Create your own sample book of typefaces on your computer that you can refer to. Organise them into:
• Serif for continuous text; readable at small sizes and those suitable for headings.
• San-serif for continuous text; readable at small sizes and for headings.
• Script fonts that look handwritten with a pen or brush.
• Decorative fonts only suitable for headings or ‘fun’ uses.
• Fixed width, techno and pixel fonts for use on the web or to give a computer appearance.

Identify which typefaces have bold, italic, black or light fonts.

Now identify which fonts you might use in each of the following commissions:

• A short story in a woman’s magazine entitled “I thought I loved him; now I’m not so sure”. The story is 1300 words long so you will need to identify a text font and a headline font.
• An advertisement in a parish magazine asking for more helpers on the flower rota. The finished size is A6 landscape and the text reads: “Can you add that important artistic flourish to our church? We desperately need more volunteers to join the flower rota. If you can help or would like more information please contact Jennie jennie@vicarage.co.uk.”
• A poster to advertise an after-school club for boys aged 13 – 14. The poster will be A3 size and the copy reads: “Bored? Feeling got at? Nowhere to go? Then why not come and join us on Tuesdays and Wednesdays after school in the Old Gym. We’ve got football, ping pong, table soccer, computers, Karate, cooking and lots more. All free just come along.”
• Your friends’ engagement party. They want a flyer A5 size to send to their friends as if advertising a club night. The copy reads: “Mandy and Josh are finally going todo it…well almost!!!!! Come and join them on Friday 24 March from 8 pm at theGolden Calf to celebrate their long-awaited engagement… and yes lots of presents would be gratefully received particularly if we can drink them!!!!! Then have a go at mocking up each of these. Try different fonts to see how each changes the feel of the text and make notes in your learning log about which works best and why.

Start

This exercise turned out to be a task with two unknowns. When I just got acquainted with this task, I realised that I needed to break it into several sections to create for myself a general picture of font types, and only after using them in advertising and magazines. That was my first collection of fonts that I have ever created in my entire experience in graphic design. To get started, I turned to Wikipedia, which is more for the concept of a specimen book.

Specimen books (in full: type specimen books) are the printed brochures or catalogues of type foundries and printers, offered to advertise the range and quality of type available. They have been an essential part of the printing trade since soon after the invention of printing with movable metal type in the 15th century.

The ideal specimen book shows the typefaces in a range of sizes, using short sentences rather than A-Z strings (which are of little use for getting a feel for the type in use). Colour is sometimes used, but usually very discreetly, such as a red title. Samples in text sizes (6 to 14 point) typically show a longish block of text to help one judge readability, but would not be offered for decorative and display typefaces. It is quite common not to deliver a complete character set: foundries have always been concerned about piracy. Instead, a chart might be shown in an appendix where characters included in all the foundry’s fonts.

Collecting Type Specimens

The other day I bought a book with collections of fonts compiled by one famous collector, Jan Tholenaar. Specimen collections have become an inspiration in a passion for the history of fonts, and their unique journey through generations and centuries. But some fonts were invented hundreds of years ago, but they continue to be in demand among it for print advertising and printing.
Between the dates 1830 and 1930, a collector that goes by the name of Jan Tholenaar assembled one of the most significant collections of type specimens in the world. It was incredibly diverse of ornaments, fantasy letters, also with examples of artistic printings—all the letters in all variety of colours. What he was doing, he was buying loads of old catalogues from antique shops around the world, from magazines, and then will organise them into the specimen.

In fact, not long time ago, the American poet Dan Carr designed his typeface for his poems and cut dies it himself. This specimen was included in Jan’s collection as well. Another fact that immensely impressed me was about the first smallest engraved font 2.5 points by letter engraver Henry Didot in the early 19th century.

Nowadays, it’s not easy to become specimen collectors; you have to visit antiquarian booksellers or auctions. Jan Tholenaar had one of his first collections from visiting the library of the Amsterdam Foundry, or from visits to the St.Bridge Printing Library in London. Type specimens are naturally were found in notable publications, such as in house magazines through ought the world. I was fond of his obsession with sample collecting; he would admire some of the rarest fonts collections. He would do everything that to get desirable one into his group, like type foundry Debney & Peignot with more than 400 rare specimens.

Type A visual History of Typefaces and Graphic Styles 1628-1938. Edited by Cees W. de Jong, Alston W. Pervis, Jan Tholenaar

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After familiarising myself with the historical font sets and their lectures, I created a mood board on Pinterest. It helped me to visualise my interpretation of the type specimen, which I would like to implement in my style. These examples are quite eyed appealing, as for me, they look like a celebration of each font and its characteristics.

