Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

The Brief —

In collaboration with your design team, produce the yearbook for the Leeds College of Art (BA Hons.) Photography course.

The publication you create must work as a piece that displays the work of graduating students to its best whilst promoting the course to potential new students.Work with the Photography department to resolve the yearbook in a design that is aesthetically pleasing whilst communicating the course values, messages & content.Consider how best to use the given budget and deliver the finished yearbook in the required specification that is ready to print.The design team for this project was; myself, Rosalind Stoughton, Pawel Adamek, Chris Starkie and Sean Perkins.Across these boards I have shown all stages of the design of the Photography yearbook since I feel I have undoubtedly played the major role in the group with regards to producing and organising this entire brief. All contact with the client was done through myself to agree meetings, feeback and many ammendments.

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I N F I N I T Y∞

Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

Concept & Design Direction —

After going through several concepts and ideas with regards to theming the publication, we eventually settled on the title of ‘Infinity’ in relation to the infinity focus found on a prfoessional camera. After trying some different imagery on the front cover which was submitted by various students we hadn’t come to a point of being happy with anything.Upon starting to place student work into the book itself, it was me who noticed the photographs taken by Alice Hall as I thought they would fit perfectly with the title and theme. Her images were bright and colourful, but not too descriptive which was perfect as it didn’t set a definitive tone to the book and instead reflected more of the diversity of the course.We asked Alice for another image that was seperate to the ones she submitted for her yearbook pages so that it wasn’t repeated inside and the chosen image is show on the bottom left corner of this board.The final front cover uses the image full bleed with all of the text, the LCA logo and spine information all to be picked out in white foil. A turquoise was the colour-dropped from the cover image to use as full bleed block colour on the inside cover to act in a similar way to end papers.The title is set in Avenir Heavy with the infinity symbol centralised below it.

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Notes:Cover Image by Alice HallTurquoise Colour Values — C:51 M:0 Y:31 K:0Typefaces — Avenir & Adobe Caslon Pro

Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

Layout & Structure —

Following on from the turquoise papers we included an inner title page which was succeeded by the foreword and then the contents page.A big problem that occured with the yearbook was because of the foreword as we were kept waiting until the very final day until we recieved it causing confusion as we had to have a back up plan if it did not come through in time.The contents page was agreed upon loosely between ourselves and the client but since they are a photography course we thought we should let them direct their own personal photos. Since they didn’t want a face on shot that as a compromise we would just use an image of their eyes with the rationale being ‘what is seen through the photographers eye’. The eye photographs were then spaced out as much as we thought neccesary since in a block together on a single page it looked quite intimidating and off-putting. To reduce the impact further we turned them to greyscale images and then brought back the turquoise colour through highlighting the page numbers.

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Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

Layout & Structure —

It was Rosalind and I that developed the grid structure for the book and we eventually settled on a 12x12 grid with 4mm gut-ters and a 15mm margin.Each student needed two double page spreads each and we worked out a way of including all of their individual details and statement at the bottom of the first page and then just a repeater name and project title on the following spread. This proved to be valuable since the student’s work varied quite alot over the two spreads and so the repeater titles ensured the reader would know who’s work it was.The student’s name and statement and all page numbers were set in Avenir and then their personal contact details set in Adobe Caslon Pro Regualar.The main aim of the layout was to the the photographs do the talking – giving them as much room as possible so they could be as big as could possibly fir. We also managed to construct a grid that was flexible enough to fit the varying formats and dimensions of images that we recieved from all of ths students.Finally we set the students a limit of 80-100 words for their personal statement – which is quite large although they originally asked for more. I then consulted with the editor of the statements on their end to ensure they were the correct length.

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Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

Double Page Spread Variations —

The layout out all the images was done again by myself and Rosalind. On the first delivery of final images from the students we placed every image in accordance with the grid we had set up. Throughout the rest of the project we were emailed many ammendments to statements and contact details and images to replace and swap around which I did all myself.The spreads featured on this board show some variations of page layouts within the grid structure including an image that spreads full blead across two thirds of the double page spread. There are a few pages like this that act almost as exceptions to some of the rules and nicely break up the formality of the other spreads in the book. Overall I was really happy with the quality of images that were submitted to us and obviously if the content is there then it makes life a lot easier.I think that particularly Rosalind and myself have done really well to achieve such a simplistic looking layout that is at the same time complex and flexible enough to adapt to the given content.

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Jonathan Finch(BA Hons.) Graphic Design Level 06

OUGD303 —Brief 1 / Photography Yearbook

Exhibition Banners —

The Photography department also asked us to design a couple of banners to be hung at their section of the final year show. Ideas and designs are still ongoing for this part of the brief but the current designs I have are shown here. They use the cover image and typography in a long, slender format with a second banner that uses the turquoise colour featured in the book with the names of the photography students listed in white type.

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I N F I N I T Y∞

BA (Hons.) Photography 2012

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Emily Bailey

George Beck

Sofia Coombs

Rory Doyle

Charys Elmer

Daniele Fitzgerald

Mindy Goose

Katherine Gragory

Aisha Greenidge-Noorgat

Alice Hall

Aaron Hargreaves

James Hawley

Chris Jackson

Catherine Laura

Stuart Leckenby

James Lester

Kyla Lynskey

Tim Mellin

Ess Newton

Hannah Reynolds

Scott Salt

Claire Sawdon

Benjamin P. Smith

Jack Turner

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