Amsterdam is the capital of the Netherlands, being known for its artistic heritage, extensive canal system, and narrow houses. This all reflects the city’s 17th-century Golden Age. Today, it is a bustling city known for its Red Light District and is full of bike paths, museums, and markets. I created an annual report for its eleven neighborhoods using only two colors.
The city definitely has a lot of culture and I used this to my advantage. The texture of their old maps, the lines created by all of the bicycles in the city, and the rectangular shape of the houses caught my eye the most while I researched for this project.
I chose to use a bold sans serif font for my headers and a serif font for my body copy. I felt like these contrasted well and fit the overall style I was going for. The color red was chosen since it's Amsterdam's signature color. And since it's such a loud color, I chose black to be my other one. I looked at typography that was surrounded by boxes, to pay homage to the rectangular buildings of Amsterdam. My images were also somewhat weathered to add texture.
The photos chosen for the booklet were turned into duo-tone photos, using different levels of the red and black colors that I originally chose. The same formula to produce the photos wasn't always the same, I modified it depending on the photo to get the values I wanted.
My final annual report had a laser cut cover, so that "Amsterdam" was cut out in order to see the black and white map underneath.
I then displayed the Table of Contents and a few statistics about Amsterdam. I kept the logos simple, to match the simple style of the rectangles I keep throughout the book.
The rest of the book flipped back and forth between red and black backgrounds. This was to keep the neighborhoods separated even more and to add variety overall. The first page would consist of the name of the neighborhood, a subtitle, and some information about what it's best known for, all in front of a duo-toned photograph. After that, there would be a description of the "Top 3" locations to visit in each place. The sketched map next to it would give the general location.
Thank you!
