FMP (BA): Inspiration for Book Spreads

After the problems I faced when it came to designing the DPS for "The Raven", I have decided to compile a list of inspirational book spreads to help me with my future designs and to explain my inspirations for previous ones.

Fursy Teyssier/Les Discrets - http://www.lesdiscrets.com/

I have mentioned that I haven't managed to find the actual copy of his designs as it is removed from their website, so instead I had to use an image that I had looked at over a year ago from one of my previous projects.

Instead of analysing the illustration I shall only look at the format, which is what I'll do for the other spreads.

What really caught my eye was the way the illustration was clearly dominant as it slightly overlaps onto the other page, and is in such deep, dark colours that the text (which although appears to be in black) looks muted in comparison.

The structure of the text is quite unusual as well as there are several indents, especially beside the number 2 in Roman numerals. I quite like the fact that it's a mixture of a very strict, traditional, left-aligned text and then they have this break right at the end which really sets it apart.

To summarise, I am inspired by:

• The mixture of traditional & contemporary design
• A light background with a dark illustration - it really brings out the illustration

FMP (BA): Inspiration - Book Covers

Penguin Classics

I have mentioned during my Oxford Literary Festival Analysis that I will look at some Penguin classic book covers as I believe that they hold a very traditional and clean appearance which reflects the nature of the Oxford Literary Festival website. The target audience is very important to me so it is ideal to create something that is aimed towards them. 

Instead of analysing book cover by cover, I shall just create a mood board so that I can pin-point any reoccurring features. 

image sources: all from http://www.penguinclassics.co.uk/ par the last one on the first line which is from flickr (but designed by Penguin Classics)

The first line are book from the 19th century but have more of a focus on illustrated patterns. Another running aspect in their designs is that they use the same serif font for the book title and a sans serif in uppercase for the author, although for Moby Dick and Alice in Wonderland they used the same font for the author's name. The position of these are usually centred but vary in terms of being right at the centre, top or bottom. 

The second line also features books from the 19th century but they have a more serious format in the sense that there are strong barriers to separate the paintings/photographs from the author's name and book title. This restricts the painting despite it having a larger surface area than the type and creates the appearance of being aimed at more at adults rather than teenagers or children. 

The type of paintings shown produces connotations of the upperclass because such paintings were extremely expensive and are normally shown in an art gallery or in castles where royals requested portrait paintings. This then makes the book cover seem as if it's aimed at an intellectual audience who takes reading literature seriously. 

The third line is a mixture of covers that didn't fit in the structure of the first two. 

FMP (BA): Oxford Literary Festival Analysis

I have decided to look at designing the book covers now instead of doing another quote because, according to my weekly timetable, I should finish the book covers by the next two weeks. Another reason is that if I do go and do another quote, I would become so absorbed by it that the covers will be left at the last minute so the design wouldn't be as good because it would've been rushed.

I am a bit unsure what kind of typographic style to go for for the book covers so I looked back at the Oxford Literary Festival website. The website is the best place for me to gather information as I haven't seen it advertised elsewhere. I have briefly looked at it right at the beginning of the project [here] but haven't really analysed the aesthetics. 

screenshots taken from http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/

Typography

When I visited the website this time I mainly concentrated on the type they've used, and I can see that they favour serif typefaces. Even the smaller pieces of text is done with the serif font, and it appears that they just used the one but in different techniques - bold, italic, etc - to make it look like there's a variation. 

The serif font is softened slightly by having smooth curves and very short serifs, instead of the usual hairline serifs that are showcased in high-end magazines and newspapers. This sets a slightly friendlier tone to the website. This could be due to readability as well because it would be harder to read bigger chunks of text is the type had longer, thinner serifs. The letters in some of the headlines are really close together - so they have small kerning - which wouldn't be possible if they used a more 'serif' serif font. 

