Category Archives: Coursework

Brief: This two part exercise aims to understand the relationship between typography, the grid, and the page in more depth by analysing existing layouts and creatively developing alternative ones. Both of these activities will feed into assignment three. Part 1 – Understanding layoutsResearch into book layouts that you find interesting. These could be art orContinue reading “Exercise 2: Double-Page Spread”

Brief: Find as many examples of type as you can from a range of sources, including newspapers, magazines, flyers, leaflets, online and printed ephemera. Broadly classify them into serif and sans-serif groups. Explore your computer to see whether you have any of the typefaces mentioned on the previous page. Find other examples on your computerContinue reading “Exercise 1: Type Samples”

Brief: Following on from the discussion of George Orwell’s novel 1984, look at the covers for Margaret Atwood’s equally dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), in which a woman finds herself surviving inside a harsh American fundamentalist society, that sees women’s roles as subservient cooks, matrons, and mothers. Alternatively, you can pick a different bookContinue reading “Exercise 4: Designing a Cover”

Brief: This exercise hopes to broaden your understanding of other book designers’ work by looking at their cover designs. Start to identify the kinds of book covers you are drawn to, and critically assess why you think these designs are successful. Undertake a combination of library and internet research into the following designers, identifying aContinue reading “Exercise 3: Book Designers”

The kind of stock you choose will be informed by the nature of the job you’re doing. If you were working commercially, the checking paper quality – the weight and finish of the paper – is something you would do with your client, as paper choices can add both quality and cost to a designContinue reading “Exercise 2: Paper and Binding choices”

Brief: Identify a range of books that have fundamentally different functions in terms of how these books are engaged with – how they’re held, where they’re read, by whom, and for what purpose. Try to look at least six books, but you can extend this if you want to. The differences between these books mightContinue reading “Exercise 1: The Function of Books”

Brief: Based on your work from the previous exercises, think about how your designs within the context of the book. For example, visually explore how your artwork sits within the format of your A5 pamphlet – how the page might frame the artwork, how different pages sit together or how you might begin to developContinue reading “Exercise 7: Visualising, editing and critiquing”

Brief: There are two elements to this exercise – thinking about how you produce your publication, and making a smaller scaled down version as a mock up. Creating a small mock up: Printers use large sheets of paper to print multiple pages, which are then cut and folded. You’re going to use a simple A4Continue reading “Exercise 6: Folding and mocking up your book”

Brief: Firstly, review your visual ideas based on from the previous exercise through a process or critical evaluation. Which ideas are you drawn to? Which ideas have ‘legs’ – possible interesting outcomes which are worth pursuing? Often the ideas which are the strongest are those which have depth, or many layers of association. Perhaps youContinue reading “Exercise 5: Research & Development”

Brief: Use one or more of the following book related sayings as a starting point to generate visual ideas and responses: Bookworms A closed/open book The oldest trick in the book You can’t judge a book by its cover In someone’s good/bad books By the book During this early formative stage, aim to be asContinue reading “Exercise 4: Generating Ideas”