Pierre Koenig Spreads I

For our next assignment, we are redesigning books for Pierre Koenig. When making some sample spreads, I tried to change up the balance between the images and the type. All of the type, at this point, is filler text and the grey shapes represent where the images will go. I have decided to go with a book that is 8 x 10. My typeface combinations were thought to be matches after learning about balanced typefaces and what works together from the previous assignment, in typography III.

Typefaces include: Arno Pro and Arial

Typefaces include: Futura and Baskerville

Typefaces include: Universe and Tw Cen MT

Typefaces include: Universe and Teardrop

Happily Married: Bodoni and Helvetica Final

Happily Married: Bodoni and Helvetica Update

Here is the (cross my fingers) final version of my mailer for Typography III. I messed with the alignment of the column to add more consistency. Also, by taking the period shape from each typeface and placing them over different male and female's faces, I was able to add more consistency and take away from the identity of the actual picture of the person.

Front

Back

Happily Married: Bodoni and Helvetica

MY NARRATIVE

The concept for Happily Married: Bodoni and Helvetica is the idea that Bodoni and Helvetica are a very happy married couple that both have strong atributes to raising their kids, and taking on the roles of adults in a hunky-dory, middle American, suburban family.

COLOURS

After picking typefaces, next I did some print tests of color on image and color with type. There are the samples I chose to print due to interest in the color on screen. And one who has every messed with a computer and a printer knows that it's not always what it seems on the computers screen (unfortunately).
These are the colors I have decided to use because their print test was the most favorable colors, in my opinion. The black, out of all of them, was the darkest and the most mechanical looking than the others. Try it printing if out to see. You'd be surprised.
THE LAYOUT

Choosing Two Typefaces

TWO TYPEFACES

AUDIENCE

Who the hell am I designing for? Designers, of course. To make this book all it can be it has to be what I would look for, in most senses. From this a sense of certain saturation of colors needs to be apparent. Also, I am looking for a textured background; I'm talking bitmap and messing with opacity and overlay. Think Cristiana Couceiro. Simple imagery, simple text, and pops of color.

GIVING A PERSONALITY TO A TYPEFACE

Helvetica and Bodoni;

What story am I trying to tell with these typefaces? Is Helvetica a bird that sits on the cradle of Bodoni? Is bodoni the egg that came before the chicken?

Tender Buttons Final

Codes in Language

For Typography III, I have decided to interpret each poem with a code of sorts. I am studying my personal experience with each poem and breaking them down into adjectives, repeated words, sentence breaks, and words that are broken off without a connecting word.

Key code and poem example coming soon

EXPERIENCE

I have found that each poem seems to be of hope and curiosity. They make me feel sad for how abstract they are. Sometimes when you're sad, you feel small. The only other direction you can head from feeling small is feeling big and tall. This brought me to the thought of really playing with scale change.

Typography reminds me how much I love the written word. I am infatuated with it's meaning, its assumed content, and the personal experience. I am still on the search to find a typeface I love as much as the meaning behind a sentence, or even a word.

Maybe I'm so inspiried because I'm listening to Explosions In the Sky.

TEST OF "CODE"

Tender Buttons

POEM LIST

• A Box
• Dirt and Not Copper
• A Seltzer Bottle
• A Long Dress
• A Piano
• Cups
• A Carafe, That is a Blind Glass
• A Red Stamp
• A Mounted Umbrella
• Careless Water
• A Little Called Pauline
• A Method of a Cloak
• A Frightful Release

BINDING METHOD

I'm not really sure due to amount of spreads, to only make a small signature. I wanted to do a classic western codex but am toying around with the possibility of using a soft cover or really thick paper to make the book look like a thin journal, with just a sewn spine though the whole book (from middle to outside).

DIMENSION

11 x 17; on textured, acrylic paper. I want the paper to be coffe stained to give the book more of a mystery of "Who owned it? Where did it come from?" type of mystery -- the same mystery that comes with the meaning of the poetry.

COLOR

Black ink with colored accents to enforce certain words.

FOLLOW UP 9.1.10

After talking to M. Kidwell, I was reminded that I need to remind myself about the goals and to orient my attention to the type. To remember that I need to express the language giving in the text and to play more with bold and small text. Maybe I should study what I am reading more and focus on cubism and embrace simultaneity that comes to mind.

A Word of Advice

The Elements of Typographic Style by Bringhurst, page 20

Read the text before designing it. The one essential task is to interpret and communicate the text. It's tone, it's tempo, its physical size, all determine the possibilities of its typographic form. The designer is to text s the theatrical director to the script, or the musician to the score.

Getting Back Into the Swing

Here are some Typography 3 exercises. Just a little exercise to get the blood flowing after a long, hot summer.