Typography Specimen Book

I was very excited to create my type specimen, where I could join them into the little font guide. I had thoughts about several styles for the typography layouts, so I needed to transfer them into pieces of paper in my learning log. I organised designs and put everything together in a single style. I intended to associate an exact, bright colour for each font. For the brochure, I chose format A4 in terms each font would have their spread with lots of air around and some examples of font usage, size, alphabet, and font history.

In my specimen guide, I have chosen particular fonts, as from my point of view are the best for reading, advertising, and experimenting at the same time. There 3-4 different fonts for each type, I thought it would help me with the font variety for the production of future design. Below is the list of my fonts selection:

Serif fonts:

• Adobe Caslon Pro
• Playfair Display 
• Garamond
• Elephant Italic

San-serif fonts:

• Futura
• Helvetica
• Avantgarde

Script fonts:

• Vegan Style
• Jane Austen
• Acroterion

Decorative fonts:

• Glamor
• Broadway
• Bernard

Fixed width:

• Courier New
• NovaMono
• Fixedsys

Some of the fonts I had already installed on my computer, but for some of them, I had to browse various types of sources, where I could find some original fonts I could use.

Sketches for Specimen Type Book.

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I must admit it took me a while to create as many as possible layouts for fonts but keeping them into a similar structure at the same time—the best program for the multi-page document in Adobe Indesign. I’ve created a quick style for pages, and some basics as Futura font for the main font in the catalogue. I played around with the cover for this brochure, and some interesting styles for fonts. I really enjoyed this part of exercises, as I had freedom in my style, and I could reflect my personal preferences in the designing brochures. I loved combining all these fonts into the singular material; also, I quite enjoyed the different font used for each page.

For some pages, I chose a rectangular layout, for fonts such as Playfair Display, Adobe Caslon, while I designed some fonts as a porter when applying layout at an angle, with a radical combination of fonts of different sizes. Font examples: Broadway, Futura, Helvetica. 

Since all fonts are different, and in some, we see the presence of only one type of font, examples of Fixedsys, Jane Austen, in this case, I displayed only the one alphabet with capital letters and lowercase. But some fonts are full of various styles, such as Avantgarde, Helvetica, Glamor, with Italic, Bold, Condensed type of writing, then, in this case, we see all types of spelling of the font in the alphabet, that is, duplication of the alphabet on one sheet. I enjoyed this experiment with the layout of the brochure, in my opinion, it reflects the individuality of each font, but at the same time, it has a single style.

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For the full Specimen Type Book preview, please copy this link and paste it in the new tab https://fliphtml5.com/temu/vfms

Commissions

Now the crucial moment has come, the application of my font catalogue in design. The first design is a layout for an article of women’s magazine. The headline itself made me nostalgic when in my youth, I read magazines about the complexities of relationships, beat procedures and tips for caring for home flowers in one issue. I remembered magazines from the 90s, 2000s, when the more images, backgrounds and brighter the headlines, the better. I drew several layout grids in Adobe Indesign, which I planned to add images to the photo later. I found some stock photos of girls with sad emotions on Pinterest to use them for the design layout. Link to my Pinterest account is below.

Some of the screenshots for the magazine article design are below. I actually quite like to see designs in the small proportions. Usually, seeing smaller scales of the pages that gives you the feel composition and colours.

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In design No. 1, I used the font that was my first on the list from the catalogue Adobe Caslon Pro; I experimented with it for the readable text, the main heading, and the subheadings between paragraphs. I finished the Glamor font for subtitles and initials before paragraphs.

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In design No. 2, I replayed the layout, added more model photos, with dramatic overtones. But since the task was to use fonts in the design, I decided to use the Broadway decorative font for the main title. For the main text, I chose the neat font Futura, which has more spaces between sentences lines then Adobe Caslon Pro, but this font is a serif, which tends to be more readable for the articles. Here I could see a brighter contrast between the text and the title. In my opinion, in such a font combination, a more confident direction appeared in the magazine.

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In design No. 3, I wanted to experiment even more with fonts, and in the third version of the magazine layout I used a new font, I was curious to see how the decorative NovaMono font fits into the title for the article, and also the font itself is small in size for the title; however, it is still well-read. Again, the design and overall impression turned out to be more modern style, in such a font the header seems to have been printed on the computer as a subject line. In the main text, I combined several fonts Futura and Adobe Caslon Pro, which, in my opinion, adds accents to the text.

