Image//Book Works//Initial design process.

After completing my research, and generating some simple design drawings to fulfil my expected content, I went on to start generating some designs for my 'Book Works' final publication outcome, knowing that I wanted to keep my designs simple, clean, vectored, and informative.
I began working with circles and colour wheels, inspired by the Dulux Colour designs on my Design Context blog, and by colour wheels and tints in general- a way to propose "infinite colour" and the variations of tints and shades side-by-side. 

The various different names and shades of the colour yellow (shown in image at the top of the page)- all in one colour wheel- a dramatic example of the varying colours.

Feeling that a few of the colours were too similar to one another, or, in the case of the 'Buttercup' yellow, not even in the CMYK print gamut, I went on to make a few changes myself, by eye (and not by swatches, like the other colour samples that I generated from online image sources), still ensuring that the colour associations were recognisable.

As well as with my circular colour wheel design, I went on to explore squares, and other ways that gradients/tints could be applied. However, I feel that the bold, block colours were far more effective and high-impact, in the infographic style that I was particularly looking to achieve, and decided that it should be stuck with.

Applying this to the dimensions of my cover design- once again, working with the minimalistic, clean approach- also beginning to look at how type can be applied to my design- working with a bold, uppercase and slightly "clinical" looking sans serif typeface. As well as being appropriate to the design, I seem to find myself having less and less time for serif typefaces (at college I used nothing but- the times they are a-changin').

As part of my research, I had also considered looking into the meaning and symbolism of blonde hair (which I, myself, naturally have), which is often described as being "yellow" (in colour). However, the actual swatch colours I produced from images online couldn't be much further away. Although the intention and meaning is there, visually, the colours were not at all consistent with my intentions for the tones and shades to use throughout the book, and therefore decided to ditch this subject matter (perhaps a project for the future?).

Starting to consider type a lot more, and look at how effectively this can be used throughout my publication design. Initially, I thought Gotham would be a great choice- a great variety of weights and styles in the family to utilise, geometric, clean, minimal- just right. However, as a commercial font, I really couldn't justify spending $80 on a single family member (when I'm rich I could... but not when I'm eating Morrison's value beans for tea), so I searched online for a good alternative. In a design ~chat~, I was recommended florencesans (which I was able to download from dafont) which was a great alternative in uppercase- but in lowercase the ascenders and descenders were frustratingly elongated- something I could amend by creating outlines and editing to meet the consistent baseline, but it would be quite time-consuming. Definitely something worth considering. However, really happy with the type in uppercase (as can be seen in my final cover design- image at the bottom of the post), but something I certainly need to consider for the entirety of the book design.