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).
Stephanie Brennan 