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I think that of the three options, I would prefer design No. 1, in my opinion, the font for the general text is well matched in it, as well as the standard title in the Adobe Caslon Pro font. This option is more classic, easy to read, although I would like to note that the font for the title could be selected more original than a standard serif font. In the second version, I liked the experiment with the font for the title, but I think that due to the large dominance of the photo, the layout itself turned out to be overloaded with images. In general, I was satisfied with the result. I realised that the main thing for the magazine layout is font readability.

Parish Magazine Advertising

Layout for advertising a florist in a church was given to me more easily than the previous task. In my understanding, it was important to convey the tenderness and lightness of the ad, which could be diluted with floral arrangements. In option No. 1, I used three different fonts. I decided to split the title into two different fonts, so the ad becomes more attractive. For the first part, I used the serif font Adobe Caslon Pro, then the title goes into the handwritten font Jane Austen, for the main text I used the font Futura. The result, in my opinion, was decent, pleasant to perceive, and easily recognisable.

In design №2, I used a new font for the title, Glamor, and a similar font for the body text. I can not say that I am delighted with this option. Probably, a combination of fonts was not quite well-chosen in it, and yet I still lack a handwritten font that would add tenderness to this work.

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In design №3, I added the Acroterion classic script font, and for the title, I selected all the uppercase letters of the Playfair Display serif font. The main font is also the Playfair Display. I tried to use more fonts in this ad, such as Helvetica and Avantgarde, but somehow they were not successful in the two cases (magazine and parish florist). However, I realised that I needed to apply them as well because I included them in the list of fonts catalogue. Of all the three options, I prefer the option №1 the most, readable, straightforward text, and a right combination of fonts.

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After-School Poster Design

To produce a school poster was another challenging design, where I had to use more fonts for the schoolboys club poster. Even though in this task, it was essential to concentrate on font variations, in my understanding, there are 3 critical components of the poster design, such as composition, colour scheme and the font itself. The print screen below shows all the porter options that I worked on in the process.

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In design number 1, I used the font Broadway and Futura Bold. I tried to experiment with colour and curly elements, dividing the crawl into several parts, but something in this version the poster didn’t want to go to bed at all, so I had to reject such a design.

Design number 2, in my opinion, is more successful. I divided the area diagonally and used slanted fonts. The fonts were relatively simple, such as Helvetica Bold Italic for headings, Futura Bold Italic for the main text. In my opinion, this is a better option for accepting information and reading; however, because of the diagonal, I did not have enough space for a larger font for the title. So I started the next design.

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Design No. 3 turned out to be a new trend compared to previous versions. Here I used new fonts; they are unusual, modern and ideal for this kind of porter. Here I used fonts from the Fixed width: NovaMono, Fixedsys (for the title), I also diluted the main text with the Helvetica Condensed Bold font, in my understanding, this is an excellent solution to combine several fonts in one loss. Also, these fonts are unique in their way, and they still have a standard feature, they are tall fonts, sans-serif, they look fresh and pleasant to read. In the lower right corner, I filled the place with a photograph of a group of young guys, as a sample, although there may be options (the image of sports, competitions, etc.).

Design No. 4 (see on the screenshot) is an intermediate version with design №2. I first drew it for the sample, and I liked the solution with the fonts in the slope, but the background seemed boring to me, so I redid it in option №2. Although at the same time, the font for the title in design No. 4 of Helvetica Bold Italic is more successful than in version No. 2.

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And finally, my last version number 5, in my opinion, the most interesting. The idea to portray a cap came spontaneously. In this design, I like everything from colour to the selection of fonts. Who would have thought that a reasonable standard Futura Bold font could harmonise so well for both the title and the main text? In this design, for the additional wording, I used Fixedsys font, which works perfectly with other fonts around. 

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In conclusion, I would like to say that I was quite satisfied with my designs. I used the spectre of fonts widely, however at the same time I’ve noticed that some fonts wouldn’t work for this kind of advert, such as Script fonts, and Decorative fonts, they would look too old-fashioned and out of place for this kind of designs. However, the preferred options of fixed-width fonts and san-serifs font, such as Helvetica, Futura Bold, worked quite right for these posters.