Colour Scheme

They have used the 'traditional' colour scheme, black and white, for the whole of their website and the only spots of colour are shown in the photographs and logos of sponsoring companies. Even the children's section is done in black and white with coloured headlines and photographs. 

These coloured headlines are normally muted which diminishes the childish appearance that colourful websites brings. This also means that the website isn't overrun by colours because they are in soft shades which blends nicely with the white background. 

Location

I believe that the location itself is very important for the event. Oxford University is ranked as one of the top universities in England (as shown here) which means that the book festival is aimed for serious literary enthusiasts who know exactly what they are talking about in terms of literature.  

Conclusion:

The above aspects have shown me that Oxford Literary Festival portrays a very traditional appearance with it's black and white colour scheme and serif font. It hints at an middle to upperclass audience especially when they use terms such as "Sheldonian Events"(possibly named after the Sheldonian theatre) and the fact that it isn't advertised in public media. I wouldn't have known of this literary festival had I not searched for it in Google, and I only saw a tiny snippet of a poster within a newspaper article. 

Even in this small advertisement they have used a minimal amount of colour and a serif typeface. The even is called "FTWEEKEND" but it is the Oxford Literary Festival as this year it is sponsored by FTWeekend. 

The illustration/photomanipulation is also kept at a minimal amount of decoration so the advertisement has an overall clean and professional appearance. There is plenty of white space for the elements to breathe, although there isn't a lot of information in terms of where the event is hosted as only the website URL is provided.

From this research I have gathered I will be producing a book cover design that holds a very traditional appearance, most possibly with a script typeface or serif, with only a slight hint of colour. I am glad that I have analysed the website because I am now able to produce a book cover that portrays a similar appearance to it in order to create a connection between my book and the event.

If there were one thing I would do differently is that I would've done this analysis a lot sooner, probably at the very start of this project, although I am glad that all of my designs are done in black and white. The only colour piece is the one I did for Dr. Seuss although I think that is acceptable because it is very Dr-Seuss-style. 

My next step is to have a look at some 'classic' book covers such as Penguin classics as well as poetry books and typography books. 

FMP (BA): Inspiration - Gothic Typefaces & Calligraphy

I've realised that out of all of the type styles that I've looked at, I haven't actually tried out Blackletter. It's strange because I really admire that style although I tend to stray away from it because it looked quite difficult to do (and none of the quotes I had done previously had that kind of "voice"). 

Since I've chosen a gothic, Victorian quote, I am now able to carry out some brief research and gather inspirational Blackletter and gothic typography. I shall also have a look again at general calligraphy to see if there are ways to combine the two. Once again I want to have a look at historical pieces as well as contemporary ones. 

Inspirational Pieces

I waited a little bit until I have done as much inspiration-gathering as possible before picking out the ones that I think would be best in terms of brief analysis for this little 'project'. I have briefly looked at Blackletter before [here] and was tempted to just fill that post out a little bit but as it was so long ago, it would take me ages to scroll through the pages. I've also done some research right at the beginning of this project [here] on calligraphy tutorials from YouTube but once again that was a very long time ago.

I have a rough idea of what I'm looking for and what kind of typeface I was going to do so this process was done very quickly and I picked a few designs that I find most inspirational as well as useful for this project.

image source: https://www.p22.com/family-Victorian

This typeface, Victorian Swash, was exactly what I was looking for. It had that tall structure that mirrored Victorian architecture and it's high ceilings, and the small serifs only emphasise the elongated structure. This is because they are so small that there is more of a focus on the stems of the characters.

There is quite a contrast between uppercase and lowercase, as the uppercase forms seem to be twice the height of lowercase. Usually the cap-height is quite close to the x-height but here it seems to want to get far away from it as possible. The "halfway" point of the uppercase aligns with the top of the lowercase, which makes the character bottom-heavy because the rest of it's form is quite short. Nevertheless, it still retains that tall structure.

