also commented on how the use of the FADP's have been used carefully throughout each of them to help create the intended atmosphere and connection between the walks, while still showing each of their own individual emotive qualities. An example of this was where a vibrant red flower was used in the 'Botanic Garden' spread in order to help recreate the vibrant, natural atmosphere at the garden, in comparison to the more washed out reds and greys used in the 'Red Rocks' spread. Another aspect that received a positive comment was the text on the cover, as they liked how I had used all lowercase letters to help it seem more soothing, calm and natural, which perfectly fits in the with scenic theme. I'm going to use this feedback when I begin to improved my brochures, as these four were just basic ideas, just to see if my stylistic ideas were on the right track. 

I came into the class with four different approaches to the brochure, as explained in my previous blog post. This was just so I could see what ones seemed to be the most effective in terms of promoting the scenic walks. For the rest of the week, I will focus on refining these brochures, and possibly narrowing down on just one or two, and then I can try to get these looking as effective as I can. 

After the interim presentation, we went down to The Pit for a Fay's lecture on grid systems and modules, which was extremely interesting. I've already been trying to apply grids to my brochure, so it was good to have her again emphasize the importance of grid systems within the design industry. Following the lecture, I returned to the studio on E floor of Te Ara Hihiko, and continued working on documenting my design process in my physical workbook.

Below are some photos of my four outsourced mock-ups, although the original mock-ups themselves can be found inside of my physical workbook.

Making and Experimenting With Mock-Ups

After coming up with four complete digital mock-ups, I am going to print them out and have them outsourced and ready for our class interim presentation tomorrow morning. Below, I have just given a brief description on the differences in my approach to each of the brochures. I was aiming to have four different stylistic approaches for these mock-ups, that way I can use these as initial concepts and then narrow down onto the one or two that I prefer, and then continue to work on them in the coming weeks. Each of the mock-up brochures don't have their actual 100 words of writing in them just yet, as I am still working on this and editing it, therefore I have just used 100 words from the Lorem Epsum generator online to give me a rough idea how it will look with text. I have used the spread from each brochure that is promoting the 'Red Rocks Reserve' scenic walk, out in Owhiro Bay, so I can compare the approaches more directly.

In this initial Mock-up, I focused on using one photo as the background, with the text over top. I was aiming to just get a basic template set out. Therefore, throughout the brochure, I have just used one of the best photos I took from each location (that seemed fitting for my intended composition), and then added text onto it. I wanted to have bold headings as well, and I was looking to play around with varying font sizes and thicknesses, such as the difference between the bold "rocks" and the light "red". I then placed the text below, although In each spread I tried to find either horizontal or vertical relationships between the heading and the text so that I could align them and get a more effective composition in place.

Below, was my second mock-up. For this one, I was looking at creating quite a consistent layout, and using shapes and text to promote each destination. I was looking to just use black and white for now (except for the colour photos) so that I could more focus on getting the composition and typography better. It's often found that if you get it looking good in black and white first, that you can focus on the compositional aspects first, and then the added colour will come as a bonus once the layout has been perfected. Throughout this brochure, I was just looking at the placement of the icons, heading and text, and keeping it relatively consistent throughout. The photos have been placed inside of two merged circles, with the circles giving the page more of a dynamic look, which is quite a neat contrast against the organised, symmetrical approach with the typographical layout.

As another experiment, in the mock-up screenshot below, I was curious to see how the brochure would look if I focused on using the heading as the most distinctive feature on the page, and using that as the focal point for the image. I also stuck to the black and white colour scheme, again to promarily focus on the composition aspects of my design. For each page, I created a sort of texture in the background, for example, in the image below I have created a rocky texture as a simple yet effective way of communicating part of the atmospheric and emotive qualities that Red Rocks Reserve provides. The text has again been aligned in terms of finding horizontal and vertical alignments and relationships. The icons have been used in the top right for each page, maintaining consistency of positioning to avoid confusing the viewer.