Friend’s Engagement Party

And finally, my last collection of designs in this exercise is an engagement party invitation. Below are screenshots of my final designs. I noticed that I still had fonts that I didn’t use earlier, but I could fit them well into the invitation design, fonts such as Vegan Style and Elephant Italic added a unique concept to the layout. Since this is an evening party, I wanted to portray all the invitations on the dark saturated background to make more association with the evening celebration.

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In design No. 1 against the backdrop of burgundy, I used such a light and pleasant handwritten font Acroterion in combination with two different fonts, with serifs PlayFair Display and sans serif Avantgarde. In my opinion, a good option, easy to read and perceive information.

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Design No. 2 is also quite exciting and understandable, in it I used font variations to the maximum, it also has a serif font with all uppercase letters Garamond, a narrow font Helvetica Condensed, as well as Broadway font in the style of the 20th.

Also, this is the only design in which I finally managed to use the font Vegan Style, in my opinion, quite successfully.

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Design No. 3 is a kind of experiment, in it, I combined different fonts from the modern computer era of NovaMono and 20s style font Broadway, as well as the narrow font Helvetica Condensed, Helvetica Condensed Bold. There is a certain kind of originality in such a variation because at first glance opposite, and incompatible fonts are combined here. Nevertheless, the design turned out to be catchy.

Design No. 4 is unusual; the text goes at an angle. Still, the frame around me was a little embarrassed; it seemed to me that it squeezed the space, so I left this option only as an intermediate one since it contains an exciting variation of fonts, such as Elephant Italic, Glamor Italic, Adobe Caslon Pro. (see screenshots above)

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that I am pleased with my final designs. I created a good variety of layouts and compositions to be able to compare different aspects of design. At the moment, I would say this exercise was the most comprehensive, but they still were made around printing designs and font solutions. I once again emphasised for myself how important the font choice for designs. That typography plays a vital role in the correct understanding of layout, especially the part of the clarity of the message. Also, for the first time, I created a specimen type book, which I can refer to in my future designs.

Using the following words create typographical representations that present both the word and a suggestion of its meaning.

Sad Safe Sardonic Saucy Scholarly Serious Shadow Shattered Shy Short Silly Sinking Skimpy Sleek Smart Snowy Sodden Soothing Sordid Sophisticated Speed Squat Squeeze Stiff Stodgy Stoned Style Supine Swagger Sweet

Start this exercise by working on A4 sheets of paper. Set the words in 48pt HelveticaBold, print and cut out the words and then arrange them and stick them to a sheet of paper trying to capture the meaning of the word visually. Think about the composition, using the white space of the page to help you construct your meanings.

Then work digitally using any of the software you have available. Explore how you can set text at a slant, at different sizes, in different colours and fonts. Try using filters in your software for other effects. Make notes as you work explaining your choice of representations and which ones youfeel that you were most successful with.

Practical Part

So, it’s time to start the first task of the printing section. Before I dive into the practical task, I made a small investigation into the history of type, I traced the evolution of writing for myself, it was interesting to follow the very origins of the development of type and writing, and how centuries-old inventions influenced modern typography. I left small notes in my Research Point.

At first glance, the standard pun-word exercise was very exciting. What struck me most was that how different the permutations of the letters in one word can be, and how this affects the visual perception of the word. I made sure for myself that the standard font, but the unique arrangement of letters can affect the character and mood of a person.

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When I imagined the word Sad I could see a sad smiley, and I want to place the word flowing down. When associating the word Safe, I presented a safe for keeping all valuables, and all the words are grouped into a cube shape. When associating the word Sardonic, I imagined something daunting when the letters want to scare so they scatter on different sides. For word Saucy, I imagined something playful and tasty. For word Scholary, this word which all strives to learn more is therefore directed upward. For word Serious, I imagined an exclamation point, so this is the emphasis, I am serious, and it is important! Word Shadow is a reflection, and it is read backwards. Word 8 is like broken glass, so it came to me to sweat by arranging small pieces of letters in a chaotic manner. Word Shy is hiding inside itself because it is shy to show itself in all its beauty. For word Short, the entire length of the letters is not enough, because it is small. Words Silly and Sweet are also playful and funny, so some letters do not want to stand in a row, but they want to somehow escape. Word Sinking, like the drowning ship Titanic, is broken in half, pulling to the bottom. And so all other words. I like the fact that they have no limits to play around!

