Mind Map. I already had an image in my head of what I wanted my fact book to look like from the beginning. I jotted a few key points down to remember as a general guide for my design. My design is going to be type dominant which is very risky, and will be a bit challenging with a fact book because there is so much type to include already but I plan to design the layout in a way that the information is not overwhelming but visually pleasing. 

Mood Board. My main inspiration stems from the layout of my table of contents from my Brand Guidelines book which incorporated large numbers with smaller text. I want to expand on this layout in my fact book. I'm going for a outdated textbook look, so I will be using Bebas Neue as my title font and Athelas for body copy, same as my brand guidelines. I also want to incorporate a lot of Polish tradition and lifestyle into the design outside of photography. I plan to use Polish designs merged with my color palette as a graphic used on a few pages and will incorporate the textures into a text overlay.

Cover Sketches. I had a few different directions I could go with my cover design. The first one goes along with the layout I wanted to do with large overlapping text, the second one incorporates the traditional Polish floral designs, while the last design is more clean and geometric. I decided to go with the first layout because I think it's the one that follows the design I pictured.

Page Sketches. The sketches for the pages will have a layout that is text dominant but will feature some images. I want to have some text pop out like numbers and percentages on the statistic pages and some pull quotes on the more wordy pages.

First Progress check. Starting this book, I planned out the placement of text using placeholder text rather than using the text from the fact book right away. I found that when I am designing, I like to figure out how everything is going to be placed first (text, graphics, and photography) using placeholders then circle back and plug in the information. Even for the photography, I used black blocks to fill the space instead of spending a bulk of time looking for the perfect picture right then and there. I kept my ideas from my mood board in mind when placing the type. I remembered the biggest goal for my book was to have a type dominant book that was visually pleasing so when placing my type, I used the text to make a lot of my graphics. On pages that were very wordy, I added larger text here and there to break up the consistency or trailed photos through the spread.

Second progress check. At this point, I have inserted the body copy for the fact book, some photography, and data visualizations. After receiving feedback, I have played with the layout of a few pages and am now starting on the rest of my mark making.

Mark Making. I used Illustrator's brush tool to create some marks that would add some natural shapes to my book. I wanted to create very loose, scribble-like designs to balance out the geometric, ordered design created by the text and grids.

Traditional Polish folk art designs commonly used on clothing, furniture, and other crafts.