OUGD406 - Speaking from experience

Research for our Freshers' Bible

For our freshers 'Bible'/ guide to being a student in Leeds, we wanted a design that would appeal to our audience of aspirational graphic designers, so we figured our Bible had to look nice and express good visual qualities in it's typography. 

Examples of what we're trying to achieve: 

These are a couple of examples of the kind of publication we want to put together. But we want our tone of voice on the front cover to be almost comically sacred, as if our book will be the only one the student will ever need, as opposed to being advisory but almost a set of rules to live by. The inside may be different to this, but we want the outside to convey this message.

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We wanted really nice typography to showcase our advice. A good example of the kind of work we want to produce would be in the style of artist Jessica Hische, because of her vintage-yet-modern style.

Visual Research - inspiration for typographic and front cover designs:

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For the inside of our book, we want to feature a large (possibly even as big as A1) of Leeds showcasing all of the places we have mentioned in the book. We wanted it to be customised and simplified perhaps with imagery, like some of the designs below.

 Inspiration for our custom map design:

Inspirations for the Bible front cover design:

Helped me to create banners - really love the utilisation of the old design into new work, I think it works really well.

Loved the illuminated illusion and inspired us to look for gold foiling techniques.

This particularly inspired the '2013' design that was used on the cover

Inspired the feel for a lot of the title pages

Inspired the 'G' for the Graphic design title page.

Inspired the shape featured on the front and back covers

D & AD's 'The Book' is what gave us the initial idea of creating something that looks almost sacred/ biblical on the outside and completely modern on the inside.

Particularly inspired the beams of light on the front cover and back cover design

Survey results which helped us throughout making the book:

OUGD406 - Double Page spread research

Double Page Spread Research

Animal: Fox

Research into foxes;

Double page spreads:

I chose to do my bodycopy on Fantastic Mr Fox, rather than just foxes because I thought it would be a nice twist on the brief - thinking outside the box or something? 

Bodycopy:

Fantastic Mr Fox is a children's novel written by British author Roald Dahl. It was published in 1970 by George Allen & Unwin in the UK and Alfred A. Knopf in the U.S., with illustrations by Donald Chaffin. The first UK Puffin paperback edition, first issued in 1974, featured illustrations by Jill Bennett. Later editions have featured illustrations by Tony Ross (1988) and Quentin Blake (1996). The story is about Mr Fox and how he outwits his farmer neighbours to steal their food from right under their noses.The story revolves around an anthropomorphic, tricky, clever fox named Mr. Fox who lives underground beside a tree with his wife and four children. In order to feed his family, he makes nightly visits to farms owned by three wicked, cruel, dimwitted farmers named Boggis, Bunce, and Bean and snatches the livestock or food available on each man's respective farm. Tired of being outsmarted by Mr. Fox, the farmers devise a plan to attempt to shoot him by sneaking up on him a certain distance from his hole, blasting shots at their enemy, only to shoot off his tail.

In order to successfully kill the fox, the farmers dig up his burrow using caterpillar tractors, although fortunately the family manages to escape by burrowing further beneath the earth to safety. The trio of farmers are ridiculed for their persistence, so they decide to gather by Mr. Fox's hole with tents and pointed guns in order to shoot him when he emerges. Cornered by his rivals, Mr. Fox and his family (along with all of the other families of underground creatures) are left to starve.

Suddenly, Mr. Fox devises a plot one day to acquire food. He and his children tunnel through the dirt and wind up burrowing to Boggis's hen-house, just as he had planned. Mr. Fox kills several chickens and sends some of his young to carry the food back home to Mrs. Fox for her to prepare a meal. Along the way to their next destination, Mr. Fox runs into his friend Badger and permits him to accompany him on his mission, and the group proceeds to tunnel to Bunce's farm and then to Bean's cider cellar (where they are nearly discovered by a hired woman named Mabel when she enters the room to collect a few jars of apple cider for Bean). They carry their findings back home, where a great celebratory smorgasbord is being served to the starving underground animals and their families. At the table, Mr. Fox invites everyone to live in a secret underground neighbourhood with him and his family, where he will hunt for them daily and no longer need to worry about predators. Everyone joyfully cheers for this idea, whereas Boggis, Bunce, and Bean are left waiting for the fox to emerge from his hole.The book has been adapted into a film by director Wes Anderson. It was made using stop-motion animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox, Bill Murray as Badger, Hugo Guinness as Bunce, and Michael Gambon as Bean. The movie's plot focuses more on Mr. Fox's relationship to Mrs. Fox and his son, which is pitted against Mr. Fox's desire to steal chickens as a means of feeling like his natural self. The movie adds scenes before Mr. Fox attacks the three farmers and after their bulldozing of the hill, as well as a slightly altered ending and more background on Mr. Fox's past life as a thief.