Mock-ups & Layout // 03.11.23

I chose to attend the workshop on Mock-ups and Layout as I thought that it was currently the most relevant to my project. In this session we looked at various examples of graphic design skills, creating visual identities that would tie our project pitches to our illustration practice, pitch formats, and techniques to inspire and design our own.

This session covered: illustrating tone, personality, meaning, professionalism, flair, research, knowledge, process and enquiry through layouts and clearly designed presentations, and focused on how clear, yet entertaining design can help to communicate in a powerful manner, in order to get that ’yes’ from the client.

Below I have summarised the structure of the class and added relevant drawings to the image gallery on the left below.

a. Choose a Format (5 mins)

Depending on what kind of information the pitch is communicating, the format may be better as A3 fold down poster zine, a digital presentation, or a presentation board.

b. Make a Flat Plan (10 mins)

The amount and type of content can fit into the pitch will depend on the format; it is helpful to draw a flat plan to visually consider how much content can fit on the page size, adding additional pages as necessary and numbering them.

c. Curate Your Content (15 mins)

Using scrap paper, I made a prototype version of my pitch - an A2 instant zine.

d. Colour Scheme (5 mins)

Selecting between 1 and 4 colours for your publication is advisable, because most books are printed using cyan, magenta, yellow and black. If you have a strong visual identity in the
work, you might consider limiting the colour scheme of your publication to only 2—3 pure colours.

e. Unifying Imagery (5 mins)

The stylistic values of images should be unified, or considered as one body of work, as the audience will understand the pitch as a whole and not as single pages or spreads.

f. Typography (15 mins)

Following typographic rules, your pitch should contain only 3 typographic styles/sizes: a display type, a body type, and a caption type.

g. Thumbnailing (10 mins)

Come up with at least 5 different designs of potential cover designs and layouts.

h. Cover Design (20 mins)

With feedback from my peers, I chose the best/most appropriate design and worked on a larger scale (my A2 mock-up on scrap paper).

i. Spread Design (coming soon)

Skills to remember:

Limiting colour schemes*
Dynamic narrative arcs**
Image styling
Conceptual formats
Typography hierarchy

*Links for colour scheming:

https://coolors.co
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel
https://www.canva.com/colors/color-palette-generator

**Link for name generation:

https://businessnamegenerator.co

Minor Studio Project

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