Leeds College of Art Year Book | Group Meetings

Notes taken from the Yearbook Facebook group page, where design developments have been discussed and conversations noted, a great deal, with thanks to group member, and note-taker, Claudia Griffin.

Development throughout the past month and focus on the development of the Yearbook with contribution from all group members including Kirsty Alderson, Kirsty Hardingham, Claudia Griffin and Sophie Wilson.

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Yearbook Meeting II Thursday 13 | 12 | 12


Minutes taken by Claudia Griffin
Meeting attended by Claudia Griffin | Kirsty Hardingham | Kirsty Alderson | Sophie Wilson

GRAPHIC DESIGN YEARBOOK
Concept generation

- Business card including for each person, either in a slot on their page, or a tear out section at the back with all the business cards included.
- Each person has a mini profile alongside their work with information about them and possibly their logo.
- The theme is work hard, play hard - with a side of humour, for example a funny photograph of each graduate.
- Focus on paper folding, fold out sections etc. Look at GF Smith examples (as shown in visiting professional lecture, 7/12/12) .
- N.B. The design also needs to work in PDF format.
- Represent each person's style, different to last years use of signature, each person could draw a caricature of themselves.
- Each person answers interesting questions that relate to graphic design that give an indication of their personality, for example: 'If you were a typeface what would you be and why?' and 'If you were a pantone colour what would you be and why?'
- Move away from the traditional format of a DPS per person, to make the format of the book more personal, such as splitting the pages up in to diagonal spaces.
- The yearbook should reflect our personalities as the class of 10-13, with examples of what makes each student proud of themselves.

For next meeting: Sunday 6/1/13, each person should have done a small amount of research and a mock up example of how the spread could work.
Print slot is booked for 3xA2 for Tuesday 8/1/13 3pm.
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QUESTIONS FOR YEARBOOK (TO GRADUATES)

1. If you could give one piece of advice to prospective students, what would it be?
2. If you were a typeface, what would you be?
3. If you were a (PANTONE) colour, what would it be, and why?
4. So, what's next?
5. What made you choose Leeds College of Art?
6. What's your proudest achievement of your time on the course?
7. What's your motivational music?
8. What's been your fondest memory of the course to date?
9. Would you consider yourself a print or web based designer?
10. Where do you see yourself, professionally, in 5 years time?


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DESIGN DEVELOPMENTS

Content needed for proposal boards: (concept, content, specifications)
- Concept, design direction
- Sample layouts (printed and photographed)
- Cover design
- Proposed branding
- Production decisions
- Stock decisions
- Print processes / finishes
- Typeface, colour

Things we need to consider / some ideas:
- How will the work be photographed?
- How will we photograph the people?
- How can we make everyones own individual personality stand out?
- Will pages be vertical or horizontal or a mixture of both?
- Each person could give three words to describe the course
- How will the content be organised? We need a more interesting system than alphabetical.

Answering the questions on the brief:

What do you want to say about the course, your time on it and the people you have met? 

1. We've worked hard, but we've had fun. Everyone has a sense of humour and gets along despite totally different skills.

What do the rest of the year group, staff etc. want to say? 

2. Everyone could describe the course in three words which are placed on their page. Tutors and visiting professionals also have space to give their opinions. Each person choses a colour which they like the best / represents them, which will be the flood colour for their page.

What makes this course/year unique and how do you communicate this through the selection, organisation and communication of content?

3. We are fun. We have a variety of personalities with a diverse range of skills, and this is shown through the interactivity of the pages content.

What is the underlying visual concept and why is it appropriate, innovative and current?

4. The visual concept is folds, colours, and fun. It also shows our love of paper, as is relevant to what is going on in design, as it was inspired by GF Smith.

The message is what?

5. Work Hard, Play Hard.

Who will want to know and how will they find out?

6. Potential students, employers, friends and family, industry. It will be seen online or in physical form at the degree show.

[examples of others mock ups]

- Arrange a photo shoot where we take a photo of each person
- Each person should have a page that folds out either horizontally or vertically
- Pages could be perforated to include business cards
- Photographs of people and bio could be on the top, which would be in black and white, and you open up for individuality and colour
- Each person chooses a different colour
- Decide how many projects each person submits
- Reasons for typeface (Trade Gothic): modern, clean, simple: text 9pt and header 21pt
- Fold down instead of folding to the side
- Could include a perforated note page at the back for people to write down their thoughts
- Including business cards would make it too thick
- Information that needs to be included on bio page: contact details, specialism, pick 5 questions out of 20 to answer.

COVER IDEAS

- Scratch card
- Laser cut with colour underneath or foiling blocking. Cover would be black with laser cut text, the information would need to be screen printed white on to the spine
- Photo in the back inside cover

Mock-ups needed: covers, how an individual person example would look, tutor profile
Individual jobs: sophie - covers, claudia - arranging file, writing concept, tutor pages, kirstys - individual profile pages

After the meeting we realised a few problems with our design. Each person would be getting 5 squares, which wouldn't fit on to the a2 sheet, so would end up only two people fitting on to an a1 sheet of paper, which in reality would make the book too thick as well as costing too much.

So we played about with changing how the folds open, and worked out a way we could keep the same theme, using less paper. Now everyone gets three sides, and you can fit four people on to an a1 sheet. Each persons three words are on the top page, and the background of this page is their chosen colour. Inside, you open up to see their photograph in black and white (where they are posing in a fun way), with a white background so their bio can be on the same page, and on the other page, you see examples of their work. This allows a different person to be shown on the left and right hand sides of the page.