C. S. Lewis Typefaces Booklet

There’s something about choosing content and designing layouts while using nothing but type. When all the elements are taken away (colour, graphics, images, rules) I feel like I have more freedom to be creative. The more restrictions that are put on me, the more I feel I can flourish. It is for this exact reason that I chose to be a designer, and not a fine artist. I need rules, I crave restrictions, and I thrive on limitations. When there are too many options, I feel like I can’t think. There’s an infinite number of possibilities! But when I am only designing using type, I feel like I can push the boundaries and explore.

So I obviously loved this assignment. The only thing that was left to us was deciding on a topic and content, and the idea of doing a book about C. S. Lewis came to me pretty early. I chose content by ensuring I had pieces of varying lengths to work with (a couple one sentence quotes and a couple ten stanza poems), and then by just choosing my favourite works or quotes of Lewis’s. The only really challenging thing about this project was choosing typefaces, because I honestly just wanted to use one! Which I suppose is actually a good thing. While the purpose of this assignment was to practice using different kinds of typefaces, in the “real world” we should realistically be only using one or two typefaces for an entire piece. So I guess it’s good that it felt really forced to use 8 different typefaces? But for this assignment, I pretty much only wanted to use Centaur, and had to force myself to use other typefaces for the other pages. Centaur is just so perfectly C. S. Lewis-y that nothing else seemed to work. But in the end, I obviously made it work. Because that’s my job (or at least it will be, once I graduate). I’m pretty happy with the end result, and I’m actually planning on giving this little book to a few of my family members who are fans of Lewis’s work. Here’s an example of the cover and the first page.

I hope Jack would be proud.

The September Issue

I loved this movie. A documentary that follows editor-in-chief Anna Wintour and the rest of the Vogue staff as they prepare to launch the 2007 September issue of American Vogue, there could not be a movie more up my alley. While I may be studying graphic design, I have always loved fashion. So much so that my dream would be to one day work as a graphic designer for a fashion magazine – specifically Vogue, hopefully!

I found this movie so incredibly fascinating. First off, the clothes – the CLOTHES!! – were just so incredibly stunning, they kept me intrigued regardless of what was happening in the publication of the magazine. And that was intriguing as well! To get to learn even a little bit about the inner workings of the magazine was incredible. I was shocked by how unglamorous everyone’s offices seemed to be (I imagined Vogue with executives sipping mimosas over their gold foiled furniture), and even more so by how unglamorous everyone’s outfits were! Even Anna herself dressed very conservatively, and her look didn’t change much from day to day. I suppose if you are so immersed in a culture that you’ve seen it all and not much surprises you anymore, you just do and wear what you know you love and know works for you.

The thing that I found most fascinating of all was that Anna is painted as a heartless ice queen, but after watching her creative process I found myself admiring her. She is so astonishingly, emotionally unattached from the work that she is doing, and I think that is a huge asset for her job. Grace is a fashion editor, and so incredibly creative in her clothing styling and shoot creations, but I think she is much more of an artist, and therefore much more inclined to be upset when someone discards work that she has done. Anna is able to see the magazine as a whole, and not worry about hurting anyone’s feelings, and she can cut images, looks, models, and entire shoots if she feels that they aren’t benefiting the magazine. I really think that there are very few people who could do her job and do it as well as she does.

While Anna definitely has the last say about everything that goes in the magazine, the other contributors are definitely able to manipulate what happens. One of the photographers simply “didn’t like” a dress that was going to be used for the cover shot, so he just didn’t send Vogue any pictures of it! And just like that, they had to choose a different cover look. Ultimately, I feel that this probably helps the overall look of the magazine. Everyone there is a master in their craft, and while they don’t do it often, when any one member puts their foot down (or passive aggressively behind Anna’s back puts their foot down) I think that they are probably making a good call based on their knowledge and experience.

Seeing this movie makes me so much more excited to pursue a career in graphic design and fashion, and watching everyone’s interactions helped me consider things I can work on. Grace’s passion for her work and creative styling, paired with Anna’s cutthroat ability to analyze a story as a whole and not get attached to specific images, PLUS some kick ass skills as a designer, and BAM. Best Vogue employee ever. (One day.)

Self Directed Class

This one’s for you, Judy.