FMP (BA): Moby Dick

I have chosen to do the quote "Call me Ishmael" as one of the 'classical' quotes for my book, because it was listed in the top ten of the most famous opening lines in literature [according to American Book Review and the Telegraph]. I haven't been able to read Moby Dick and due to my small timeframe I instead searched for the plot summary on Wikipedia. Here is a brief description written on Amazon.co.uk:

"Moby Dick is the story of Captain Ahab's quest to avenge the whale that ‘reaped’ his leg. The quest is an obsession and the novel is a diabolical study of how a man becomes a fanatic.

But it is also a hymn to democracy. Bent as the crew is on Ahab's appalling crusade, it is equally the image of a co-operative community at work: all hands dependent on all hands, each individual responsible for the security of each. 

Among the crew is Ishmael, the novel's narrator, ordinary sailor, and extraordinary reader. Digressive, allusive, vulgar, transcendent, the story Ishmael tells is above all an education: in the practice of whaling, in the art of writing. Expanding to equal his ‘mighty theme’ – not only the whale but all things sublime – Melville breathes in the world's great literature. Moby Dick is the greatest novel ever written by an American." [Amazon.co.uk, [link] 18th March 2014]

Even though the narrator is Ishmael, Moby Dick (the sperm whale) is perhaps the most important character in the book in my opinion because of the fact that the whole story is based around Captain Ahab's fascination with him and other ships who had fallen to it's destruction even though the whale didn't actually appear in much of the story. At the end of the story Moby Dick manages to sink the whole ship, with Captain Ahab attached to it by a harpoon-rope around his neck, and only Ishmael survives.

From this information I have created a mind map to help spark some possible ideas for my typographic piece.

And here are some existing pieces featuring Moby Dick:

Image sources: houseofismay; Stefanoreves; unknown; Tony Millionaire; Vintage Moby Dick cover ; Ashley Honstein; 1947 paperback of Moby Dick


With my background information done I can now move onto looking at some inspiration for this which I had made notes of within my mind map. I have a keen interest in decorative type and would like to look at the original source of this style, which comes from the nineteenth to early twentieth century.

FMP (BA): Research - Oscar Wilde

Taking note of what I have learnt from previous experiences I decided to go straight into researching about the meaning behind the quote rather than just about the person who wrote it. The quote I'm researching in question is "I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I'm saying" by Oscar Wilde.

I had briefly researched into the life of Oscar Wilde during my dissertation but he was a well-known playwright and was extremely talented. He was known for the 'scandal' he caused as he was a homosexual (and homosexuality was illegal in those days) as well as his flamboyant attire.  

Before I carried out my research I did a couple of doodles of what I was inspired by the quote. I wanted to create that quirky appearance to each of my words but for now I just wanted to try and draw as many different hand-lettering styles as possible.

The next day I then looked into the background story of this quote and found out that it was actually from one of Wilde's short stories "The Remarkable Rocket." The main character, the "remarkable" rocket, was extremely pompous and self-important who thought that the Prince and Princess had reserved him for their special occasion (their marriage) but cried so much that he didn't go off in the end. He was thrown away into the mud because of this, but every character he came across was victim of his constant rambling about how important he was and that he was a distinguished rocket and everyone will witness him when he gets set off. He is then found by a young boy who accidently used him to light their fire, and when he did go off no one saw nor heard him apart from the duck who was frightened by his falling stick. [reference]

I created a mind map of all of my research to generate some ideas:

Now I am ready to start doodling!

Reflective & Critical Thinking - Summary

I decided to look at a new quote while I was still working on my Lord of the Rings one because I felt that I needed to go for something different in order to keep being inspired. After looking back at my previous designs I noticed that I have been leaning on the calligraphic side and so my Dr. Seuss design did look a bit out of place so I wanted to create something just to bulk up that fun style just a little bit. Besides, I really enjoyed creating lots of different hand-lettering typefaces so I think this will be a very light and enjoyable project. 

