Grids Spread Practice

This was really hard.

I actually started crying.

But that might be more due to the fact that I didn’t sleep enough last night, and I didn’t eat a big enough lunch.

Anyway. I didn’t use the InDesign link Judy sent us properly, and I couldn’t view all of the guidelines, so the master pages only had about half a dozen lines on the whole spread. I got extremely confused trying to figure out what the parameters were regarding how much our content needed to fit inside the grid, especially considering that I could hardly see any grid. My layouts were bland and unoriginal.

I also really struggled with this exercise because I spent a long time trying to figure out interesting concepts, but then I felt like I had no way to execute them, because I didn’t know how creative we were supposed to get with the layout.

Here were the two layouts I came up with:

 

The theme behind the first layout was supposed to be about “Fate” or “Destiny” because the character felt that he could control his future with the scrabble words he played, however his evil intentions were eventually his own downfall.

Obviously, the concept isn’t apparent at all.

Fail.

The layout is pretty nice, though, and for that reason I feel like it is the stronger of the two spreads.

But that’s because Judy helped me.

Ok, she pretty much just told me exactly what to do.

The second layout’s theme was “Til Death Do Us Part,” which I actually feel like you can tell. However, I think the layout is weak, so it doesn’t matter. I found this whole assignment really hard for some reason. Part of it could be that I actually really enjoy using grids (hurray for rules, math, and order!!), but I usually make them myself, as I go. Once I was handed a grid to start with, I felt lost, and I felt like I couldn’t be creative.

WHAT IS GRID. WHAT IS DESIGN. WHO IS DOGE.

This is definitely going to take some practice.

 

 

Yearbook Spread

When Judy told us that we had to print off and hand in two completely different layouts for a yearbook spread, filled with a huge amount of mandatory content to be written by ourselves, by the end of our 4pm class, (and it was about 11:30 when she told us) my initial thought was:

– P – A – N – I – C –

But then when she got to the end of describing the exercise, she had the words: “Remember, don’t fret, failure is the key to future success. Have fun with it.” And with those words in mind, as well as the knowledge that this wasn’t for marks, I thought to myself, “Steph! Relax. Just have fun.”

And then, surprisingly, I did.

I decided that the wisest thing to do was work out all of my content first, so I would know how much type I had to work with in my layouts. All of the content was easy enough, until I got to the required sidebar of, “5 key words that best describe you.” It had me stumped. So I texted my 10 closest friends and family and asked them! Whatever words repeated most I used. (A bunch of my classmates were stumped by the 5 key words as well, so I advised all of them to do the same). Once all my content was done, I set about doing some thumbnail sketches, as per the process Judy had advised.

And then I looked at the clock and the panic began to set in again.

NO TIME FOR THUMBNAILS.

I don’t advise jumping into a project without brainstorming, but DESPERATE TIMES, people. I wasn’t sure if Judy would be mad, however, if I didn’t do any brainstorming, so here is my panicked sketching:

   

 

It’s actually kind of hilarious. I literally scribbled for about thirty seconds. BRILLIANT brainstorming, clearly. I ended up going into InDesign and just playing around. I reworked and resized as I went, and I found this incredibly helpful. I could quickly try out new things, and easily go back if it didn’t work out. After messing around with stuff, here are the two layouts I came up with:

   

Ultimately, I am very happy with how both of these turned out. I’m obviously a student, and I’m sure any professional would say these are crap, but at my skill level, I’m pleased with the result. I think I prefer the layout on the left, because I find it more interesting, and I think it’s something that would catch my eye and cause me to stop and read it. However, I prefer the typeface that I used for the layout on the right, and I also feel like the two pages look more cohesive in the layout. However, I would still recommend the layout on the left. It grabs your attention, which was the intent of the assignment. Even though this exercise had me rushing and panicked, I had a ton of fun doing it (and I sure learned a lot about how to use the printer in a very short amount of time).