BRIEF 08: SPECTRUM//PLANNING AND LAYOUT RESEARCH//OUGD603

spectrum_planning & layout research

planning
After collecting research and looking at various influences, Emily and I decided to break the brief into two parts, Spectrum part one focusing on digital design (through the use of editing and manipulating photography) of our theme, nature.  Using our own photography for this part of the brief Emily focused on the image editing and I focused on the type.  Part one of spectrum should hopefully produce some interesting nature inspired digital pattern prints promoting the design festival Designival.  Spectrum part two, a more hands on approach (trying different printing techniques) will begin after Christmas, leading on from the digital prints already produced.

layout research
I've looked at a few posters, just in terms of layout that could possibly work for our own design.  The main focus is the imagery but the type needs to give the poster context, we have considered the type at the bottom of the posters with a white boarder around the image.  

The following posters selected are all based on the positioning of type in relation to the image

This design was actually made for a graphic design festival and I think the way they've displayed the text works well, I'm not sure if this layout could be used with our posters as the photography and editing will make the image too busy, there is the possibility of creating something layering the image/pattern that could then have text placed over it, similar to this:

'Every year the world's only graphic design museum, located in Breda, The Netherlands, curates a leading, international Graphic Design Festival.

For this years edition of the festival Toko was asked, among 48 other international designers, to design a poster for the festivals poster project. With decoding as its main theme, the 49 unique posters form a tour, leading visitors to the various festival venues around the city of Breda.' 

Its hard to use this as an accurate example as the pattern created is vector based and the images we will be using will be edited photographs, however, I think the simplicity of the text layout at the bottom of the poster could work for our designs.  I think with this type of layout it will depend on the individual image and how much information is necessary to display on the poster.  

I think this is probably the most relevant layout for the type of design we had in mind, apart from possibly aligning the text to the left of the poster.  The positioning of the image, with a boarder and a wider space at the bottom of the poster for the information is what we first had in mind, obviously this could change when coming to design the layout. 

With this layout I think it very much depends on the image, I can imagine this type of positioning of text would compliment some images and be less effective with others.  This is a book cover designed by Leif Podhajsky, the designer we've taken direct influence from for this brief.  This type of layout could work well depending on colours within the photography and if those images/colours could be complimented with text and stock.