The design context publication was a self-indulgence brief, this was to create a publication to inform and contextualise your own practice. For this I decided to create a visual publication that displayed my influences and inspiration from throughout the year and mix in research from various things that was relevant to the content to show a clear understanding of my own practice.
The main element of the brief was the concept, throughout this year I feel as though I have two sides to my practice, one side being graphic design and the other being a print maker, there are overlaps within this and each side if effected by the other and vice versa, but it made sense to split the publication into these two sections and display content under these two categories. I think in doing this I have shown an understanding of my practice and through the choice of the content that again shows how I have been researching around the right areas of design to keep my whole practice consistent.
For the publication I wanted it to be very visual, hence a heavy use of imagery within it, as a creative I feel that I best explain myself through image, so creating an image based publication is relevant and does this in the best way. Using different sized images and formats, I was able to build up a composition within the pages of the publication and make each one slightly different, giving it a bespoke / hand crafted feel. This reflects practice as hand crafted and high quality design has been a focus of it, especially within the publishing and editorial.
The final bit to the publication was the information that was used for the body copy. I wanted to include specific information for each of the sections; this would include articles, facts, stats and anything else I could find. The idea of this is to show that there is an understanding behind all the visual elements and that there is a theory based practice underlining all of my work. Mixing the information within the imagery creates an interesting layout in the publication and makes a better read for the user. It is also shows how the visual elements and theory are directly related to each other.
I think the strongest element of this brief was looking at the concept and creating a layout which clearly shows what I wanted to inform the user about. Reading through the publication, you can see clear evidence that the content is directly related to my practice and it all things that I have looked at for inspiration and development of my practice. The layout of the publication is also a strong point as I feel this displays the information in a interesting manor and builds a unique composition on each spread, yet the publication carries a consistent identity all the way through. The layouts take into consideration the imagery, and I have displayed similar images together by looking at the content of the image and colours involved. This makes the understanding of each page clearer and with the information, which again is directly related to the imagery, it creates a strong editorial design that evidences everything in relation to who I am.
Not necessarily a weak point as this does work well for the publication and gives it an identity, but looking back at the publication the colours used makes the publication quite monotone throughout. Even there is the use of two colours, it feels slightly too similar for the whole publication. The reason of doing it like this was because I wanted to identify the publication as being about me as a designer and the colours used are of my personal branding, so there is a relationship there and it works to contextualise the whole publication, but maybe more colours could have been better.
This is the only one thing I would change if I were to do it again. I would probably look at a larger document, as I feel that the content included and what the publication is made up from is just the beginning of my practice and I could probably expand it further working on the concept created as I think it is very strong and on point for the purpose of the publication.
Overall I have enjoyed working on this brief and believe that the outcome is very positive and delivers on the concept and purpose I set out to achieve. Looking through the publication, it is very visual which works great for the purpose and showcases all the required content to inform the user of my practice, which I think is clearly evident from the content of the publication. I got the publication printed professionally online, as I felt having it properly bound and made would create a much more professional product, which looking at the publication, it was defiantly a good move as the print quality is really high and sets off the design of the layouts within the publication. This is defiantly one of the best publishing and editorial design briefs because there is a clear concept, contexualisation within the product and the design clearly evidences the purpose of it, which is to display the inspiration and influences that have been apart of the development of my practice and made it what it is today.
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