processbook

sebastian tory-prattdesign studio 1

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table of contents

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foreword

type specimen

monogram permutations

grid

heirarchy

website regroove

wordplay

workshop

speculative design

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3

6

8

12

15

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21

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type specimen

one BriefChoose a font from the DejaVu family, make a Type Specimen page in InDesign, and add it to your Process Book.A type specimen is a sample of a typeface, a kind of a catalog for fonts.

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The type specimen assignment was the first assignment we recieved for the class. It is intended to serve as a very simple introduction to the use of inDesign. The layout and format were largely predeter-mined, although I did make some inde-pended design decisions. These include optically aligning the compared charac-ters as opposed to simply aligning their text boxes. In order to aid legibility and visual appeal I also added a grey screen behind sections of the comparisons to al-low them to be more easily distinguished.

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two BriefThis assignment is an adaptation of the customary “draw 100 thumbnails” that is the bane of all first-year design students; however, the end result of this exercise is not a finished Monogram Design. It is an exploration of the complex and iterative nature of the design process. Gain insight into the almost infinite range of possibili-ties available within strict constraints, to try to place values on these artifacts, and to explore methods of combining these idea families to create new and unex-pected designs.

monogram pemutation

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The monogram permutations project in-troduced us to a set method of ideation. The initial restriction to cut and pasted printed letters strongly influenced initial design decisions, although later Itera-tions were created using inDesign. My focus was to push design options as far as possible, to make bold decisions, that even if they failed, would serve to inform later choices and the final monogram set.

Initial Cut and Paste Positional Monograms

Rotational set

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Scale and Weight Sets

Border Set TS

TPTTTTTT T

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TS

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tsp

p tspssss tsppp ppppTTTTTTTTTT

TTTT TsTTTTTTTTTpTTTTTTTTT

TTTTT TTTTTTTTTTTTS PStPPPP tT

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tsp tspSSS

STp

STPs TP p

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The best monograms from each set were then selected and bred in pairs to produce another set of designs. The final ten de-signs were then picked from these.

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final ten

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threethe grid

BriefLearn about using “the grid” to visually organize information by analyzing a magazine layout.

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cover

The cover is largely unstructured, with minimal gridding. This is likely to allow the headlines to mold organically around whatev-er photo is chosen for the cover. This increases legibility by allow-ing the designer to avoid areas with lots of light/dark contrast which would make the creation of a legible headline virtually im-possible. The only elements that

table of contents

are truly locked into a grid are the title of the magazine, its tag-line, and the issue date and num-ber. This is likely due to the way magazines are displayed, upright and overlapping in racks, with only the top third or so visible. If the grid allowed the headline to slide all over the page, then many potential layouts would put the title out of view of the viewer, and therefore depriving them of information about the magazine.

The table of contents is a lot more ordered than the title page. The reason for this increased orga-nization is that the information in the table of contents needs to be well organized so that it can be easily navigated and read by a reader to allow them to quickly find the information they are look-ing for. The page is divided into three main columns, with an ex-tra sidebar the serves as a space for the issue number in the top left. In that same area, is that the rule that divides the issue number and the magazine information is placed on the gridline, rather than in the gutter between the two. The rest of the content is orga-nized tightly inside the columns. The caption for the background image and the cover have been allowed to creep outside the grid and into the gutter, possibly to eliminate an orphaned word. The designer also chose to right align the third chunk of text in the first column to allow the shape of the rag to fit to the image.

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The first two page spread consists of 4 columns of equal width and one column occupying two thirds of the right hand page. There is also a row across the top that serves as a space for a small headline identifying the section of the magazine the spread is from. Things obey the grid pretty strictly in this spread, the principal elements that break it being the photo-graph for the article and the header and subhead. The largest column in this sec-tion is the 2/3 page dedicated to advertis-ing. Likely the magazine actually has a six column layout, but that isn’t apparent in this spread. Of note is that the ads ignore the row left for the header, and instead go

all the way to the margin. One thing that seems odd to me is the rather large space left in the middle of the two ads. I wonder whether this is intentional or whether one of the advertisers sent in an ad with the wrong dimensions or if the ad was actually intended to match to the gap at the bottom of of the header row.

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When I put the overlay onto the second spread, things lined up almost perfectly. The row for the section identifier at the top was there, and for the most part the content stayed within the already drawn guides, and when things did break the grid, they simply spanned two columns. One thing I noticed however, was the in-consistency of placement of the advertising.

On the left hand side there is another awkward gap between the two half page height ads, and the top ad intrudes partway into the identifier row but not as far as the ad on the previous spread. Meanwhile, the bottom ad aligns to the same margin as the rest of the page content. Yet the ad on the far side of the spread jumps this line and stops in alignment with the bottom of the folio.