For my fourth mock-up, I tried out a new approach by using more of a collage style in the photos. I have again used reasonably bold headings, and have focused on aligning the respective text based on horizontal and vertical relationships. In the image below, The collage consists of four different images, all coming together to help communicate the emotive qualities, in a different way to the other mock-ups created. This uses actual photos, although they have been manipulated and scaled in order to convey different meanings. Again, icons have been used to symbolise some of the features, such as the fact that there are bike tracks, dogs allowed, and also public toilets at the beginning of the walk.

I'm quite happy with the variation between each of my approaches, and I feel that it will help in the long run by starting with a large range of concepts and ideas, and then slowly narrowing in on my preferred and most effective brochures. By trying a large range of ideas, it allows me to see what does and doesn't work, and then use this knowledge further down the design process, when it comes to creating my final brochure design.

Week Three - Pattern

During class, we were given a sheet full of different patterns to fill out. We were required to list multiple emotive qualities that were created by each pattern, how they were created, and what each pattern could be used to portray. I found this quite useful in the sense that it gave me a greater understanding and appreciation for the emotive qualities of patterns, and showed me just how effectively they can communicate multiple ideas. I'd like to look at using patterns in my brochure, as it is quite a simple way of communicating ideas visually, rather than using actual images or text.

Along with this we were asked to print out 5 examples of existing posters or visual material containing both text and images, and analyse how they have used a grid system within their design. This was in preparation for Fay's lecture on grid systems and modules tomorrow. The grid breakdown and analysis has been stuck into my physical workbook.

Overnight, we were asked to come up with 4 mock-ups of our brochure, for an interim presentation to the class. A lot of people chose to just do quick sketches, although I felt that creating the mock-ups digitally would give me an advantage in the sense that I will still have all of the editable documents to access once I have received feedback on each of them. That way, I can make the adjustments as necessary, since I will have the initial template for each brochure already made on the computer. I have already created one basic mock-up digitally, and will create another three this afternoon. Tonight, I will make sure I head up to the university so that I can get these printed, that way I will be able to have 4 physical mock-ups outsourced and ready for an interim presentation. This way I will be able to get as much feedback as possible, and begin looking at ways of improving and enhancing my designs.

Week Two - Session Two

This lesson consisted mainly of more ideation and sharing in smaller groups. However, for homework, we were asked to begin looking at textures and patterns found from our destinations. Throughout the rest of the week, I am going to make sure I get onto creating some digital mock-ups and concepts for my brochure, so I can get a bit of a head start on it. This way it will allow me to more effectively manage my time throughout the rest of the project, and I will also have more time to tweak refine my brochure design.

Week Two - Sharing Ideas

In class today, we spent a good part of our time discussing and sharing our ideas with the teachers and also some fellow students. It involved letting them know our destination and activity choices, along with giving them some sort of idea on how we are going to approach the brochure in terms of style, colour, and the atmosphere we are going to try and create on each page. I shared my ideas with Caroline, and she seemed to quite like the idea of the scenic walking. I also mentioned that they are going to be linked due to the scenic walking theme, although due to the atmosphere of each location I am able to create enough of a contrast between them. Red Rocks is a more relaxed yet rocky, coastal walk that encounters marine life, and exposed to quite a bit of wind. Mount Victoria is a more challenging uphill walk, through the bush which brings you up to an amazing view at the top. Botanic Gardens is then a casual nature walk which takes you through various bush trails and offers a large range of views of flowers and plants as you go.

We also began looking at indexical signs, and started drawing our own indexical signs, 12 for each of our destinations (these can be seen in my physical workbook). Along with that, for homework, we were asked to print out a photo we had taken, and use cropping to create 6 different emotions from cropping the one image multiple times, and then we were required to also come up with 12 potential colour swatches for each destination or activity. All of which can be found in my physical workbook.

I'm really looking forward to getting into designing mock-ups of my brochure, and seeing it all come together in the coming weeks.