PUBLISHING DESIGN//TASK 2
30.03.2022 -18.05.2022 (Week 1-Week 8)
Chaw Zhi Ting (0347344)
Bachelor of Design (Hons) Creative Media
Publishing Design// Task 2
LECTURE:
LECTURE:
INSTRUCTIONS:
TASK 2// Content GenerationWe are assigned to write or search for a short story of about 3000 words. I tried writing my own story about my recurring dream experience. However, due to my writing skills and time limitation, I worried I might not be able to finish the story. Therefore, I searched for interesting short stories close to the theme I wanted to write. After exploring a few websites, I finally found a horror and mystery story from CreepyPasta, "The Seer of Possibilities."
SummarySometimes, otherworldly beings reach out to you in strange and mysterious ways. They may have a request for you to fulfill, or maybe they take pleasure in terrifying you senseless. It’s even possible that they just want your help in creating something beautiful. If you’re lucky, you might even live to tell the tale…or maybe not. This story will enthrall you on one page and scare you on the next.
Figure 1.1 The Seer of Possibilities by Thomas. O (From Creepy Pasta) , 13th April 2022Figure 1.2 The Seer of Possibilities, 13th April 2022My only concern will be the length of the story as we are supposed to use only 3000 words, but this story is around 5000 words. Mr.Vinod says it's okay, have to consider the pages the body text required at the later stage. Once we finalised the story, we proceeded to visuals. It's time to create mood board and start to create at least 3 visuals.
Figure 2.1 Moodboard,13th April 2022
INSTRUCTIONS:
We are assigned to write or search for a short story of about 3000 words. I tried writing my own story about my recurring dream experience. However, due to my writing skills and time limitation, I worried I might not be able to finish the story. Therefore, I searched for interesting short stories close to the theme I wanted to write. After exploring a few websites, I finally found a horror and mystery story from CreepyPasta, "The Seer of Possibilities."
Summary
Sometimes, otherworldly beings reach out to you in strange and mysterious ways. They may have a request for you to fulfill, or maybe they take pleasure in terrifying you senseless. It’s even possible that they just want your help in creating something beautiful. If you’re lucky, you might even live to tell the tale…or maybe not. This story will enthrall you on one page and scare you on the next.
My only concern will be the length of the story as we are supposed to use only 3000 words, but this story is around 5000 words. Mr.Vinod says it's okay, have to consider the pages the body text required at the later stage. Once we finalised the story, we proceeded to visuals. It's time to create mood board and start to create at least 3 visuals.
Figure 2.1 Moodboard,13th April 2022
I decided to go black and red as it portrays the horror and mysterious feel that I want. For the art style, I love to play with lines and repetition. So I plan to apply them in the illustration and see what I can get. As this is still the exploration and brainstorming stage, I allow myself to create different patterns based on the keywords from the story. For example, mystery, futuristic, unpredictable, surreal.
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Figure 2.2 First attempt visuals,13th April 2022
Figure 2.3 Line and repetition patterns,13th April 2022
Figure 2.3 Element and colour palatte,13th April 2022
Figure 2.4 Draft cover design,13th April 2022
Figure 2.5 Tarot card design with pull quote,13th April 2022
Figure 2.6 Draft visuals.pdf, 13 April 2022
After consultation, the visual style is good to go. However, Mr.Vinod suggests looking into another colour palette of different shades of colour that brings the same impact.
Design: Attempt 2
Figure 3.1 Moodboard 2, 20th April 2022
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Figure 3.2 Attempt 2, 20th April 2022
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Figure 3.2 Attempt 2, 20th April 2022
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Figure 3.3 Feedbacks, 20th April 2022
Design: Attempt 3
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FINAL SUBMISSION:
Introduction
"As he moved his cards, the game faded into a solid black screen and the red text appeared."
Design inspiration: the computer, flickered screen
Chapter 1
He walked up to the large potted plant placed firmly between the two elevators in the lobby of the ten-story building.
He walked up to the large potted plant placed firmly between the two elevators in the lobby of the ten-story building.