This sloppiness and inconsistency really contrasts to the staightforward, decisions made elsewhere in the layout. It seems like the ads have been inserted by a completely different person. Which could actu-ally be true, and its interesting that its possible to make this inference entirely from comparing two 2-page spreads.

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fourheirarchy

BriefThis is an exercise in creating an informa-tion hierarchy in the context of a poster. Text copy and two photographs will be provided. Your assignment is to create a small poster for the Atlantic Jazz Festival using Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDe-sign. Use standard Letter size paper, Portrait mode. Use only the DejaVu family of fonts, black ink only.

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This assignment involved the creation of a poster for a fictional Jazz event. The emphasis was on conciously creating hei-rarchy in the text through composition, contrast, size and other design devices. Imagery was limited to a choice between two different photos. In making the initial thumbnails, I tried to focus on creating numerous obviously different direction, rather than refining a single thought. After the thumbnail phase we progressed into drafts.

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first six rough drafts

refinement of selected rough

Six different directions were then chosen, developed, and presented to the class. After dis-cussion of the merits of each, I went back to the drawing board and tried to use what had been found to be most effective in each individual poster to craft a final that was much stronger than any single one of the pre-vious drafts. This synthesized design then went through many iterations.

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Positioning this at the top means that it is out of the primary circuit made by the eyes.

Working with size and contrast within this block of text was recco-mended to emphasize that this is a jazz concert.

Changing these subheads to an oblique would make them sync better with the overall angle of the black bar.

The contrast between white and black was deemed harsh in some areas, the areas of white outside of the band cre-ated by free concerts this week could be toned down with a grey

This version of the poster was modi-fied using the suggestions recieved in crit. I feel that it is actually less ef-fective and visually pleasing than the original work, although greying out the background was a good decision.

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fiveworldplay

BriefYou will be given two words, a noun and an adjective. The first list contains nouns that communicate a negative idea. The second list contains adjectives that communicate a positive idea. Use typo-graphic design to adapt the word from the first list so that it communicates the idea of the adjective in the second list.

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The word pair I recieved was “informa-tive cockroach.” My first steps were to re-search informative and its synonyms and to create a mind map and do word asso-ciation in order to come up with potential material to be used to communicate the idea of “informative.” Then I began cre-ating thumbnails. From these thumbnails I developed a few rough computer mock-ups. I felt these were generally unsuccess-ful, so instead of developing them further I went back to sketching to see what I could develop.

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The end result of my sketching, combined with a prompt from my professor, pushed me to develop some of my thumbnails in-volving barcodes further into the realm of QR codes. My initial explorations provided interesting visual material but quickly de-generated into near illegibility. Illegibil-ity being the near polar opposite of and “informative” object, this direction was abandoned. Once the overall structure of elements had been laid, I set to removing as much extraneous detail as possible, to reduce the idea to its most direct form possible.

COC ACH

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Colour possibly too vibrant, something light, less satu-rated could be better.

QR code too larger, doesnt fit inside same line as letters

Blue radial strokes as a whole are possibly unneces-sary.

COCKR ACH

This version of the design was modified using the sug-gestions recieved in crit.

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sixwebsite regroove

BriefChoose a high school website. You will then analyze the content, reorganize and redesign it.

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The first step was to look at the existing website and identify problems A tracing papaer overlay was laid over a printout of the site and notes were taken on how to improve the aesthetic appeal, useability and clarity of the site. One obvious prob-lem was the profusion o f navigation links that made finding what you wanted very difficult. I targetted these first and orga-nized them into categories

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Then I started to look at how the site it-self coulrd be structured sketcches and thumbnails were purused that eventually turned into the final design.

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sevenvisiting workshop

BriefOur class was challenged by visiting designer Michael Uhlarik in a series of three assignments the developed our concepts of semiotics and of visual com-munication.

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The first task was to render an method of transporta-

tion that we had some kind of deep personal connec-tion to. My choice was a

Boeing 767, due to having spent a lot of time in them

during my childhood.

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Modification of the original object to make it convey more meaning

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Communication different moods without physically

modifying the object.

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eightspeculative design

BriefAn exercise in speculative design. Pre-pare a photographic scenario as a full-page spread in your process book that illustrates the use of a product or ser-vice that you have developed, using the theme “Day”.

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After being given our theme, we were in-structed to brainstorm as many potential products and services as possible. After brainstorming, I eventually settled on the idea of a product that allows the user to re-experience past events and experiment with how changing their actions would change the final product.

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LookBack

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