Design Hero Book
February 19, 2022
Here are the 5 sketch plans I came up with.
It took me a while to get to this point. I started sketching on paper flatplans, but that wasn’t really working for me, so I tried switching to digital flatplans via Procreate on my iPad. InDesign was too high fidelity for me and also wasn’t working, so I ended up folding pieces letter paper in half and using that as a mini-book concept.
My original essay was kind of laid out like a timeline already, so for a couple of sketches I used that concept to guide the whole story. I set up a timeline across the top of each page and used that to double as the folio information on each page. In other versions I broke them down more by category and put a timeline in the back of the booklet. My essay kind of breaks down each of his fonts, so for most of my sketches I just had a few fonts on each page along with some text.
February 23, 2022
I spent 11 hours today trying to figure out how to refine and iterate on my sketches. I struggled for a long time on the narrative I was trying to tell. I ended up picking two directions: one chronological, having the entire book serve as a timeline; and the other sorted by category, with some spreads dedicated to typefaces and others to other categories of information.
The design and layout of the chronological one is inspired by Edmondson’s type design tutorial zine, which has two columns per page and plenty of snarky footnotes. The other one is inspired by type specimen books!
February 25, 2022
After talking to Brett and the TAs, I’m realizing I need to pivot a little bit. Right now, both of these booklets are extremely repetitive and content-heavy, with not a lot of variation. I’m going to step back and decide how to distribute the information and set up a grid, and then once that has all been decided, I’ll go into spread layouts. I’m going to add color, as well, and focus on showing his type as image instead of as type.
February 27, 2022
After establishing a more flexible grid and slightly reimagining what I wanted to include in terms of spreads, I ended up with about 3.5 versions.
After talking to some of my classmates, I ended up consolidating these versions into this:
Tuesday, March 1
I ended up modifying some of the spreads a little bit more—reworking the pull quotes a bit, adding color in some places, and adjusting the layouts of a couple spreads.
I’m still not totally sold on this. I’m not sure how well it flows. I want to get more color on the custom work spread, and I think I need to add more body text, but I’m not sure what that should be or where it should go. I want the title page to connect to the cover more, but I need more time to think about that idea. The Philosophy spread needs more work. I also need to go through and typeset all of my text properly; right now it’s just dropped in there. I also might want to add more photos of process work, but I’m not sure where THAT should go.
However, this is about 10 million times better than what I had last week, so I’m feeling pretty decent.
Thursday, March 3
I had an idea during class today to reframe the content of my booklet. I want to trace the path of designing a font in parallel to Edmondson’s career path.
I also decided to change up my color scheme to reflect the mood of his fonts more accurately. Instead of red and blue, I’m now using an electric yellow-green color.
Tuesday, March 15
I finished building out my new version, and revised it during class today. Here’s what I have right now.
I’m really liking the direction this is headed in. For Thursday I’m going to do a print test and adjust sizes of text if necessary, but I think I’m really close to finished.
