Week Three - Class Six 17.03.16

CRITIQUE OF LAYOUT VARIATIONS

Critique, Understand, Define, Making, Ideate

Todays critique was really useful. I printed out all of my iterations and other people were identifying the intended vibe and adjectives, however I realised that there was a lot wrong with my compositions!  Firstly, the vertical text which I thought looked cool and Japanese yesterday, I now realise looks very stupid and wrong. I had hyphenation on when it shouldn't have been, I have widows, the type is too large and the leading is too tight, things aren't aligned, I have not pulled out appropriate hierarchies, text is in the wrong order, I have not considered legibility and I have not related or integrated the illustration with the text. 

This is the layout I initially thought was my strongest
once I had aligned the text.

I then realised that the vertical text was not readable
and also looked like a strange shape rather than text.

Once I had worked out how to import Japanese text I
tested how it looked in different positions. I really liked
this one as everything appeared balanced.

After another critique, it was brought to my attention that
the Japanese text dominated the composition. Also that
its position smack-bang in the middle was not only
uninteresting, but also did not help guide the eye of the reader.
I also realised that I needed to align the heading and my paragraphs
and arrange them in regards to hierarchy and legibility.

I then realised that the Japanese text was just too bold
and dominating and that I either needed to remove it or
change it. I also decided that I needed to bold the heading
and the location/opening hours to assist the reader in
realising that the text at the bottom of the page is to be
read first. I tried to integrate a piece of sushi onto the
page with the text but I just didn't think it was working well.

I tried removing the sushi as it looked out of place, and I
also tried moving the Japanese text to a position where
it would help guide the eye of the reader towards the text
which is meant to be read first.

I definitely don't think that this spread is fully resolved, but I have made a lot of progress! Before next lesson I plan to have all three of my locations fully resolved, as well as the introductory spreads. I will first work on resolving this first location, and simultaneously the introductory spread, as these will inform each other and cannot be designed in isolation from one another. Once I have this resolved, the other two locations will be a lot easier to design as they will follow a consistent style and treatment of elements. I will continue to print these out full scale as I go, as well as continuing to gather artist models and brochure examples.