The Bradbury Layouts
In his article “ How to Climb the Tree of Life Throw Rocks at Yourself and Get Down Again without Breaking your Bones or Dyeing” Ray Bradbury writes about the life of an artist, and how as an artist, everyday we encounter extremes; extremes that one should use to fuel creativity, rather than allow situations of everyday life to become creative road blocks. My goal for this particular layout was to make clear ties to what the author was saying in the text, and the overall editorial design. Through my choice of layout design and original art work and photography, I create a sense of chaos and stress as described in the article. This was done through the use of bold heavy coloring, with dark translucent blue and flat black colors, set against a white background, giving the darker colors more pronounced character on the page.
In his article “ How to Climb the Tree of Life Throw Rocks at Yourself and Get Down Again without Breaking your Bones or Dyeing” Ray Bradbury writes about the life of an artist, and how as an artist, everyday we encounter extremes; extremes that one should use to fuel creativity, rather than allow situations of everyday life to become creative road blocks. My goal for this particular layout was to make clear ties to what the author was saying in the text, and the overall editorial design. Through my choice of layout design and original art work and photography, I create a sense of chaos and stress as described in the article. This was done through the use of bold heavy coloring, with dark translucent blue and flat black colors, set against a white background, giving the darker colors more pronounced character on the page.
Moreover, the images used while distressing in nature_ a screaming man, Field mine, etc. _ were magnified in their use of creating alarm, as a result of increasing their scale. By having these enormous images bleed off the page, gives the impression that the small piece of paper is being overpowered by titan sized imagery, much like the references made in Ray Bradbury’s article in regards to the overwhelming obstacles which occur in everyday life.
In addition to enlarged imagery, through use of design with typography I was able to create a sense of chaos without jeopardizing the legibility or organization of the article, via pull quotes, and arranging each into an eclectic collage of vertical and horizontally directed words in a tightly enclosed black space, drawing visual ties to the stress of a contortionist in a small box. And in the end a clean and open spaced page with little imagery and one sentence centered floating in a sea of white as our author comes to a resolution in his text, that we all must rise above obstacles and chaos, in order to find a sense of freedom.
Bradbury Shoe Rendition
My goal for this particular layout was to challenge myself by making ties through editorial design between the article and shoes. In the article Ray Bradbury makes reference to the idea that in order to defeat these everyday obstacles one must become entirely engulfed in their craft almost to the point of obsession. I then made the tie between obsession with ones craft and societies obsession with shoes. Through my choice of layout design and original photography/art work I create a world that revolved around footwear and societies obsession with it.
My goal for this particular layout was to challenge myself by making ties through editorial design between the article and shoes. In the article Ray Bradbury makes reference to the idea that in order to defeat these everyday obstacles one must become entirely engulfed in their craft almost to the point of obsession. I then made the tie between obsession with ones craft and societies obsession with shoes. Through my choice of layout design and original photography/art work I create a world that revolved around footwear and societies obsession with it.
On the opening pages a select photograph was staged and taken for its iconic shoe reference, “shoes on a telephone wire”, as well as its ability to show the vast variety of styles that shoes come in. The photograph covers a two-page spread in order to create a sense of importance and engulfment, whereas the title, while still prominent and legible, is made to be of lesser importance to its background image by being pushed to the far left side of the one page, reinforcing the articles concept of obsession.
The next pages strengthen the idea of obsession via found imagery, displaying the same style of shoe, manufactured in a plethora of color choices, which runs across two pages like an endless ribbon of on going stock market ticker tape. The imagery and colors in the chosen photo are made more prominent by the solid black box that the shoes run over, giving more importance again to the shoes than anything else on the two pages while still giving friendly audience to the white text against the black background.
