OUGD504 - Brief 1 - Visual Development

OUGD504: Brief 1: My Design Process

Visual development

Having developed the layout of my leaflet and selected by folding process the next stage of my design process was to develop the visual components of my leaflet. For this I wanted to keep the visual aesthetic quite simple so to not distract from the content, I felt a busy layout would confuse an audience and wouldn't match the direct informative tone of voice my content provides. I thought the cut out  I created for my front cover was a great way of linking the content and aesthetic and wanted to continue this process within my visual aesthetic using the diamond to reinforce the content and create a strong visual aesthetic. 

I was inspired by door signs at Leeds College of Art using lines to build top shapes. I liked this aesthetic because it was bold and creative, I started by creating a diamond built up of individual lines, I used rounded corners to make the overall aesthetic less harsh and clinical to create a bold confident shape that reinforced the content of my leaflet. 

I started experimenting by incarnating text within this shape to build up a song visual that would appeal to an audience at a glance. I felt the text within the shape didn't work as it took away from the overall effect however liked to offset shape cut off the edge of the page, I felt this was more dynamic and created a bold simple aesthetic anchored by the text. I then developed this further incorporating a smaller diamond made up of individual diamonds to create a more detailed shape experimenting with size and placement to create a dynamic page layout that would appeal to a creative target audience and stand out yet not distract from the content too heavily. 

I then started developing the aesthetic for my content. I created a bold title using negative space within a box to break up the large amounts of white space used in my layout and set my text to allow a large left margin as I felt this was a more designed approach to the standard leaflet left aligned justified which would be noticeable to my creative target audience. I trailed my build up shape with the content which I feel works well and added the innovative feature to block fill each stage of the porcess to reinforce the cyclic nature of the design process.

Typeface Selection: 

I chose a bold sans serif for my titles as I felt this needed to grab the audiences attention and be creamery legible at a glance, I felt Brandon Grotesque Bold was an appropriate font choice as it has a fictional look with a warm touch that would be legible and direct without giving too much of a rigid aesthetic. I then started experimenting with body copy, I initially looked at serif typefaces however felt this have the overall aesthetic a harsh tone, I then experimented with serif body copy which I found to work much better, the serif gave a warmer touch and made the aesthetic less clinical as there was already a lot of straight lines used within the layout the serif helped to break these up and balanced the components well. I ultimately chose Fedra Serif for my body copy as it complemented the bold titles well and was specially intended to suit the needs of editorial design, A bonus feature included that  the title of the I is shaped like a diamond once again reinforcing my content and concept. I feel my typography choices are informed and work well with the overall aesthetic to make the content even more engaging through a well designed aesthetic.