Steely Don
A jazz related title, for a jazzy week and half term to come. First of all, I’ll go over last week’s A6 task, which could not be covered in the themed blog entry. This task involved creating an advert with the dimensions from a rate card, which are measured in Standard Column Centimetres. I decided to go width of 94mm by 160mm, as I felt the dimensions suited the text, and would allow me to split up the page into simple elements. The final design I created is pictured below.
I was very pleased with finished result which also warranted a “s’all right” response from Steve, which is praise indeed. One area which we disagreed on though was the use of symbols at the left of each paragraph. Steve thought that bullets would look more suitable for a document of this type, but I didn’t share his view. I thought with the business being a modern telecommunications company, advertising for a creative job role would look better with some small graphical touches. What would catch your eye more when sifting though job adverts? Boring black bullets or little symbols of a globe, a money bag, and a mouse?
On Wednesday of this week we did our usability tests, which we had to create a form for. I chose to use a “agree strongly/agree/disagree/disagree strongly” arrangement of questions, as well as some more open ended questions. I found it very had to pick these, as I wasn’t really sure what parts of my site needed to be highlighted for change, and I thought a lot of people felt the same.
After about 2 hours of testing we had got through everyone’s website. I would have to pick Drew’s site as my favourite, as it was annoyingly attractive and sickeningly easy to use. I found that looking at everyone else’s website highlighted that I have along way to go to get up to the same standard of design as everyone else. I certainly don’t feel I have the ‘knack’ for web design yet, where as with print I seem to naturally be able to drop things into the right places. This is why I’m implementing a HTML/CSS “boot camp” of self study over the summer, with some of the books which have been recommended to me by others, to improve my capability, and educate myself about what features I can utilise when designing a page.
On Thursday we did 2 tasks which combined together to produce one finished piece of work. This task was to create a newsletter heading and folio, and then as the second task put the content into what we had designed. With the first task I decided to redeploy my “skyscraper” design, as I could make it with heavy stroke lines within a couple of minutes. As we only had an hour to create the header and folio, I thought I would stick to what I know. I also used symbols for a moon, and some speech marks around the title.
I chose a 3 column design, and had the title spread across 2 columns, and the skyscrapers in the third. I also placed some black stroke lines in the folio, which has probably been influenced by the Graphic Language of Neville Brody book which I had been looking though for my presentation.
In the second task I decided to put the picture 2 columns wide, and put in features such as a 4 line drop cap, a pull quote and a by line. Once again, I chose the Myriad Pro font, which I really need to wean myself off before I use it on everything. However, I did find out here that it was good for dyslexics, so in my defence it was considered because of its usability merits. Overall I was pleased with the document, but I think my header and folio could have been done better. Lines should have been used more sparingly, and the arrangements of some of the symbols could have been better. This document is viewable below.
7 comments:
I think I'm with Steve on this - the symbols don't really work. Some of them work because they link to the text, but the money bag one sets the reader's expectations up for something that they're not going to read - how much they're going to get paid.
I also think that the mouse one would be better to have been put next to the web address, then it's got a bit more relevance. But if you absolutely had to put something next to the text, I'd be with Steve and suggest bullet points.
I took a bit of a gamble with the symbols on the Vodafone piece, and I stick by my decision to use them. After extensively looking at how Neville Brody used graphical objects to enhance the look of his designs, I think I was right to choose them. They certainly say “creative design” to me more than bullets do.
I guess I was subconsciously trying to create an advert which would differentiate itself from the surrounding articles which would also be found in a newspaper. The symbols also align with the Vodafone logo, creating cohesion between the elements.
I forgot to mention that I used a light version of Myriad Pro, which allowed the text to fit. It also looks less “black” than the title and the symbols, which I think creates good contrast. I also made the email address larger, and matches the width of the body text.
It’s interesting to see that people are already starting to create personal styles. Is this a good thing? In the long term, probably yes, but in the short term, maybe not. I think I need to get some help so I don’t become a Myriad Pro junkie! It’s just so damn morish.
There's nothing wrong with having a style.
There's also nothing wrong with using Myriad Pro, as long as it's used appropriately and in the right situation.
I definately agree with Craig. Although I feel perhaps the icons give it a slight difference in the newspaper, where getting noticed amid the surrounding advertisements is a must, I think the symbols you have used doesn't accurately present the content.
It's like having a sub heading reading 'Your wage' and having a paragraph containing information about the varying roles.
As for your latest Jazz newspaper piece, I really like the use of the silhouette buildings. I never thought of doing anything like that but it really helps to use up some of the white space, and not in a 'I'll just shove something there to fill it up' kind of way.
Hey, I just wanted to say thanks for the compliment about my website.
@ The Craigs: I do agree that the actual choice of symbols isnt great, but at least the theory is there. I’m sure that whoever does the real adverts for Vodafone has a substantially more comprehensive library of symbols for advertising. As one of the only ones, if not the only one to use symbols (come colleges still haven’t mastered the “post a picture/get feedback” theory – but that’s another story) I at least experimented with them.
Ideally, if the brief was more liberal and not just typography based, I could have created my own symbols in Photoshop using vector shapes, etc. I really just wanted to try a mixture of everything the brief would allow. I also think I justified my experimentation with symbols pretty well. Maybe using the Vodafone logo as bullets would have been a more coherent idea?
@ Drew: no problem, I really enjoyed your site, seems like you have the natural web design flair that I don’t have!
I like the idea of using the Vodafone logo as bullets, it was an idea I thought about. In the end, I didn't bother because I thought it might have been a bit of overkill with the logo.
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