I only did very brief research on this quote as I already knew a little bit about Oscar Wilde's life, and so fully concentrated on the meaning behind the quote. I was originally going to skip this but I learnt from past experiences that this wasn't a good idea and I wanted to create a piece that related as much to the quote as possible.

I am glad that I did do this because I have now been able to generate a lot of ideas and inspiration for the type of lettering that I am going to do. I am going to produce something quirky and fun like I did for my Dr. Seuss piece but (another thing I learnt from before) I am going straight into traditional media and just colour it on Photoshop. I shall do the same method for my other designs to ensure that I am not wasting any time. 

My next step is to now do some doodles and slowly put my design together. Hopefully it wouldn't take me the whole week to do this so that I could go back to my Lord of the Rings quote! 

References: Classic Reader "The Remarkable Rocket" http://www.classicreader.com/book/208/1/, March 14 2014.

Learning Outcomes:
[4] Developed research skills in the area of contemporary professional practice.
[8] Developed their ability to scan and organise data, abstract meaning from information and communicate knowledge in a variety of formats.

FMP (BA): Research - J. R. R. Tolkien

For my next quote I wanted to do something along the lines of "Not all those who wander are lost", a quote taken from the Lord of the Rings trilogy by J.R.R Tolkien. As you might've seen in my last post, I was worried about trying to cover all of the subjects that take place in the Oxford Literary Festival and how it would tie in with literature and I have found a way...

Because, y'see, "Not all those who wander are lost" is a literary quote and it relates to travel. 

This is what I'm hoping to do for the others; find quotes that are from books and then draw connections to them to the other topics (if I have the time to do more than 4 for the book). It's a win-win situation because I'm sticking to my brief as well as aiming to a wider audience.

What I aim to do first is to research into the Lord of the Rings trilogy as well as The Hobbit, mainly focusing on the important aspects of all of the books and films before sketching some rough compositions. I want to create something inspired by the Supernatural t-shirt that I analysed quite a while back because I found it really clever how they manage to connect everything to do with Sam Winchester in it in a subtle way.

Quick Mind Map

I decided to generate a quick mind map on the knowledge I had so far on Lord of the Rings before I carry out my research. This will enable me to pinpoint any initial ideas that I could later develop after my research.

The Quote

"Not all those who wander are lost" is actually only a small section of a quote. The reason why I'm going to keep it this short because if I did the full phrase then it would just be too long to hand letter. Here's the full quote anyway for reference in case I do decide to do the full poem:

“All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost.

From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
A light from the shadows shall spring;
Renewed shall be blade that was broken,
The crownless again shall be king.”

FMP (BA): Research - Nelson Mandela

BBC Documentary - Nelson Mandela: The Fight for Freedom

One of the things that my lecturers highlighted when I showed him my initial design for Nelson Mandela's quote "It always seems impossible until it's done" was that I needed to do more research into his life and perhaps draw up some more ideas that relate strongly to his work. This was because Nelson Mandela was very important to South Africa and his work reached worldwide, so my design just gently brushed the surface.

This was when I started searching for documentaries to try and figure out where exactly he had written/said this quote and even though I didn't really find this out it was still quite inspirational to watch. The most reliable documentary I had found was done by the BBC, which I've included above.

Here's the link if you want to watch it for yourself!

While I was watching this documentary I made notes on the aspects of his life that really stood out to me:

How Do I Find My Voice? My Style?

I watched this video the other day by James Victore who talked about how to find our own voice. Finding my voice is one of the most important things to be because I want people to have a look at my work and go, "Hey! That looks like it was done by Lizzie!"
I've only come to think of this recently when I began to take illustration a bit more seriously. I want to be able to do it in future after I leave university and during my last project I enjoyed doing it so much when I incorporated type.

You can imagine how happy I was when I found someone talking about this video and decided to check it out for myself. It's really short and sweet, and what the guy said was mind-blowing.
It was just so simple.