When I started the graphic part of the assignment, it was important for me to show the meaning of the word in addition to the unique arrangement of letters, but also through the form of the font and its color as an addition. In my opinion, the font itself can convey the meaning of the word and its orientation. For example, I discovered the new Sutturah Fat font, it is easy to read, and it really has something intimidating, but a couple of bloody spots added even more meaning to the word. Or let’s say the Kunstler Script font, in my understanding, a scientist often writes in a beautiful, wide-spread font, let’s say this is a real idea. The same applies to the words Sweet / Silly, in which I used light, playful fonts with cute, subtle hues. I was also inspired by the font Riesling, for the word Sofisticated, such gracious and elegant font, as I understand it, there is really something attractive in this word. But to make this ford even more visible I arranged it into the goes high style. Thus, I replenished the font database, and I tried to beat every word in the role of a logo, like a word that represents itself in shape, color, and the arrangement of letters. In this practical lesson, I indicated all the fonts that were used in the design.

Conclusion

Based on my preliminary sketches of the font layout, I created words like Sad, Stoned, which kind of goes into the haze, relaxed and blurry image. With the word Speed, I had a desire to experiment, in which the letters e are depicted in the form of a speedometer.

In some words, I noticed difficulties, for example, such as Supine, Sleek, Soothing, I tried to add more tilt to them, convey the mood through color, and arrange the letters in a more chaotic version, but in my opinion they do not look as convincing as the rest fonts.

In conclusion, I would like to add that I enjoyed this assignment, it is painstaking work with fonts, and to some extent a separate chapter in the history of design, but it deserves a lot of attention, because the typography depends on the ease and correctness of the message, which the designer wants to convey to the viewer.

For this exercise you are going to make a montage or collage with a political message. Your subject matter could be a current issue, or something that you feel strongly about such as animal rights, the treatment of elderly people in hospital or images of women in the media. Collect images from newspapers, magazines, your own photographs or images online. Create new meanings out of these extant images by juxtaposing and contrasting them. Be imaginative, playful, provocative or humorous. If you have access to a scanner, then scan in your found images and create collages or photomontages with Photoshop. Try working with layers; exploring a variety of selection tools, such as your magic wand or magnetic lasso; utilising the cutting and pasting options – try and learn the keyboard shortcuts for these; adjusting the contrast, colour and balance of your images; and resizing elements of your photomontages. In your learning log reflect on the original meaning of the images and your subsequent college. Write a short evaluative statement.

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The Poetic Power of Collage

During this exercise, an exciting coincidence awaited me. On one of my walks through the Art Gallery Künstlerräume Grafiken aus der Sammlung in Bielefeld, I came across a book on collages, The age of Collage 2. This edition was the very source on the history of photomontage that I needed for this exercise. First, I got acquainted with the prehistory of collage and juxtaposition. The first thing that was mentioned in this book is that collage is based on Subversion. Photomontage was used by many artists as a rather daring form of protest, expressing their political thoughts. For example, John Hartfield openly ridiculed the Nazi Party and its ideologies in 1930, depicting an X-ray of Hitler’s upper body with a stomach full of gold and a swastika for a heart.

It is true as well of collage works that simply feature fragments from the artist’s everyday surroundings in unexpected arrangements. It was interesting to see how collage gives artists the ability to control the flow of images that we encounter daily while changing, distorting, and even ridiculing their original meaning.

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Another example from this book is the Dadaists reaction against the slaughter of the First World War. Their most important contribution to collage was photomontage, whereby printed photographs of their reproductions were sliced and pasted together to create farcical images with scathing political messages. Photomontage has become one of the collage’s most prevalent techniques.

One of the most salient qualities of collage is its distinctive capacity to tread the fine line between the tragic and the humorous like no other medium.

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Martha Rosler is a prolific artist whose work spans several decades and various fields including performance art, installations, photography, video, and collage. She had been using the montage form to provide a collision within a frame of things we think about when we unconsciously position women as home appliances and passive objects of desire, and it occurred to make anti-war flyers in the form of montaged tableaux drawn from mass picture magazines.

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Memory you work for us but never obey / you mock us when we look at fading photographs / at bereaved women / putting on again colourful dresses

Julia Hartwig, Rebuke.

Later I came across for some of the examples of Joe Webb’s collages. They are often simultaneously visually pleasing and politically charged. He sources a lot of imagery from advertising, which is an utterly distorted and unattainable projection of reality designed to leave us feeling inadequate, unattractive, and consuming more. Joe Webb shows the extreme contrasts of the imagery to expose the crazy, messed up way we live, and how we are controlled through methods of dumbing down, distraction, and fear.

