Design Context: OUGD401 Context of Practice Brief 02 Printing and Book Binding

Producing the front cover was a bit of a challenge. I wanted to create something that communicate the complexity behind the simplicity that can be found in letterpress work but also the hands on essence of the work and what I am trying to express with this piece.

Out of these sketches I felt that the most promising design was the one on the far right. This is because it has the complexity of visual texture that I was looking for but also an exactness that suggests the approach to letterpress.

I set about creating these designs digitally in illustrator because the shapes are vector graphics. I also created a template of the A5 page and inverted it into the A4 document during construction. This is because I will need space around the design to secure it to the front cover. I made the design its self A5 with 3mm extra because the cover needs to extend beyond the pages sightly.

I wanted a regimented arrangement of objects to create this impression of exactness and to suggest the idea of tools layer out carefully on a desk. Once again homing in on the idea of the craftsman, linking back to my essay.

The arrangement of the type developed naturally from the shapes around it. I used Caslon pro, because from my research I found that it is one of the most used metal type fonts historical and definitely has its place in print history.

After sticking together the pages I created the card sheets for the front covers by matching them to the designs I printed out.

In order to get the design in the centre Cut around the card into a scrap of paper and layer it on top of the design adding a rulers width and then cutting through both the paper and the design sheet to create the perfect wist of tabs to wrap around the cover.