How could finding my voice be as simple as he puts it? He talks about how we, as creative people, are desperately searching for inspiration to find things that are in 'fashion' that we're just repeating and recycling designs so that it's not really 'us'. Here's a quick way on how to get our voice (as he describes):

1) Learn everything
2) Forget it
3) Design

It's crazy how simple it sounds and how I've never thought about it before. To all those who are reading this, you should definitely watch it and some of his other videos! He's very inspirational.

Reflective Learning - A Summary

After watching this video it made me think of how I was handling my project and the reason I was getting so stumped was because I'm trying a completely different technique and making it much harder for myself than it actually is. What I should do is revert back to what I was doing originally because not only would I get more work out of it but I could always showcase my experiments so if there's anything wrong I can quickly resolve it before I cause any more damage.
My next step is thus to completely restart my schedule so it looks a bit like this:

1) Learn everything - create blog posts of different type styles and analyse them, and do the same with inspirational pieces
2) Forget it all - move onto a different type of research such as book binding and then do some bookbinding
3) Design - start designing some more quotes from what I've learnt. If I am stuck I could always look back at my Pinterest board.

OR (if I'm going to carry on with the schedule I have so far)

1) Learn everything  - write quote down and think of it's voice, collect lots of different inspirational pieces and type styles
2) Forget it all - shove it all to the side
3) Design - start designing and sketching

The list above is (obviously) heavily inspired by the technique he talks about and it looks like it could work! I wish I had found his videos sooner, because now I'm worried that I'm running out of time.

It's a bit annoying because of the fact I keep changing my schedule and it's kind of messing up my project (and my mind hahaha). This then made me think... OH DEAR. I might have to just scrap what I said before!

Annoying, isn't it?

I'm so sorry if I'm confusing everyone! I'm just writing exactly what I'm thinking of to ease my mind. But to summarise everything I've just said I have created two kind of timetables so I need to figure out which one would be best for me.

Learning Outcomes:
[2] Developed a high level of intellectual and conceptual involvement with their chosen subject area, including skills of project proposal, documentation of project development and the presentation of outcomes.
[6] Developed skills of critical thinking, analysis and evaluation.

FMP (BA): Politics - Inspiration

I'm aiming to do one or two quotes from famous politicians and during my research I decided to go with either: "It always seems impossible until it's done" by Nelson Mandela or "Whatever you are, be a good one" by Abraham Lincoln. The first thing I did after deciding was write a list of connotations and things associated with politics.

Mood Board - Existing Designs

I found it quite hard to come up with some ideas so instead I went straight to my research stage by gathering some inspirational pieces on Pinterest. Out of curiosity I had a look at existing products that used these two quotes and found that they had been done quite a lot.

This wasn't going to dampen my spirit, because I thought that even though these quotes had been done more than once, I could always make mine look different. From this I drew up a mood board on all of the pieces that showed these two quotes that I found eye-catching:

(all images from my Pinterest board which has the original illustrators/designers credits)

There's one consistent factor with all of these designs; they are all hand-rendered (well, all except for two) and these are mostly done in calligraphy or a chalk-lettering. I found this strange because I associated politics with strong, structured serifs, yet these are all done in quite a dainty way. This shows that instead of making the quotes look political because they were told by a politician, they focused more on the message itself.
This makes the message a bit more personal because someone had taken it upon themselves to design a quote with their own hand, so small "mistakes" would show through which they might not correct on the computer because the mistakes we make makes us human. These subtle mistakes or the human hand could thus relate to the politicians themselves in that they weren't perfect and had to go through a lot to get where they were. 

I want to do something different and the image on the bottom left really caught my eye. I hadn't thought about using different materials for typography! Maybe I could try out using paper or even using watercolours or something unusual, like feathers or twigs? Even doing something different with paper would be acceptable because it's not the simple case of using a pen or ink. It provides a texture of some sort. 