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I juxtapose this glossy imagery with real life events: war, extreme weather events, poverty, corruption. In doing so the veneer of these adverts seems to peel away, exposing harshness of reality.

Joe Webb.

Source: The age of Collage 2

Analysing the brief

After analysing the history of collage development, I got a large portion of inspiration, which I could use in my designs. My thoughts for creating a new collage revolved around critical areas, such as environment, pollution, recycling and fast-developing countries. I wrote them down into my mind up, filling it with some additional points.

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Recently, the issue of environmental protection and the issues of global overpopulation and high consumption are particularly acute in the modern world. Especially acute, along with environmental pollution, is the problem of the Fashion Industry. Fashion Waste, Pollution and the Environment – with each second that passes by, a truck worth of fabric is piled into a landfill burned. The average landfill is .76 cubic metres in diameter. A commercial landfill holds 10-14 cubic yards of dirt. That means, every second you’re reading this article 7.6 to 10 cubic meters of fabric is being dumped/burned, contributing to the 1.2bn in greenhouse gas emissions the fashion industry releases each year during manufacturing.

It all sounded quite shocking to me. But the data released about the fashion industry doesn’t get much better upon further reading. Clothing contributes to half a million tonnes of microfibre pollution into the ocean, the equivalent to 50bn plastic bottles.

Fashion isn’t not only impacting the ocean, either. This year, it was reported that Burberry burned £40m worth of merchandise in one of the biggest stories surrounding luxury fashion in 2018. The brand wanted to retain brand exclusivity while keeping stock scarcity high. The problem with this is the negative impact this has had on the brand and environment.

Fast Fashion goes beyond the season. No longer are there January or mid-season sales, but discounts based on influencer, key dates, affiliate marketing and more. You could say the industry has made fashion more agile. But realistically, it’s contributed to creating a monster that needs the latest item of clothing or accessory, and they needed it yesterday.

Source: https://wtvox.com/fashion/fashion-waste/
Source: https://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/8256/fashion-waste-is-rubbish-how-do-we-solve-the-issue

Pinterest Board

Time to start selecting materials for the design itself. I went through the collections on Pinterest, choosing remarkable images. In my inspiration board, I selected some retro posters from the Bridgman source, on ecology and the environment thematic. I also saved a photo session, which depicts respectable people on the background of rubbish and plastic. But I was also interested in images from the fashion industry. I turned to our home collection of magazines. British Journal of Photography Issue 7881, March 2019 was suitable for my investigation into the environment and its pollution. I was attracted by an image called Dame Vivienne Westwood, London 2012, by Martin Parr. On that photo, she is wearing in a Climate Change shirt. Then I decided to go into the investigation and concluded that it could serve as an interesting object in my collage.

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Sources: Bridgman Images. [Accessed June 2019]
British Journal of Photography Issue 7881, March 2019 [Accessed June 2019]

Westwood, 72, said she did not want to defend the fashion industry, although she regards “true fashion” as an important part of culture.

“Do I feel guilty about all the consumption that the fashion world promotes? Well, I can answer that by saying that I am now trying to make my own business more efficient and self-sustaining. This also means trying to make everybody who works in it happy, if I can.”

Vivienne Westwood

Source: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/feb/08/vivienne-westwood-arctic-campaign

Designs

I scanned the photos, and then I started the collage in Adobe Photoshop. For the background, I used pale yellow hues as a symbol of a polluted atmosphere, as well as landfill of used clothes. In the right corner, I placed an image of an old camera with exhaust smoke. I tried to duplicate the image of Vivienne using some textures, with the effect of tied rope, which could identify the environmental problem and the way out of it. As the activist makes efforts to protect the nature, it is also obvious that we are all to some extent responsible for our environment, and it is important to remember that the rational use of clothing and natural fabrics is an important step in protecting the environment.

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Buy less. Choose well. Make it last. Quality, not quantity. Everybody’s buying far too many clothes. I know I’m lucky, I can just take things and borrow them, I’m o, but I hate having too many clothes. I think that poor people should be even more careful.

Vivienne Westwood

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On the next stage, I wanted to continue the experiment with collage and juxtaposing in design. This time I had the idea to create a collage with the selection of photos and their combination. So I had at my disposal a photo of a boy Rodello Coronel, Jr., the second of nine children in his family, spends the morning picking through the trash onshore in Manila looking for recyclable plastic.

