Below is an example of MANY good layout designs. Study them.
For your Sketchbook assignment, choose one layout that appeals to you and reproduce it but replace the original words and image(s) with your own modern subject matter (anything of your choice).
Due in the Dropbox at the start of next week's class.
Drag Layout Page 1 and Page 2 (below) off this blog to your desktop and print them out. Each one should fit on an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. Once you've printed them, you may use pencil, carpenter's pencil and/or markers to reproduce them.
You can trace through the pages by using a light table, a glass coffee table with a small table lamp placed under it, or by taping the pages to a window.
But don't just reproduce the exercises - study what they are telling you about how to organize a good vs. bad layout.
Due in the Dropbox at the start of next week's class.
Look specifically for "Beards" , "Mother & Child" , "Families" and other Lubalin "typographics"
Choose a passage from Frank Chimero's Advice for Graphic Design Students and design a Herb Lubalin-style "typographic" that visually describes the subject of your words.
Here are a few examples created by students last year...
Begin as always by sketching four thumbnail concepts, then choose what you feel is your strongest concept and design, and complete it at full size. You can use ink and or/colour if you like, but only a pencil sketch is expected.
This is a two-week assignment you will do on your own. We will not meet in class this week or next week.
You will need three sheets of 8 1/2" x 11" paper. Work either vertically or horizontally, but be consistent on all three pages.
Divide each page into nine equal spaces (to do so quickly, fold one sheet into thirds vertically, then again into thirds horizontally).
You may use a ruler to draw the grid that divides the space into nine equal sections.
Now look for man-made objects that contain letterforms. Draw one letterform in each space. The first row might look something like this (except yours would be drawings):
After drawing the object in line, use pencil shading or grey markers to add values to each letterform composition. Complete the first 13 letterforms this week and submit them to the drop box.
NOTE: Because this is not a typical in-class drawing exercise, you have all week to complete the first half of the alphabet. The drop box closes at the start of next week's class.
The format of this test is the same as the final exam we did last semester. There are four pages to this test...
Page 1 is your rough work page.
Use this page to explore the subject matter. Draw by constructing with basic shapes. To get 5/5 on this page you must demonstrate that you are drawing using basic shape construction and show more than the minimum number of sketches required. There will be three subjects. The best score you can get if you do only three sketches on this page is 4/5.
Page 2 is your thumbnail page.
Use this page to thumbnail four (or more) design compositions. You must use values by shading with pencil or grey markers (or a combination). However you do not need to do detailed drawing or render most of the typographic elements. Simple shapes that can be identified as the subject matter will suffice. Use the examples from last week's lesson as your guide. To get 5/5 on this page you must do at least 4 unique thumbnails compositions using values. NOTE: A composition that is just flopped or has the type moved from the top to the bottom does not qualify as a unique composition.
Page 3 is your pencil comp page.
Choose your most effective thumbnail composition and do a large comprehensive sketch that includes values rendered in pencil shading and/or grey markers. Type elements should be rendered as in the examples from Exercise #3 from two weeks ago. That is, your type elements should roughly approximate the type style/face(s)/fonts you would use if you were eventually taking this project to finish on the computer. To get 5/5 on this page, you must complete Page 4 as well.
Page 4 is your design justification page.
This is an overlay page to Page 3. Use a light table, a light placed under a glass coffee table, or tape your pages to a window. Use arrows, circles, boxes, diagrams and words to justify your design strategy. Demonstrate that you have applied the rules of composition to create and effective design that moves the viewer's eye through the design and to the focal point.
The Test Subject Matter: Start by watching this movie trailer:
The premise of the story is that by using the Rekall technology, you can be anyone you want to be - a super spy, a fashion model, a world class athlete, an astronaut - anything!
Last summer, as the movie was about to be released, Columbia Pictures launched a viral marketing campaign. They hired a company to design fake advertising posters for Rekall - as though the service actually existed here and now - and plastered Los Angeles with them:
(Google Image Search "Rekall viral campaign" to see more designs)
Your job is to design a new viral marketing poster (same vertical proportions as shown above) for Rekall - but with some different parameters:
The headline on your poster will be...
BE THE YOU
YOU WANT TO BE
(You must break it into two lines as shown above, however you do not have to use all caps)
The subhead on your poster will be...
YOUR FACE
YOUR BODY
YOUR FANTASY
(You do not have to break it into three lines as shown above, you do not have to use all caps)
Your poster must include the REKALL logo in the font style shown on the actual posters above, incorporated in some manner according to how you choose to design it.
Your poster must include the URL rekall.com and may (but doesn't have to) include addition type like "Go to rekall.com for details"
There are three visual elements you must include in some design combination: a face and two figures of you, the person designing the poster - YOU are the subject in all three visual elements
Your poster must include your face, your body in your normal clothes, and your body in your fantasy outfit.
To better understand how a montage design of this sort works, look at movie poster designs:
The poster above cleverly combines a face (Colin Farell) and two figures, along with some secondary visual elements. You may use secondary visuals if you like but they are not required.
NOTE: there is a total of 14 required words in your poster design -- there are 14 words in the movie poster design above in the block of type that includes the names of the stars and the title "Total Recall" and "Is it real Is it Recall" -- so you should have no problem incorporating all the type required in your design.
I strongly encourage you to do more research of how movie posters use montages of faces and figures and apply that design strategy to your poster. Go to Google Image Search and search "movie posters" for many examples.
If you have any questions, ask them in the Discussions section of our course homepage on eLearn.