I want to keep my options open, however, so went back to my mood board on Pinterest to pick out the most inspirational images. I would like to incorporate more illustration to my designs and something different to what I had already done so far. 

Inspirational Pieces - Analysis

It's quite difficult to just look for a certain type of typographic style due to the diversity in the piece above. However I am keen on trying paper-cute typography so I shall look at that first (unless I change my mind and use another material).

Whispering Paper - http://www.etsy.com/shop/WhisperingPaper

I don't really know anything about this paper technique but I can tell by looking at this that it's very time-consuming. They would've had to cut around each individual space and make sure that the silhouettes are recognisable in order to see the words properly.

FMP (BA): Oxford Literary Festival

I noticed that even though it's a few weeks into this project, I hadn't yet produced a blog post about the Oxford Literary Festival. Instead I had written notes in my sketchpad and on my Pecha Kucha presentation (which I'll write about later on) so I think it might be time to put everything together.

I might've mentioned before that this project might be difficult in terms of target audience because the festival covers quite a wide range of topics, and thus different types of people as well as age groups. That's why I want to produce a book that aims to cover most of these topics instead of just focusing on literature.

Most of the information I gathered about this festival is on their website (here). The festival takes place every year, and this year it's on the last week of March (22nd - 30th) at Christ Church in Oxford, and is being sponsored by FT Weekend. They have provided a "Location and Travel" page on their website which is something I would need to include when it comes to designing their posters. Even though it doesn't really say I have to do these posters I would like to to promote the event. 

They have displayed the post code right at the top of the page although I completely missed this at first because it was included within a paragraph. I was initially looking for a Google Maps gadget, so when I didn't find one I got confused and looked at the page again. 

FMP (BA): Bookbinding

Even though I'm still in my early stages of this project, I wanted to figure out how I will bind my book because I have a feeling that assembling the project would take a bit longer than actually designing it. This is because I would have to purchase materials that I don't have, especially if I'm binding it with thread, so I want to make sure I've got everything in time.

I headed to YouTube and Vimeo to have a look at tutorials as I find it much easier to learn through watching people than flicking through photos. 

The Chelsea Bindery: The Processes of Book-Binding from Peter Harrington on Vimeo.

FMP (BA): Inspirational Pieces - Illustration & Typography

Here I shall cover the "Illustration & Typography" section. I know that I may/may not have experimented with calligraphy that much, but I thought I'd treat this week as a 'tester' week before diving into the type of hand-lettering that I enjoy the most. 

To see my 'mood board', click here.

Inspirational Pieces 

Unicorn Empire Prints - http://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/UnicornEmpirePrints

I received this top as a Christmas present and fell in love with the layout of type as well as the mix with illustration. I do have a soft spot for illustration, and to see it working so well with type makes this 'piece' all the more inspirational.

The type styles used reflect that of chalk lettering, and I'm hoping to do another post solely on it so that I can provide a comparison between it and this piece.
This link with chalk lettering is shown in the way that some of the words are shaded. In my previous project I noticed that the shading was done quite differently in chalk lettering to make the words stand out a little more even though it was very subtle. Such an effect can be seen in the words "Welcome" and "Demon Blood Special". I have briefly experimented with different shading types in my previous project “Words” but I hope to explore it a little bit more in this project.
What also brings up connotations of it being influenced by chalk lettering is that there's only really one colour used throughout the piece, with the only other colour being the background (the top), yet somehow they've managed to make it clear where the boundaries are between the illustration and type. This is due to the way they've drawn their thick lines to separate each element. This is quite an interesting technique and if I ever create a piece with only two colours I would like to use it.

FMP (BA): Inspirational Pieces - Calligraphy

I've created a new board "FMP Inspiration" on Pinterest to separate this project from my previous ones, and for the last couple of days I have been going through multiple websites to gather some inspiration. I'm hoping to gather as many different types of type styles as possible so that I could experiment a little more than I did in my APP Words.
Each type of lettering will be separated into multiple sections, as seen in my to-do list shown in my previous post. Here I shall cover the "Calligraphy" section. 