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Source: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2013/11/04/a-boy-and-his-goggles/

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For contrast, I used the image of children on a clean beach, most likely in Europe, as a symbol of the fact that most of the pollution comes from developing countries. Also, I used the image of the glamorous model and small photos of stock clothes around. In the corner, I also placed an image of an old camera with piles of worn clothes streaming. Thus, in this collage, I touched on several topics, the problem of plasticity, pollution of water bodies, an overabundance of clothes, and the effect on the subconscious of the fashion industry intersect here.

For the background image, I used the overlay of several photos: light blue with an old canvas, as well as transparent photos of nature, which added depth to the background image. 

In this collage, I liked the experiment with the contrast of colours in which blue and yellow dominate.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that this exercise was very interesting and thought-provoking. I was introduced to the new unreal world of juxtaposing and collages, where different images can create a new meaning. However, I realised that I have to follow the prevailing rules about copyrights and licensing. I was enabled to work more with layers and transparency properties which have helped me to develop my understanding in manipulating found images. I have really enjoyed this exercise and feel that it has provided me with the opportunities to explore ideas for future exercises and assignments.

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Brief: Create a series of 10 abstract designs in which you balance blocks of subordinate, dominant and accent colours.

These designs are going to be used as covers for guidebooks to the following cities:

• Madrid
• Malmo
• Managua
• Manchester
• Manhattan
• Marrakech
• Marseilles
• Melbourne
• Montreal
• Mumbai

The books are going to be A5 landscape (210mm x148mm) size. You can use as many colours as you like and need to include the name of the city – where you place this and its colour are also important decisions to make. You may want to find out more about each city to help you develop your colour palette and also the size, shape and positioning of the colour blocks. Explore your DTP packages further by creating the artwork in the different software packages you have to experiment with the possibilities and ease of use. You can also do this exercise on paper using coloured blocks that you can cut and move about. Make notes in your learning log as you research and create your designs.

What? A5 landscape (210mm x148mm) size guidebooks

Target Audience: Travellers.

How will the client judge a successful outcome to the brief? 

Original colour solution for abstract cities to familiarize tourists with the cultural features of the city.

Keywords:

• Subordinate
• Dominant and accent colours
• Abstract cities

Secondary Research

For this task, I was building the idea following the main attractions that would be associated with a particular city. From the list above, I visited only one city, and this is Manchester, but this assignment served as an excellent motivator for me to discover the world’s places based on their colours and their main attractions. The goal of this exercise is to attract the flow of tourists to less popular cities. Because the list of cities was quite complicated, I could not immediately imagine what could be so unique in Madrid, Malmo or in Managua, the last one I had never heard of before. Therefore, to begin with, I needed to collect a series of photographs, where I could build a picture of the features of the city, colour solutions, due to which I could convert into geometric shapes. I e discovered images from Pinterest, stock photos, as well as photos provided by a travel photographer from personal photo archives.

In the process of selecting photos, I came across to posters with illustrations of cities. I decided to keep them on the inspiration board, even though these posters were made in a more artistic style, they looked at a kind of colour solutions that would be useful when analysing my assignment.

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Madrid

Madrid is the cultural capital of fashion and style and shopping. My friends mentioned visiting Madrid city, so I knew there is a square in the centre of the town, the cathedral and the blue-grey colours. But my searches on the internet opened Madrid for me from a new angle. I noticed that architectural solutions are quite impressive in it. Madrid is an influential fashion centre with many international museums, including the Prado Museum, the Reina Sofia Art Center, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum and the Madrid Forum, which are among the 100 most visited museums in the world.

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For the beginning, I analysed images that would describe Madrid in general terms. I was attracted to the modern architecture in Madrid, which could be popularised.

Just as an option, I decided to portray more traditional and recognisable street in Spanish style. I liked the variations of colour in which there were red, warm shades; in this image, the spirit of Spain was present. But still, I would give preference to the first version, made in cold tones, in my opinion, it is more urban and progressive for an abstract task. Options for Madrid picture and book cover are presented below.

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Malmo

When I started choosing photos for the city of Malmo, I discovered the urban, modern, progressive city, which combines traditional architecture with modern buildings. From the beginning, my enthusiasm led me to the image of a tall building. But after analysing, I concluded that the design turned out to be too detailed, so I chose to depict another impressive building Water Tower, which I did in different colours of authentic buildings.

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For contrast, I decided to try brighter colours for the background colour; in my opinion, the bright orange colour successfully emphasised the uniqueness of the area. Design variants are presented below.

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Managua

Managua for me turned out to be another exotic place. Colourful peculiar city, with its culture and features.

