Publication Design
Publication design involves creating an attractive and polished document (using specialist design software such as Adobe Indesign, Illustrator and Photoshop) that engages and informs audiences in such a way that your content is accessible, memorable and easy to understand. This is something that I have become more interested in throughout my later years of study as it is something that involves the incorporation of images, type and placing them on pages to make them look and feel good. The way that the viewer is going to perceive or interact with the publication becomes something that is intriguing about the design of the publication and really interests me.
Project 1 - Monothematic Publication Design
Cultural Studies: Bad feeling at work: emotional labour, precarity, and
the affective economy.
This paper seeks the separation of emotions at work and suppressing those “bad feelings” to be able to be positive and therefore efficient at work. But is this really an unhealthy habit that has been forced on us at work for so long that we have just become accustom to it? Should we really pay more attention to the emotional labor that people endure each week at work. Is this the reason behind so many peoples unstable emotions and depression? Is work killing us both physically and emotionally?
This publication explores the idea of “work life balance” and the underlying emotional strains that people put on themselves at work and the ramifications it has in their social/home life. These unrealistic expectations of working too many hours and having to suppress any “bad feelings” that they have at work so that they can be efficient at their job, contrasting the realistic goals that workplaces should set and offering emotional support for people who are struggling to generate a good work life balance and overall positive working environment. This would increase overall moral of staff leading to a positive and efficient workplace. As you can see below all that has been mentioned was incorporated into this publication to present a document that exposes exactly what it's talking about in it's look and feel.
Project 2 - Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria Annual Report
The brief focused on creating an annual report on The Royal Botanic Gardens in Melbourne, I proposed and designed a functional, engaging and memorable annual report for the Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria. The report explored a subject that related to place, landscape environment, community activities, science, biology, sustainability, and memorable experiences. I explored the rich colours of nature and the connection that the gardens has with art by focusing on vibrant colours, graphic shapes and images that contrasted with bold typography elements. I used all my own imagery of nature in the process to make it more of a personal design, as I love photography mainly taking nature photos. To make this annual report functional I investigated clear and visually appealing layouts that allowed the graphic elements and information to encourage an eye-catching presentation on the page. To make it engaging I used a wide range of vibrant colours inspired by nature and the many gorgeous plants that the Royal Botanic Gardens have to offer. And to make it more memorable it was made to be different to any other boring annual report that has been used before by producing clean layouts, using my own nature photography, bold text and rich colours but also pushed the boundaries of a formal document.
Project 3 - Alice's Adventures in Wonderland Reboot Publication Design
The brief was to reboot an old classic novel and create something new and exciting. Written by Lewis Carroll “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” is an adored classic, with whimsical dream like adventures that will have you on the edge of your seat. The story is about Alice a little girl who falls asleep in the meadow, dreaming of falling down a rabbit hole. In her dreams she has many adventures and meets many wild, wonderful and whacky characters along the way.
I decided to do this amazing tale wonders and really draw out the imagination/dream like state that is this story. I believe that I created something whimsical and dreamy that would relate to the nature of the story. It incorporates bright colours, sparkles and magical elements to create a child's dream.
I wanted it to reflect the themes of the story, the main themes being identity, coming of age, and absurdity. These elements were reflected on the idea of being inside someones dream with all the sparkly purple colours and elements of paper, foil and CMYK used to mirror the themes within the story.
