BRIEF
For this project, I had to design a book about five objects that are significant to me. The book is 12 pages and in 7"x 8.5" format printed on cardstock. I decided to choose items that either describe my cultural background or personal identity.
CHALLENGE
For the theme of my book, I decided to focus on objects that define my cultural background or personal identity. I am half Hispanic and half Arab, so I wanted to challenge myself in creating a personalized book that has personal and cultural contexts of each object I chose.
ROLE
Editorial, Layout, Typography, Illustration, Image Editing
TOOLS
InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator
TEAM
Solo Designer
WHY
School Project
LAYOUT EXPERIMENTATION
In the beginning, I focused on grid and balance a lot to keep layout spreads minimal. Throughout that process though, I felt that my personality was not showing through my designs. Since the book is about objects that describe me, I decided to experiment again that eventually led to the final designs. I played with image editing, color, typography, and hierarchy. I wanted to challenge myself by experimenting with typography to create more engaging layouts. I also wanted to use colors that I normally don't use, such as green, and create colorful layouts. To make layout spreads have more variety, I also focused on scale and worked with angles. I wanted my overall book to have variety in each spread but be cohesive at the same time. The process contained a lot of major changes after switching my approach.
COLOR AND TYPEFACES
As mentioned before, I wanted to use some colors I normally don't use to challenge myself. It was a challenge at first to find colors that fit well together, but it helped to find one color to use throughout the book, pink, and find colors that fit well with it. For the main typeface, I chose a bolder font to show contrast with either the lighter colors or the hand drawn illustrations. For the informational text, I chose a sans serif font to complement the main typeface.
FINAL LAYOUT
For the final layouts, I used edited photos and hand drawn illustrations. Each spread is different through composition and hierarchy, but is cohesive through a color palette, typefaces, and edited photos. I wanted each layout to stand out as its own design to show that each object is different.
