Typography Reflection

Today I had my learning team with Kate. This time it was much better. She got us to all show our work and gave us feedback. She liked mine but thought the title page needed work. I wasn't a huge fan of it, so was happy to re-work it. She also asked me to change some other little bits like the font size of the article titles and the leading, plus get rid of widows and orphans. I worked on the title page while sitting with my flatmate Niahm who was also working on her book. It was nice to get something vaguely resembling studio culture going. I came up with a much better title page fairly quickly. I then did the fiddle bits on my own later. 

Today I had a 1 to 1 with Matt. He told me most of my spreads were fine and looked like they went together, but there was one that was too crowded and one that looked over-designed. He said my page numbers were too big and my guttering was too small but the rest was fine. He also told me not to worry too much about the introduction. They aren't expecting it to be perfect. Talking to him reassured me that I was on the right track.  I made all the changes he suggested, then wrote the introduction and added it in. This time I wasn't overthinking it and that made it much easier. 

Today I worked on my book for a few more hours. I created my contents page, which looks really good. I have finished everything except for the introduction. I am a little worried though that my page layouts are too different, and that there is too much variety to have a sense of unity. I will ask Matt on Monday.  I am also really struggling to write the introduction. I have no clue what to put in it! I can ask Matt about that too. 

Today I spent lots of time on my publication. I finished typesetting all my articles. I found it quite hard to come up with new layouts by the time I had got to the third one, but I managed it. I like how the colour scheme is working.  I am very happy with how my book is progressing. I think it will easily be done by the deadline. 

Last night fate brought me the answer to all my problems!! I missed the bus coming back from Badminton and didn't want to wait in the cold, so I snuck into the library. Whilst waiting in there, I casually picked up a copy of Creative Review and found the most beautiful contents page I have ever seen! I know exactly what I am doing for the contents in my book now!  Today we had textworks. I got up early and watched the lecture before the meeting. I struggled again with the visual notes but found the topic interesting and easy to understand. In the meeting, we got our essay brief. I have no clue what I am going to do for that yet! I should probably start thinking about that sooner rather than later! I understand what I need to do though so that is ok.  Then we were given part of a radio program to listen to, which I found interesting. The seminar was fun but not partly constructive.  I planned to work on my publication more today but I felt really sleepy so didn't. 

Today I created a paper flat plan to decided what was going where in my publication. I then used this to create an InDesign document for my final publication. I added the grid I have picked, which took ages, but I have sorted it now. I then created my first spread. I chose to do one of the article text spreads, as I thought this would give me a good sense of whether my grid and page size was working. I found that the page was too narrow for me to have 3 columns of text, so I ended up widening the page a little. The grid worked fine. I then created the spreads for the rest of the article pretty quickly. I am really happy with my first text spreads. They are imaginative yet readable, and my chosen typefaces work well. It has given me confidence that I may actually be able to create a good standard publication in this brief.  I panic slightly when I remember I only have 9 more days, but I think it is going to be ok.