To see my 'mood board', click here.

Inspirational Pieces 

I'm finding it quite hard doing calligraphy despite looking through lots of videos on YouTube, and that's when I realised that I haven't really looked at any closely and analysed them. So I went onto my Pinterest board and selected a few that I find most inspiring.

Dear Lillie - http://dearlillieblog.blogspot.co.uk/

This isn't strictly a calligraphy based piece but I decided to include it in this category anyway because of the way most of the words were drawn. I should've placed it in my Chalk Lettering section but... Oh well.

What really caught my eye about this piece in particular was the way they've drawn "How do I" and "Let me count". It's so beautiful and elegant because of the soft curves and the little decorative swashes, and this reminds me of those curly plants (I think they're called Curly Wurly Rush or something) which brings back memories of my childhood. This thus creates a very personal and 'warm' atmosphere to the piece, which reflects the message written. The swashes also make the type appear slightly delicate as it thins out the character slightly, which could mirror the delicacy of the subject matter.

This typeface has a therefore feminine appearance due to elegant swashes and letterforms, but it is granted some 'strength' through the use of shading. This shading is very similar to that used in chalk lettering and gives the letters a bit more structure as well as making them stand out a bit more. This shading only applies to the main body of the letterforms, and not to the swashes, emphasising their fineness. 

I have seen quite a few pieces where they used a similar typeface although perhaps without the shading - an aspect carried across from chalk lettering - so this could quite possibly be a current typographic trend. By including something like this in my design will make it seem modern as I'm flowing with what's in fashion.

FMP (BA): Calligraphy Tutorials

I gathered a few videos and dip pen/calligraphy tutorials and time lapses to help me out the next time I experiment with my two sets. Even though I had a look at them before my second exercise I didn't really concentrate on how they held the pen and how much ink they added, so now I shall look at them all with fresh eyes in hope of improving my calligraphy!

Calligraphy for Beginners - Lesson no.2

This tutorial shows how to use a fountain pen rather than a dip pen, but the reason I've included it is because she talks about how to hold the pen and what the ideal angle it is to do so. The way she writes is similar to Blackletter which is another type style I'd like to explore. 

Taking a closer look at her pen it resembles closely to the roundhand dip pen I have; she doesn't produce a strong contrast between thick and thin strokes, and the end of the fountain pen is straight rather than pointed. 

How to Write Copperplate

Rather than it being a tutorial like the video above, this one is a time lapse where they show very clearly how they write the word "Flourish". Because the video is quite slow I can concentrate on how they hold the pen and just how delicate the results can be. The ink had to be topped up regularly, and they sometimes had to 'colour' parts in. There is actually quite a lot of ink on the paper because it's very 'shiny' so I'm guessing they had to leave it to dry for a while. 

I was quite interested to see the guide they used because previous time lapse videos didn't necessarily show this. 

FMP (BA): Book Inspiration

I wanted to take a look at existing books to figure out what is the best way to bind a mass-produced item, and my friend showed me this fairy tales book that was at a similar size to the one I'd produce.
Even though it is a poetry book I am still quite interested to see the layout of each page and how they used illustration with typography.

Front and Back

When I saw it I immediately thought of Jan Pienkowski and his silhouette illustrations, and this brought me back to the Brother's Grimm tales that I used to read when I was younger. The silhouettes are quite decorative; even the small ones on the borders are! The main focus is definitely on the illustration as the type is rather plain in comparison (although that could be because if it were any more decorative the overall appearance would be overpowering).

The price, barcode and logo are extremely clear on the back and are more dominant than the blurb because of the colour and size of the text. The blurb is centred, leaving plenty of room around it for the illustrations (which are also very decorative).

