Progress Report #4 - Final Process

VICTORY!

 

My greatest creation! (maybe) 

I'm not going to lie at all...this was a difficult first project.  I've made my errors (although I'm not going to point all of them out...that would be dumb and counterproductive), and I'm pretty tired...but as far as the aesthetics of my book...I'm proud of them even if I fell short on craft. 

I felt the starkness of my book "Opposing Fronts: Ideas and Dissent on the Battlefield" reflected its WAR theme well.  The black an white interior was perfect for it, and was simpler to manage then if i had used colors.  Most of my imagery was copied or copy friendly for b/w,  

With the cover, I was happy I listened to Marty and was able to let go of the green and let the simple color and composition speak for itself (the back cover is green to compensate)

I'll probably look at this with mild embarrassment when I'm older, but for now, I feel I accomplished something good...maybe not great...but a good stepping stone for future endeavors.

My moment of serendipity was with my "glorious" composition (shown above), with the side by side compositions of dots and type.  It accidentally resembled explosions or fireworks, both of which really hit home with the theme.  Also a terrible mistake with the last composition actually did something awesome with the ending! I put my type comp backwards...but it made it a spread at the end! It expands out the force of the "destruction"!  I'm so happy that it worked despite my criminal stupidity.  

Its going to be nerve racked tommo-.... later today giving this presentation.  But I'm proud and I love my compositions.   

PAGE NOTES

Cover - fundamental principles

Organized - Imagery - Gritty/  black and white

Brutal - Type - Brutal and Harsh 

Glorious - Serendipity - Explosions/Fireworks

DESIGN NOTES 

Cover - Continuation - The words form a chevron

Organized - Alignment - The dots form a grid

Aggressive - Scale - The smaller words propel the bigger ones

Defensive  - Proximity - the closeness of the dots communicates intent

Combative - Asymmetry - The composition is thrown off balance for energy protrayel

Invasive - Framing - The smaller words invade the A of invasive

Brutal - Scale - Brutality against a smaller dot by larger ones

Glorious - continuation - The "rays" extend outward

Destruction - layers- Representing parts being blown away 

With Dot and Image compositions, its interesting how the limitations placed by both parts create a message greater then the parts.  By framing images in dots, it destroys the image as itself and focuses on one part. Its cropping visually and conceptually.  The dots also convey a feeling of universality that is difficult to do with other objects. Dots are Dots are Dots are Dots...there's not that much that can be construed from a dot other then itself, creating less confused meaning.  

With the images, there's a very fine selection that must be made within a larger picture to find the most relevant parts and cull off the chaff in a picture.  There's a thousand words in a picture....we're only trying to describe one. That refinement is very important in the overall composition

The book form is also very universal, in that all of them have the same purpose (to communicate information). That being said, they very rarely communicate the same information, and even if they did they wouldn't say it the same way.  Its very personalized in a way....but books must still communicate.  Its a delicate balancing act, but that balance can be what really communicates beauty