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I collected a small set of paintings that deserve attention, but as a milking abstraction, I wanted to portray nature outside the city. I liked the combination of green and blue shades; in my opinion, this could serve as an incentive to attract tourists to the original city of Managua.

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Manchester

Known for its football club and music scene on which such bands as The Smiths and Oasis performed, this centre of sports and the arts is a famous and friendly city. A modern progressive city filled with the spirit of freedom. I wanted to portray Manchester in contrasting colours, with a consistent style of architecture.

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For the sky, I chose an unrealistic bright blue colour, which, in my opinion, created a unique colour feeling for this place. I think I was managed to picturise the traditional English city with modern features.

Manhattan

Manhattan is the historical core of the city of New York and one of its five boroughs. The city is primarily associated with tall skyscrapers, shopping centres, bright billboards and Broadway. The attitude towards it cannot be unambiguous, because achievements, history and modernity are intertwined together. To study and understand Manhattan is difficult, it is immense, diverse and unique.

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In my collection of photos, there are images from personal archives. I portrayed the first abstraction in violet-grey colours, with high-rises and the main avenue of the city. But then I wanted to explore this city from the opposite side, in warm shades, in the flowering spring city, in the centre of the composition, there is also a bright yellow taxi. I think I prefer the second option, in my view the name of the city is more prominent to read as well.

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Marrakech

This one of the largest cities of Morocco is rightly called the pearl of North Africa. When I went through all images, I realised that this place is full of different objects that worthing to picture.

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In my abstraction, I wanted to portray the colourful architecture of the city in warm colours in combination with the bright elements of local markets, in which there are spices, clothes, carpets and other products.

Marseilles

Marseille is the largest city in France after Paris. This city is the true pearl of France. Being a large industrial region, it managed to absorb a huge part of the country’s cultural and historical heritage.

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Marseille has an excellent location on the shores of the Mediterranean. In my illustration, I wanted to portray this feature of the city, the rolling hills in which houses are scattered, on the seashore. But after I realised that, I should go deeper in my studies of the city, and I decided to portray an interesting feature in terms of the architecture of Housing Unit – a modernist residential housing design rule developed by Le Corbusier.

In the design, I used palatal pastel shades of cream colours in combination with the blue sky. Design options are presented below.

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Melbourne

Melbourne is a city that occupies a leading position in the ranking of some of the most favourable cities for life. Melbourne is a large city in southern Australia; its difference lies in the fact that it is unique for its distinctive architecture. This city can rightly be considered the sports capital of Australia. Also not rarely there are lots of holidays, carnivals and festivals.

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© Steven Stanley Photography Melbourne 2019

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In my abstraction, I wanted to portray this city from the vibrant night metropolis, in bright purple hues. For contrast, I’ve used bright yellow and orange reflection — the name of the city I placed in the centre on the black shades of bushes.

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Montreal

Montreal is beautiful, modern and progressive, or as the locals would say: Montreal, c’est si bon! This French-speaking city is considered the cultural capital of Canada and is an example of a Quebec style in a multi-ethnic community.

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When I looked through a series of photos, I noticed the similarity of this city with Melbourne, but at the same time, I wanted to portray the uniqueness of this city. My eyes were riveted on the image of a colourful building, whose windows were lined up in a specific mosaic. I think that I managed to portray the character of the city in this abstraction.

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Mumbai

Mumbai is the largest and most prosperous city in India and the most populous in the world. Bom Bahai – these words, according to legend, were pronounced by the Portuguese, disembarking here, and this meant – “Good Harbor”. 

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When I was selecting photos, I traced that the city was full of various colours, but at the same time, brown shades dominated the surrounding elements of the town. I liked the image of the bay near the city, where peace and tranquillity were traced. In my illustration, I used violet and pink shades in combination with trees in the shade.

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Conclusion

In conclusion, I would like to say that this exercise took me lots of image looking and researches before I could get the feel of the city. I love that kind of illustrations, made with a simple tool like Adobe Illustrator pen, and adding to each shape the vibrant colour. The only disadvantage that I had, that I really tried to design more detailed pictures, with some recognisable shapes, instead of using just a flat geometric objects, so in the result I have different vector painted images, instead of abstract compositions. I was impressed by the diversity and cultural differences of a single city. Also, I traced the uniqueness of colour combinations in each city, how the mood and peculiarity of cities, forms, and contrast colours are played. In my opinion, I was managed to collect unique designs that, in the future, could serve as a guide in the tourist direction of each city.