APP Words: Colour Scheme Feedback

I decided to ask my peers and lecturers on what colour scheme really catches their attention by printing out all of the different versions onto one page, and having them tick their preferences. [7] These were my results:

I also asked a few of my peers what design they prefer, and also showed them my teapot and cup version. I was surprised once more when I learnt that they actually preferred that one!

Conclusion: [5]

I was quite surprised at the outcome as I thought they'd prefer the blue version, and although it was a strong choice it was overtaken by the green/yellow/orange version. Just shows how important it is to get feedback from both my target market and fellow designers! [4]

My next step is to carry on and design all of the little illustrations (the tea leaves pattern, teapot and teacup), put them all together and then change all of the colours. [8] Can't wait!

[n] - learning outcome

APP Words: Colour Schemes

Now is the perfect time to start figuring out colour combinations, but before I go onto kuler.adobe.com/ and randomly pick a combination I need to think of what kind of connotations and emotions that those colours would bring.

My design shall hopefully motivate the student and make them feel better about their day (especially if they're stuck on revising) so I would like to use colours associated with happiness as well as that hint of relaxation. I went onto Google to have a look at some websites and found one (http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours) that had a whole list of the "main" colours and the positive and negative sides to them. Here's what I've copied and pasted from that site:

"RED. Physical

Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity, excitement. 
Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain.

BLUE. Intellectual.

Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm.
Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness.

YELLOW. Emotional

Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity. 
Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide.

GREEN. Balance

Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace. 
Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation.

VIOLET. Spiritual

Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality. 
Negative: Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority.

ORANGE.

Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun. 
Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity.

PINK.

Positive: Physical tranquillity, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species. 
Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness.

GREY.

Positive: Psychological neutrality. 
Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy.

BLACK.

Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance. 
Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness."

The best choices out of these colours - if I did want to go with the happy-but-relaxing idea - would be green, red, blue, yellow and orange. I would choose pink as well but that is stereotypically associated with feminine aspects and I want to produce a unisex design.

APP Words: Tea Inspiration

After creating my tea mind map (which you can see below but if not, it's also displayed in my last post) I realised that I haven't been inspired by tea that much for this project, and this is quite worrying. To try and overcome this I've created a new board on my Pinterest, "tea". This board would be made up of everything related to tea so that it'll be easier for me to come up with little doodles related to it.

Tea Mind Map

Tea Mood Board @ Pinterest

Conclusion:
This will now make it easier for me to refer back to existing images for inspiration when it comes to drawing anything to do with tea.
The reason I want to draw, say, teacups and teapots is because I want to create more of a connection between my design and Twinings. I have already explored into doing little illustrations but I tend to create mood boards when I'm lost for ideas (and when I'm panicking about my work). 

APP Words: Letterpress Posters

[3] [5] [7]

I'm getting a bit worried that I haven't been able to experiment with different styles as I wanted to, and I realised that it's because I'm starting to hit a brick wall in terms of inspiration. To help "cure" this I went onto as many websites I could and started to collect lots of images of letterpress posters. This is because during my research on the Industrial Revolution in my previous year I pointed out that people were very interested in an assortment of decorative type, most notably "3D" type, Egyptian and Fat Faces. 

My collection is all on my pinterest board, Typography, but I've included some images below on the ones that I find most inspirational.

Inspirational Posters

http://letterology.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/verso-of-carte-de-visite.html

I'm hoping to feature a quote in some sort of banner, and I've mentioned in a post that I would like to try out different banners styles. This poster is a perfect example of type on a banner so I'm giving it a special mention so that I could always refer back to it if I'm stuck.

However I find that each sentence is broken up and I find myself pausing after reading each banner. If it had just been one banner with different twists and turns then the writing would've flowed a lot better. I shall take note of this when I develop my design!
The breaks created could, on the other hand, make it easier for the viewer to read the advertisement. If this poster was indeed on display during the Industrial Revolution most of the public were unable to read very well and so this makes it more readable for them.