OUGD404: Tiny Stories Final Feedback & Evaluation

Concept:

The concept behind the content is that it is a memory book. Image heavy. It is a collection of items that once held importance within a relationship whether it was a friendship, family or couple. This demonstrates that the smallest of things and items that seem simple hold different stories to different people.

Feedback:

"It's really beautifully understated, with the type featured considered. The handwritten element inside enhances the concept of the book by instilling the resolution with more personality and a bespoke/unique aesthetic that is unparalleled. Colour co-ordination assists the overall harmony of the book through tonal cohesion."

"It's really cute! It's minimal, simplistic because of the negative space. The fold used in the editorial makes the the whole thing seem modern and effortless. I also like how you've made the typography small for the title and for the back as it is ironic to the words. The handwritten typography works really well with the theme of the book as you've done it about personal items and handwriting is also personal so it ties in well."

"Tiny stories yeah. I can't read the text. Text is hard to read because of the colour of the background. It works on the darker colours but on the lighter colours it kinda hurts your eyes. Yeah even on the pale purple. On the red it's good to read. Maybe if the text was centred it would have looked nice. Could've used different medias. Aw that's cute. That's a lot cuter than I thought. Mend the middle page. I like the use of the white space and everything."

"Well, in my opinion the gold coloured text may make it hard for readers to follow. I'm terrible at reading cursive hand writing (no offence). I like the concept of having the text anchoring the image, and that it's a small card slotted in, because of the given book title 'Tiny Stories'. Do the cards have anything unique about the imagery or did you just fancy the card colour? I like the front cover and back cover."

Evaluation:

My finished book was made from 160 gsm matte stock for the front and back pages with 120 for the middle pages. I then chose to use GF Smith colorplan paper in the colours royal blue, bright red, lavender, park green and mandarin in varying paper weights and plain in finish.  In my feedback it was a majority opinion that the gold was difficult to read on the lighter pieces of stock such as the park green, lavender and mandarin but it was agreed it was more legible on the darker colours such as the royal blue and bright red.   

I manually wrote on these with a gold ink pen in cursive handwriting to work in accordance of using Times New Roman within the book. It also creates a strong contrast between the digital and analogue methods. The font Times New Roman has connotations of being used for body text and formal pieces of writing so the elegance of it works with the subtle imagery. It looks poetic. This is the reason for using it for the title page and short paragraphs within the book. This maintains a professionalism but makes it look approachable and reminiscent of memories. It is also an old font which dates back to 1931. This reflects the concept of having memories because the font is dated.

I wanted to be experimental with this book but it didn’t really work out. My first struggle was the inserts. I didn’t know how I would’ve set them up in the print process and how it would fit together as an actual book.  I experimented with different layouts for this design concept such as having every other page with an insert and having plain white inserts or the cover as an insert. I then made the final design decisions to add the inserts separately and hand write on them to give a contrast between the digital aspect. However, the next problem was that I didn’t set it up in the print process properly three times so it printed out very didn’t ways. I also went to staples to print it out instead of being able to book a digital print slot. I then finally thought I had printed it properly but when I pieced the book together there was still blank pieces so I glued in the back page images. I think overall though the book does have the aesthetic I wanted but the production could have been executed better. I now know that for my next projects I need to time manage better and plan the production part just as equally as the content because I spent more time on the content and structure than the actual production. If I had done it different I would have time planned so I left enough time to print this properly. 

Overall, I think the final book conveys the story I wanted to within the concept and layout. It was just not executed professionally and I probably should have asked for more feedback throughout the process of creating it. I learned a lot about the construction of a publication and the elements you need to consider in creating a book such as grids, sub-heads, DPS, rules and goes, columns, paragraphs, drop caps, folio numbers, gutters, images, headlines, pagination, margins, captions, measures and imposition. For my next publication I need to make sure I consider and research all of these aspects in more depth and try to include as many of these as possible within my publication.