Typography and Publications

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Rationale

The focus for term two is working with Digital and ‘hard copy publications’ (newspapers, magazines, brochures etc). This will involve gaining a good understanding of layout (both conventional and contemporary), working with grids / modules and the production of hard copy and digital zines.

Look at Design by Type and Font Design on your Google Classroom, to support the freestanding design tasks that are based on using type as a design element only.

Coursework tasks for this term include;

  • The creation of 4 x layouts that utilize text as a design element only.
  • 1 x 8 page A5 hard-copy zine whose primary content is composed of found text and images.
  • 1 x 8 page digital zine (Photoshop)
  • 1 x 4 page digital zine (InDesign)
  • 1 x Zine related research task (see term handout)

Zines and Magazines.

Zines by definition are ” small magazines that are written by people who are not professional writers and that usually have stories about a particular subject” So in essence Zine production has until recently been the domain of specific interest groups and individuals. However with access to the internet and publishing software, zine production has broadened its user base to include semi professional and professional authors.

The thematic for each of the project components for this task is to be decided upon by you the student. Look to what interests and enthuses you so that to a degree you have a level of personal investment in the final product.

Zine Overview

Working with Grids

Simply put; grids allow you to structure layouts using either a combination of text and image or text alone. When working with grids you can either adhere to the convention or break it. Either way the presence of a visible guide makes it easier to do both.

Download this guide to grids here

The images below illustrate a range of common grid types and in some instances their common usage.

The following images illustrate a range of grid applications

Good examples of publication layouts can be found here and a great example of the design process (layout development) for a page in Popular Mechanics can be found here

The accompanying research task asks you to investigate;

  • the development of
  • the application of= range of usage
  • and common usage of i.e., where is the grid type most commonly applied for the following;
  1. Modular grids,
  2. Column grids,
  3. Manuscript grids
  4. Hierarchical grids.

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