I was asked by Priyesh if I wanted to collaborate with him, Ewan and Sam Horbury. Today we came up with a few initial concepts. As I was still on my placement, this conversation happened over a Skype call from London to Leeds. This was a system that worked really well, as file sharing is quick and easy.
On my placement, i've been working with Matt Tucker, who actually designed the yearbook the year before last. He gave me a few tips which I passed on to my group:
- Getting people together from the year is really difficult. Try not to ask too much from people in the year.
- Last year's yearbook looked aesthetically pleasing but lacked personality. You should find a way of expressing personality but also create a system that allows consistency.
I wouldn't want the yearbook to be all over the shop trying to convey everyones personality, but then again I also do not want to produce a book that's very strict and repetitive. We are all so different and this needs to be portrayed. It's just a matter of finding a concept that will let us find a nice balance of the two.
Skype Call
Below are a few points that were mentioned during the chat:
- Progression - Images based on our progress through the three years. Show how we have developed.
- Offcuts - Mash up of work done throughout the course. Showing design process too as well as the finished results.
- Custom Typeface - Something that could be transferred to the end of year show too. This is something that has never been done before, and something I feel I could do well.
During the chat, I quickly mocked up how these ideas of progression could work. Obviously these ware very crude and would need more work, but it was just to communicate the concept to the others:
More Points On Personality
- Need to push different styles and variety of outcomes. We have a diverse year and all with individual strengths.
- Using portraits to demonstrate this too. Images of everyone in the year will let personality speak visually too through their attitude and choice of clothing. However some people may not want to be photographed.
- It will all people to put a face to the name, enabling people to approach someone knowing who they are.
- Allowing everyone in the class contribute to the book in some way that doesn't affect consistency.
- Everyone could be represented by a photographed object that they have used over the three years?
- Distorting the images as opposed to a classic portrait. Doesn't have to be serious, shows personality that way.
- Last years book was a good size, maybe something slightly larger? Something that uses space more for imagery?
- Do we include bios? or get tutors to write a short bio, or possibly peers writing about peers. Something to sum them up. Its much more difficult to sum yourself up.
- How do we gather images, some people may not have appropriate images for the yearbook.
- Could take a day to photograph everyone's work, just a hassle getting everyone to bring in old work etc. We would also have to consider how digital work is to be displayed.
- Could photograph the back of people instead of faces, would still be instantly recognisable. or cropped significant features.
- Maybe use a questionnaire to gather a summary of our peers.
- For personality, we could use the sheets we filled out at interview stage.
- Maybe dressing up for the yearbook? adding humour too.
- 52 people in our class including Amber - '52 Characters' of the alphabet upper and lowercase. Combination of personality and typeface.
- Mini interview/questions in the yearbook to show personality. Such as last album you listened to etc. If an employer was to look through a yearbook and noticed a few people that impressed, these sorts of questions could be used to gather a better sense of personality and whether they would be appropriate for their studio. Music, interest and hobbies all play a factor in this.
Expressing A Few Ideas Visually
I chose to mockup a few ides just to show the rest of the group what I had meant when I've explained them:
Spread 1 — How the idea of scraps or progression could be used - Images could be cut out and photographed across the top, running chronologically. Unfortunately we decided against this as people may not want to display work they were not proud of in first year.
Spread 2 — An example of if everyone got two double page spreads each. This has not been done in previous years. but this may be down to cost.
Spread 3 / 4 — Crops - This idea is that everyone will be photographed, but cropped to something seen as their unique and identifiable feature. Mine, for example, could be the crows feet that appear when I smile, at the side of my eyes. Harrison's could be his beard. This does not necessarily need to be on the face, it could be an item of clothing, a tattoo, a piercing, etc. Each page would also have an edited background colour, which is also matched with photographed work. This would help identifying whose work is whose instantly at the exhibition.
We all liked this idea, but it would require a lot from people in our class, and also relies on the fact that everyone has something identifiable. The use of a large portrait would also take up a lot of space that could be used for work.
