Reflecting on My Design Process

The design process is composed of 4 stages including research, ideation, creative experimentation and iteration. Throughout task 2, I strictly adhered to this process, which in turn allowed me to achieve the most effective and refined outcome of my collage, monogram and booklet design.

Collage (Component 1)

Whilst my mind was already flooding with ideas at the beginning of the task, undertaking research was extremely significant to ensure my project fit the brief and applied the required skills. During this stage for the collage, I started with researching design quotes, listening to Type Radio and observing various collage styles. This assisted greatly during the next stage of ideation as it narrowed down appropriate colour palettes and images to look for when determining the concept of the collage. The research I undertook for the collage allowed me to determine that a more surreal style would be most appropriate as the collage was constructed from various magazine images. The images below display my initial collection of quotes and collages I drew inspiration from in this stage.

During ideation for the collage, I looked through magazines, clothing tags and old books to find images and letters. As the collage was not digital, a challenge I faced was finding images and letters that were the right scale but also fit the concept of my collage. The lack of control in this stage was time consuming but beneficial to my process, as it taught me to be more creative in the way I approach the layout. Therefore, I used the lack of consistency with the scale of the letters to create hierachy in the quote. I made the words "ornamental manifestation" larger and in colour, in comparison to the other parts which I made smaller and in black and white. This added a design element to the collage, making it more effective in emphasising the quote.

I then had to determine the layout and alignment of the quote on the background through creative experimentation. I very roughly rearranged the components of the quote on my laptop by taking a photo and placing it in Photoshop. This allowed me to compare the layouts side by side, save and look back on them. It was more efficient than moving the individuals letters around on the paper each time. Left alignment worked best as it was the most readable and didn't get lost in the background.

After scanning the final collage, I had to crop the scan in Photoshop to avoid an uneven border. I also adjusted the colours, as well as made all final versions including a grayscale and duotone. I found working with the duotone mode on Photoshop to be difficult, as it was very easy for the contrast between each letter to become lost. However, I learnt that it is best to use one light colour with one darker colour to keep the contrast evident. Although, as the tones between the smaller letters and the background were similar, this still was not effective. The final 3 collages are exhibited below.

Monogram (Component 2)

Research for the monogram consisted of observing and analysing the history of monogram practice. This stage gave me an insight to the purpose of monograms, which increased my knowledge before designing my own.

Whilst designing my monogram, the stages of ideation and creative experimentation simultaneously blended together as I experienced constantly changing ideas. Initially, I began by drawing up sketches in my diary. These were helpful, as they made me think deeply and creatively about the different ways each letter could join together. I also found looking through unique typefaces evoked inspiration for the letter shapes and overall style of my monogram. A collection of the inspirational typography that was used in the process of my monogram design are illustrated below.

As I could find any specific typefaces to use as a base, I decided to image trace a piece of inspirational typography that I found depicting the letter 'a' in Illustrator. I then reshaped the edges to create a more defined C on the end, and enhance the curvature and flow.

During the iteration for my monogram, I added the enclosures by utilising the offset path tool. This resulted in a clean border that followed the natural shape of the monogram. It was in this stage that I started questioning if my design was too simple. However, this resulted in a 'breakthrough', as i realised that a simplistic monogram would be the most effective. This is as each letter needed to be easily distinguishable. Also, according to the research that I had done, simplistic monograms have been most effective over time. My final 4 monograms are displayed below.

Final Booklet

During the research stage for my final booklet design began to fully grasp the importance of white space, hierachy and choice of typeface. I predominantly utilised the Week 11 lecture in this stage to learn more about these concepts and principles. This determined my decision that a serif typeface would be used in the body of my text as it is the easiest to read in large paragraphs in comparison to a sans serif typeface. This sans serif would be used in my headings. I also researched other typesetting considerations such as line spacing and justification through the lectures.

The ideation stage consisted mostly of pairing a sans serif and serif typeface that worked well together. This was challenging as there were so many font choices, however by adhering to visual communication guidelines such as using a serif for the body font, this made the process easier. I chose Helvetica Neue for the headings and Baskerville for the body as this appeared clean and allowed for various font variations. This leads me on to a further conceptual breakthrough that I experienced whilst designing the booklet, which is the importance of white space.

Whilst experimenting with the layout and designs of each page in my booklet, ensuring that I had enough white space on each page with text was extremely important. I have learnt that white space allows the reader to digest the text they are reading more effectively. Due to the main function and purpose of the booklet being conveying the message of the First Things First Manifesto, white space avoided a feeling of clutter and decoration. Exhibited below are examples of the pages in my booklet where the use of white space is significant or adds meaning to the text.

Overall, I believe the final result of my booklet was successful. However, components such as the duotone collage highlighted that I could develop this specific skill further to achieve a more refined design. Thankfully, this did not interfere with the outcome as we only had to include 1 full version of the collage in the booklet. Therefore, by adhering to the design process, this resulted in an effective and well thought out booklet design that conveys the message of the First Things First Manifesto 2000.

BLOG 5 TASK 3 - 'Final Reflection'