Design Principles - What is a Book - Poem Layout

Design Principles

What is a book? 
Session 3 - Poem Layout  

During this session we were given a brief history of book layout exploring two of post defining concepts of Graphic Design. WE looked at a range of Modernist and Post-moderninst and the features they adhered too to get a better understand of how we can use these themes to design our own publications. Following this we were then put into groups of 5-6 students and given a text which was The mouses tale by Lewis Carroll. We were then tasked to re-set the text of this poem in a typically modernist layout as well as a typically post modern layout. 

We initially found this difficult as for the modernist example we could got alter the lines of the text as the poem needed to remain in this format to flow as the ends of each lines rhymed, this made it initially difficult to create a clean rag. We chose to place the text in one long this column as this would ensure the lines looked of a consistent style. I chose to add a mouse made from glyphs as I felt this was a strutted way to incorporate imagery within the text that still follows a strutted modernist principle. We chose Helvetia for the typeface as this is iconic to modernist design and felt the design as a whole worked well. 

For the post-modern layout we chose to opt for form over function and were less concerned about the legibility of the overall design. We chose to set the text in the shape of a mouse as we felt this would look aesthetically pleasing, would connote a playful post-modern layout that would never be considered right under modernist design principles. We chose a script typeface as we felt the descenders represented mice tails. I think this design worked well in conforming to postmodern design principles as it opts for form over function and creates a playful aesthetic. 

We then presented our two variations to a group of students and lecturers and explained the concept behind them. They were critical about our modernist example as the imagery even though it was produced with a relatively minimal aesthetic did not conform to modernist principles, It was also suggested that our line lengths were too short making the it unappealing as the eye would have to move from one line to another too often. We agreed with this however felt this was the only viable way to keep the whole poem looking fairly standard throughout, we sampled longer line lengths however the contrast between this and the short verses was too stark. We received positive feedback for out post-modern layout with students commenting on how they liked our playful imagery setting the text within the shape of a mouse and how they felt the typeface worked well to represent the mouses tail. Overall I feel this task was beneficial in showing how one text can be interpreted in two vastly contrasting ways and how the typesetting of text can take far longer than anticipated.