BRIEF 13: THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF ROSY LEE//EXTENDED BRIEF: TEA IN PARIS//OUGD603

brief 13 extended, tea in paris booklet

After completing the collected writings of Rosy Lee booklet I thought about extending the brief further and just making an additional booklet as I have recently been to Paris and thought some of the photographs from my trip could be displayed interestingly with the tea concept.  I wanted to look specifically at Parisian buildings and architecture and the general feel of the city without including a load of stereotypical tourist photographs.

In a tutorial with Brian he showed me a folding technique that I thought would be perfect for this simple idea:

I thought this would be a nice extension from the original book that I was doing, the technique includes a certain fold that allows you to trim the top part of the book off to form a sixteen page book.

The layout is similar to 'The collected writings of Rosy Lee' using the same typefaces and general layout, I thought it was important to keep the design consistent as the concept is the same.  When selecting the images of Paris I wanted to either square in on one detail of the subject or use photographs that obviously displayed Paris, but perhaps not in such an obvious tourist way.  

The images ended up all being within quite a similar colour scheme of beiges and creams, with the odd contrast of flowers and graffiti in selected images.

I also found a poem that fits the context of the publication perfectly, by T.S. Eliot, with both the mention of tea and Paris, which I thought could tie the whole thing together nicely:

Portrait of a lady:

II

 Now that lilacs are in bloom She has a bowl of lilacs in her room And twists one in her fingers while she talks. "Ah, my friend, you do not know, you do not know What life is, you who hold it in your hands"; (Slowly twisting the lilac stalks) "You let it flow from you, you let it flow, And youth is cruel, and has no remorse And smiles at situations which it cannot see." I smile, of course, And go on drinking tea. "Yet with these April sunsets, that somehow recall My buried life, and Paris in the Spring, I feel immeasurably at peace, and find the world To be wonderful and youthful, after all." 

This was a really traditional French restaurant taken from the outside which I thought would go quote well in the publication however I thought the contrast of dark tones didn't quite keep the consistency with the rest of the images.

Deciding composition of image within tea bag, I was aware that this was a photograph of the Eiffel Tower and so I didn't want to make it look too touristy, cropping at angles allows a more interesting visual.

Although the book mostly focuses on the imagery I thought it would add to the general aesthetic if type was included on each page.  Again to keep consistency I used the same typeface as 'Rosy Lee' and just added the photographs location/address.  It was originally between two layouts (below) however I felt the left one worked more so.