Design inspiration: ten-story buildings, city view, the plant, the street
Nobody seemed to notice the plant was in a slightly different location, nothing seemed different at all.
Every morning as he passed her cubicle, he’d stop for a chat. The chats were one minute at first, then two minutes, then several minutes. Jack was surprised that she seemed to like him.
Figure 5.4 Visual 4, 27th April 2022
Chapter 2
“Yeah that’s fine James, I don’t have a problem taking you.” Turning to Jack she said her goodbye, “See you tomorrow, Jackie.” She put on her coat and slowly followed James as he struggled down the hallway. She gave a half turn and a shrug in Jack’s direction, with a little smile as she walked away. Jack felt even lonelier than normal when she was gone.
Design inspiration: Introducing the scene before the accident happens
It was ten minutes later that they all heard the crash. It was preceded by the loud horn of an 18 wheeler and screeching brakes. The collision itself was a sickening thud of two large metal objects colliding. Even on the 7th floor, it was loud. The office workers gasped and ran to the windows.
...
...
Tears, screams, sirens; that was all Jack could hear. Without going back inside the building, Jack ran to his car and drove home, angry and sad.
Together, you and I have made sure you avoided that path. One more thing Jack, this isn’t done playing out yet. There’s more to come. I’m an artist of sorts, an artist of human manipulation. You’ll be my paintbrush and my canvas.
Jack considered what The Seer had just said. His initial feeling of revolt was slowly fading. [7] He paused, and then for the first time, he placed his fingers on the keyboard and responded directly to The Seer. “What do you want me to do next?”
As years passed, Jack did every favor the Seer asked of him, and as the Seer had promised, Jack was rewarded for his actions each time.
Jack tried not to put any more thought into what would happen to this man. “Just let these things play out, Jack. You’ll never guess how things end up, so just let yourself be surprised,” the Seer had advised him.
“Jack, I need you to go downtown tomorrow,” the Seer requested. “Enter Garmin’s Liquor at exactly 12:37pm. A man will ask you a question. The answer you’re to give him is ‘twenty seven.”
“Go to the County Administrator’s building, park in space number 43 at 4:47pm.” came one such request. Jack did so, and two months later he met Donna, with whom he fell in love and ended up marrying
Figure 5.11 Visual 11, 27th April 2022
Chapter 4
From historical references, Jack knew the Seer was thousands of years old. When still alive, the Seer had been a powerful fortune teller and artist, who foretold future happenings through paintings. A foolish king, who misinterpreted the Seer’s prediction and lost a battle as a result, had the Seer executed.
The seer continued, “He’s a horrible employee. He was hired only three days ago and already Mr. Riago wants to fire him, but as a physical specimen, he’s strong, fast, and VERY observant. For example, he noticed that you didn’t lock the front door after he delivered your pizza.”
Donna opened the pizza and took a piece. “Come back soon sweetie, this pizza’s got all your favorite toppings on it.” Donna giggled as she took a bite.
...
Tonight, wrong address, no tip, this poor boy finally snapped. He’s downstairs right now. He’s slitting Donna’s throat, at this exact moment.
Don’t you see Jack? This involved tens of thousands of people, and billions of possibilities. If you had failed to complete even one of the tasks, the whole chain would’ve collapsed.
Figure 5.15 Visual 15, 27th April 2022
Jack paused a minute and considered his twelve years of happiness, and his tears of sorrow mixed with tears of joy. He turned and looked at the computer, while behind him, the massive hulk of the demented delivery boy appeared in the doorway, a bloody knife in his left hand.
Figure 5.16 Visual 16, 27th April 2022
Figure 5.17 Final visuals.pdf, 20th April 2022
Figure 5.18 Visuals in CMYK.jpeg, 20th April 2022
Figure 5.19 Visuals in CMYK.pdf, 20th April 2022
Figure 5.18 Visuals in CMYK.jpeg, 20th April 2022
Figure 5.19 Visuals in CMYK.pdf, 20th April 2022
HOURS SPENT:
TASK 2
[Part A] Story, Identify pull-quote, subtext, visuals: 9 hours
[Part B] Illustration: 15 hours
FEEDBACK:
Week 2
General Feedback: Pay attention to the text formatting, paragraph spacing. Due to time constraint, make sure the work on illustration and something we are able to execute well. Have to do the pull quote and subtext today. Visuals can be abstract, metaphors to allow room for imagination (something Interesting). Blog Posts need to be featured chronologically. Attach the doc on both Exercise & Content Generation Blog posts.
