SUMMARY:  

The objective of the Multi-page Editorial Design project is to aggregate the knowledge learned over the course of Typography and Layout and push our design abilities and technical skills. Our layout and design were to be cohesive and engage the viewer to read the article via entry points. The article we are to bring to life is called “Why We Travel!”

GOALS: 

My goals appeared after I had a concept. I like to keep design simple, but in this case, it was important to incorporate lots of color. The challenge became how to have bold images that were engaging and not distracting. I also wanted to challenge myself to create a workflow using Adobe Illustrator and InDesign. 

PRELIMINARY SKETCHES:

It seems I have lost my sketches. I drew a layout that looks similar to the final build, which is rare for me. My concept was born from the article talking about corn and how, if we imagine ourselves in a different setting, it can open our minds to more vast connections involving corn. Now the corn is not central to the story, but I looked for corn in relation to other cultures. While there are many cultures that corn is important to, the images I found were not exciting enough for me. I tried to think of something that everyone would relate to. I imagined that anywhere on earth, a rainbow could appear. At this point, I knew my layout was going to be very colorful. I began researching the most colorful places in the world. I also liked the idea of dotted lines carrying you through the article, or around the world, rather.

PROCESS OF BUILD:

Once I had distinct images that were not A.I. generated. I began placing them in the multi-spread document. I unified the images on each spread by theme and color. The spread where the article begins is unified by their subject matter, nature, and the similar rusty red color that is in both images.

FINAL FULL ARTICLE BUILD:

When I was in high school, I never thought of traveling outside the states except to see the tulip fields in the Netherlands. I wanted that image to be the opening spread for this reason. Due to the colorfulness of the image, I struggled a great deal with balancing the title with interest and readability. I also wanted the title to mimic, or introduce, the curvy line for travel. I dedicated an exorbitant amount of time to getting the title to invoke movement. I think I may have grown too attached to it. Black and white font colors were both lost against the image. After much trial and error, I started using colors as shadows for the individual words. For example, the word ‘we’ is set on a blue sky background, so I added a complimentary color between the blue and my new-found font color of yellow. This seemed to work well.

I didn’t focus on the body copy until I had made several spreads. Once I did, I felt compelled to use a simple font. Under normal circumstances, I think I would have chosen a more geometric sans-serif font. Having watched the documentary Helvetica, I knew it would be a good fit next to the vibrancy of my chosen images. I chose Helvetica Neau Regular. I only made small adjustments to the Paragraph Style as I worked. I increased the leading, the space between paragraphs, and omitted the paragraph indentations.

I proudly took the Paintbrush Tool in Illustrator and drew a bouncy line, erased it so that it was a dotted line, and colored each dot a different color of the rainbow. It looked pretty good in my first spread. However, I started having difficulties keeping the point size of the dotted lines consistent between spreads. Professor Nikki suggested I use the Pen Tool in Illustrator. I have a healthy fear of the Pen Tool and have been trying to avoid it since Design Technology. It did, however, solve the problem of my nonuniform lines.

I knew I wanted to use an X, a flag, or some sort of location marker. While brainstorming during critique, we decided to use the location marker in conjunction with my pull quotes, which I hadn’t begun addressing. 

With the pull quotes, I wanted to continue in a non-threatening font. I chose to use Helvetica Neau Condensed Black. I started working in Illustrator. It is becoming clear to me that I feel much more comfortable in Illustrator than in InDesign. I ended up having to separate the pull quote and the marker in order to have more control over the quote itself. I created a Paragraph Style and was able to quickly manage the quotes. The marker shape was found in Adobe Stock Images. I then sized them each to the same size and used two markers as a nod to quotation marks. 

MOCK UP:

 

I wish there was more explanation of how the Photoshop document was built and how we were able to open a .PSB file. The process was rather painless once I figured out how to unclick Spreads and use Pages instead. I am rather pleased with the final look of the article. 

 

KNOWLEDGE GAINED:  

 

This may not be new knowledge, but I really want to travel more. Travel is not the most accessible hobby, but it is one of the driving forces behind my return to college. I am a little surprised at how much time it took to complete this project, not that I thought it was going to go quickly. I am sure I could still put in a few more hours if there were a few more hours to be had. My biggest takeaway is that I am not nearly as intimidated by the Pen Tool and its bezier curves. I am gaining the ability to understand shortcuts, Handles, and Anchor Points of which I am pretty proud. One more small feat is that I am now using Command + A to select all. I am on the road to being proficient in the Adobe Suite, and that makes me rather pleased.