Final: Typography Book.

With so many people doing the "SAE Baja" event for the upcoming Baja race that our tech center will be playing host for, I decided that I would be the one to do something out of the norm, and not anywhere near what others were doing. I decided that I would tackle something that I wanted to do for a long time; make a book on typography, but not only make it, I wanted to incorporate the things I had learned in finishing processes this semester, and perfect bind my book for a great finished piece. My thoughts started out with picking some of the type specimen that I frequently use in many of my designs. I figured that the best idea would be to spell out typography on succeeding pages each in a different font. Count that; 10 letters, 10 typefaces. So, this in mind, I began making a folding dummy. The folding dummy was also used for my roughs, and I would have them posted on here, but because I used coated paper, you can not see the pencil that I used over the glare of the paper when I tried to photograph them, so, for this project, you're just going to have to wait until the end to see the final result. With my dummy/rough, I began to layout my InDesign file and knew that I wanted my pages to reach a final cut size of 6x9. All of the inside pages have a full bleed of 1/8". The Color scheme I ended with was two shades of gray, one 60% black and the other 80% black, paired with a mint color, (PMS 346 C), which was converted to a process color when used.

I knew that my intention was to create examples and showcase typefaces for professional typefaces, with an audience that would be into a more classic typographic mindset, I began laying my pages out, which took several days to work all of the minor kinks out. My project  has the special elements of full bleeds, two scored folds on the cover, and a finished perfect bound book. This book is printed on dull coated stock, and in my personal opinion, It really feels nice in your hand. Doug Younger printed each of these for me, and said in production, roughly these would cost about $2.00 a book, plus about $1.00 for binding, which I did myself in the lab. For you typographic nuts out there, eat your heart out at these elegant, timeless typefaces!

Cover

one of the spreads

another page spread

Magazine Advertisement

When I was given the prompt for this assignment, I knew immediately that I wanted to create an advertisement for GQ magazine. For those of you who are not familiar with the magazine, GQ is a magazine for gentlemen, plain and simple. By gentlemen, I mean the suit and tie type that sips a fine scotch while recalling his stock trades for the day on his blackberry at the fancy pub. The advertisements are classy, and bold typically in the magazine, and not to mention, VERY EXPENSIVE to advertise with GQ. At rates like $154,123 for a full page ad, and $96,646 for a 1/2 page ad, not many companies can afford to advertise with them. Many of which are for colognes, watches, alcohol, vehicle, clothing designers, or cellular device/company advertisements. With a subscription to this magazine, I began looking through the magazines I had with an eager approach to looking at them.

With an open mind as to what to promote, I kept seeing several things I would have liked to do, like the typical clothing ad; black and white photo shot of a overly beautiful woman, and man in some sort of sensual pose, with a brand at the bottom suggesting "wear our clothes... and this could be you." Well, I would like to be the first to suggest that maybe you should try consulting a doctor first if you believe that by wearing a certain designer, that you're magically going to be better with the ladies, fellas. This aside, I think that the ads are still designed and laid out well. With many things that had my attention pulled, I had ran across a very cool vodka advertisement, and I was sold, because funny almost always strikes people's fancy.

 

With this already suggestive name, I began some wordplay. You would be amazed how many slogans you can come up with for that, I'm sure the design department for EFFEN vodka has a hay-day with the sayings they come up with. I mean, really, how can you not have fun with that name? Okay, okay! All jokes aside, I decided to go and search for this insanely amazing vodka on the shelves, and much to my surprise, I found it on the shelves of a local liquor store, however, they only had the "black cherry" one left. I bought it, and took it the next day to the lab to take photos of. With the photos shot, I began editing them, and placing my ads together. Surprisingly, these did not take me much time at all, and I felt like I ended up with a very nice piece.

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