Specific feedback: It's okay to have 5000 words+ and 4 chapters. Add copyright and need to add the author's name. First line before imprint (student projects, no commercial profit). Each chapter consists of 3 subtext and 1 pullquote.
Week 3
General Feedback:Text must be connected, flow the text to see how many pages of text . Always click on the master page to set the columns, Leading 2-3, With paragraph spacing is more friendly, if removed then add indentation. Watch Youtube videos before adding a page number.
Specific feedback: Exercise (point size is okay, number of characters in one line is good) remember to set to facing pages, can try out different font sizes for subtext.
Visual style: Art director is okay, reflects fortune teller and tarot (with border, texture). Try out different colour palette/different shades to reflect the mysterious, visit colour hunt. Pullquote can be one spread/one page (play with typography)
Week 4
General feedback: Illustration 70% black, highlight colour 30%. Be selective to use the highlight. It can be a background as well.
Specific feedback: Visual art style is consistent, be cautious of using colour and edgy shapes, and it might hurt the eye when everything is put together in a book. The one with white eyes and tear drops is great. May consider adding more negative space and toning down the illustration.
Week 5
General Feedback: For long reading, avoid choosing fonts that have high contrast (bodoni). Next week complete and update all exercises, including my own grid system and story + apply typography.
Specific Feedback: Text needs to make sure it flows starting and ending the same grid system. Type specimen sheet, don't put visual first focus on the type.
Week 10 (Marking)
Excellent work.
REFLECTION:
Experience:
After the task was briefed, I squeezed my brain juice to think about what story I wanted to write. I thought of writing about my recurring dream experience, but it took me so long to construct the plot and write the story. Knowing we have one week to write the story, I know it might be hard for me because my English writing skills are not that good. However, I still decided to give it a try. After writing for a few days, I realised it might be impossible to complete the 3000 words before the deadline. So I decided to search for interesting short stories on the web close to what I wanted to write. After exploring a few websites, I finally found a horror and mystery story from CreepyPasta. The only concern will be the length of the story as we are supposed to use only 3000 words, but this story is around 5 thousand words. Visualising the content is hard, especially when we need to develop something consistent and consists of variations in the layout.
Observations:
In book publishing, every detail comes into play. The invisible grid and the tiny little spacing are required to pay attention. There are various ways to convey the story, including photographs, collages, and illustrations. Choosing the right colour for images is essential as it provides the right mood to the audience.
Findings:
After listening to the lectures and reading some online materials, I better understand book publishing. Of course, there are many theories and rules we need to follow, but we need to think out of the box to try new possibilities and never be afraid to make mistakes.
FURTHER READING:
This article explained how a designer should take a step back and think about the story's purpose and think of the target audience. Interactive elements can be compelling and eye-catching and are great at keeping an audience's attention. This article advises 'Show, don't tell by allowing the reader to engage with visual elements without forcing a reaction. One common mistake is that we repeat what is explained in the text. Instead, the text and graphic features should work harmoniously in concert in the best visual stories.
Figure 6.2 Type Specimens by Nigel Reyes, 27th Apr 2022
Type specimens are a great way to showcase typeface designs by presenting the constituent fonts, individual characters and glyphs in a particular theme or context. We must find the right balance between design intent, individual artistic & creative expression, and a subtle presentation of its functional qualities to satisfy the broadest possible audience. Type Specimens might risk distracting the user from realising the true potential of a typeface. Sometimes we need to take things to the next level to stand out. For example, designing specimens with specific intent by choosing a theme, selecting appropriate phrases and innovative layouts to help give a typeface its personality.
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