End of module evaluation

The Context of Practice 2 module has been a major part of my learning of how to push concepts and theory through into design decisions and influences. I have learned through this module how to take a theory, analyse it, and then apply that specific theory to the design of a related publication, and I feel as if I have effectively communicated the points of my essay through the publication design decisions. I have explored contextual and theoretical research into how to apply a theory that is written about human behaviour into relevant and applicable design elements of a publication, such as the colour scheme, layouts, and content. I feel as though through this module my skills with layouts have drastically improved and I have been able to cater the layout design to the content, the overall design and the underlying theory of the publication. I think this is because I have undertaken more contextual research into the style of publication I wanted to produce than I normally would have done, and although I ended up not pursuing the way finding and label ideas to accompany the exhibition booklet, I have learned a fair amount about suiting designs to a specific purpose and particularly a specific space. 

Before completing this module, I had never before successfully created a publication or piece of design work that was purely based upon and stemming from theory, particularly theory which I have applied to the subject of art and design. I think looking at the behaviour of how people interact with products and design within the specific space of art galleries has helped me steer the design decisions of the publication towards the audience to be able to convey the message I wanted to get across. I have always had an avid interest in sociology and anthropology theories and feel competent with writing essays on the subject, yet through completing this module I now feel confident enough to apply them to the design process more so that the work I am producing is being targeted to the audience exactly how I want it to. 

I find essay writing to be one of my major strengths and thoroughly enjoyed researching into the topic I chose, 'field and habitus in art galleries', and although it was theory I knew about and understood before starting the course, I had never considered it within the context of the art world before. Although I feel as though my essay writing skills have not drastically improved during this module in comparison to Context of Practice 1, I now know I can apply the skills I have of essay writing and analysing theory to the design process more thoroughly to produce stronger pieces of contextual work. I definitely feel more confident going into Context of Practice 3 now though. I feel as though the way I wrote the essay, then began the publication, then went back to the essay to influence the way my publication was going and managed to create a dialogue between the conclusions of the essay and the content of the publication, which is a skill I desperately wanted to work on before progressing to Context of Practice 3. 

One of my weaknesses throughout this module has been that I majorly struggled with defining down the concept of the publication, although utilising my essay writing skills enabled me to overcome this eventually. The other weakness I have had through this module is that I have not done as much self directed research as I feel I could have done into the lecture topics as I became overly interested in my essay topic and researched heavily into that instead. 

This module has had its frustrating moments where I found myself really struggling, yet once I felt like I understood the idea of synthesis between theory and design decisions, my work has drastically improved. I think the work I produced for this module, the essay and the publication, have both been successful and have helped me understand what is being asked of us in Context of Practice 3 next year. 

Final essay

The final essay with only a couple of very minor changes having been made since the feedback tutorial as the publication ties directly with the conclusions of the essay. 

Absolute final publication

During printing of my publication, through several tests of different stocks, it was suggested to me in the studio that the printed cover made it look cheap as the block of red background colour was obviously printed and the ink coverage wasn't as good as it could have been. It was then suggested that I printed the cover straight onto a red stock which meant I had to remove the beige colour from the cover, and therefore changed the 'habitus' section of the logo to outlines rather than fill colour and changed the text and band of colour to the dark red. When printing, I printed the cover on red stock and duplexed it with a piece of the stock I had printed the rest of the publication on (bulky newsprint) as it meant  I could still have the inner cover as the blank white page. This worked so much better than I had expected and has instantly increased the finish of the booklet as now it looks like a finished product rather than a mock up. I also bound the booklet together with a simple stitched bind using red thread rather than staples as I had originally planned to do as it also seemed to add a bit more 'class' to the overall design of it which means I think I have definitely managed to pull off the concept of applying the theory of impression management to the booklet.

(Link to interim evaluation to explain concept: 
http://a-cooper1114-dc.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/context-of-practice-publication-new.html)

This is the issuu document of the final publication with the changes to the cover:

And these are some photographs of the printed and bound book:

Finished publication - digital version

The issuu document of the finished publication:

The final finishes to the publication

I've finished the majority of the booklet now, minus the page listing the alternative things to do in an art gallery which I have been slightly stuck on as it needs to be within the same style as the rest of the design, but also reflect the content.

After trying different layouts of type and failing to produce anything that fitted with the concept, a friend suggested that I kept the page consistent with the rest of the booklet by using an image as the main focus, but photoshopping the list onto the wall of the art gallery.

I decided to use this image:

and then removed the painting from the wall:

turned it into greyscale:

and then when after adding the text and positioning it at the right angle/perspective, I duotoned the image in the same way as the others:

then added it into the page layout within the booklet:

I then added a written warning as a reminder to respect the other visitors to the gallery:

Final page:

Examples of the grid applied to some of the page layouts:

Written sections of publication

I have added the written parts of the publication so these screen shots show the sections of text:

I wrote all of the text out in my own words, and the odd sentence is copied from my essay where it is relevant. 

I also found more anecdotes from the websites I listed last week and compiled them into this page:

Printing a mock up of the publication 

I decided before going any further with the publication, I needed to print a simple black and white mock up to gauge how it would look when finished. It was a good job I did print a mock up as I managed to print it wrong four times before the fifth attempt was successful, and I'm glad that didn't happen with trying to print the final copy. I decided as the digital print room is fully booked out at the moment and my booklet would print on A4 sheets of paper, to simply print it in the studio. This should produce the results I want as I want to print on a stock like antique white paper or bulky newsprint, although I'm currently unsure of what to do with the cover to make it thicker than the rest of the booklet. 

Print tests of different stocks:

I'm glad I bothered to print a mock up first as in doing so, I realised I needed to add another two pages to make the booklet work, so I've added another quotes page. It also helps to see it at the final size as it is difficult to tell the scales of things on screen. I have also decided that the best stock to print the final on will be the bulky newsprint.

Developing the initial layout designs

Putting the logo into the colour scheme:

Testing different front cover ideas:

After trying these different layouts, I decided it should be even more inconspicuous by having a simple plain background with the logo, a line of text and a band of the beige colour from the colour scheme.

The typefaces I have chosen to use throughout the publication are Gill Sans Regular for the body copy and Quaver Serif (from Lost Type website) for the headers and quotes. 

Quaver Serif:

This is a pdf of the layout so far with the images in and place holder text filling all the areas which will be text:

Finding and editing images for the publication

These are some of the images I have found online to include in the booklet:

and these are examples of some of them duotoned using the light red colour from the colour scheme and black so that it keeps the colours of the booklet consistent throughout:

I think the duotoned images almost certainly add a sense of mystery to each image, and with the way they are now toned red, it is almost going against the social norms of behaviour within the art gallery where the walls are usually always white. It feels like they fit the rebellious side of the content of the booklet while still fitting in with the other design elements.