FMP: Fashion Year Book: Concept Presentation Boards

FMP: Fashion Year Book: Concept Presentation Boards

Open publication - Free publishing - More design

Boards based on the work myself and Ross had to put together yesterday, there's likely to be tweaks but at least we ahve a much stronger idea of the direction we're going in with it. Plus, we managed to finalise the spreads. Ross took charge of these boards, whilst we both handled the photography and I wrote the concept statement.

Context update, detailed chapter explanation

OK so this is a more detailed map of how my context book is going to work. Either it's going to be one big book with sections and chapters or I'll break it up into smaller books and package them, either with a belly band, or with a box of some kind.

Designer case studies: Each studio will be a chapter, this will be broken into interviews and examples of their work.

Typefaces: Each typeface will be a different chapter, it will cover, origins, interesting facts, then detailed type specs.

Print Finishes: Similarly to typefaces, the chapters will be broken into each print finish, how they're done, rough estimates and appropriate uses with images of good examples.

Publications: Each publication is going to be a chapter, I'm going to get interviews and then try and look at their type-specs.

So there we have 4 very different sections with anywhere up to 10 chapters, dependent on the content I get.

Magnetic Tape, hindrances and progress

Here's the results of screen-printing on bulky newsprint, off white sugar paper, antique paper and a cream-yellow stock. All of which picked up the ink OK, though some of the prints came out dodgy, and didn't bleed to unreadable levels. Unfortunately the crop marks refuse to come through, making it very difficult to line-up, to the point where I'd end up spending weeks getting enough prints that were aligned correctly on the duplex. So, I am going to have to either; strip and re-expose the screens, hoping the crop marks work properly, make a template for the size using a window-mount type device or consider another option.











One option is to laser print it, which I will try when the Fashion yearbook dies down a bit after tomorrow, another possibility is to turn it into an A0 poster, of which there is a little development below. It will fold down to the same size it was before and probably have the tape velcro-d to the back. I need to see the possibilities with this, because it might be that there is only day-glo papers in this size, and that might be OK, but it might reduce the legibility of the type.

Open publication - Free publishing - More magnetic tape

Is Not Magazine, inspiration for the A0 poster idea:

Resolving the Fashion Yearbook

OK, so yesterday we were told to go with this hideous purple colour to distinguish between the two pathways. Especially on board/rough grey paper stock. We were told to go with avant garde based on some type specs that Ross presented (which were really good) and so we had to play around with using that.







We spoke to Paul and we all agreed that this was not the route to take, it didn't look professional or well considered. So we went on and found a new way to distinguish between the two:

Open publication - Free publishing

The lines haven't registered very well on this pdf, but it looks similar to my business card (see PPD blog) anyway, this looks much more dynamic and fashion-esque and will sit better on the grey natural stock they were after.

I'm awaiting some photo samples from Paul to stick in the page layouts, as well as final approval of this direction. We have our high spec, which is the paper they want, plus the foil block for the text. We have the low spec, which is no foil block and standard paper and we have the mid spec, which is the paper with no foil block.

Here are the final selections of layouts that Paul is choosing from:

Open publication - Free publishing

Fashion Yearbook, further issues

Just as we seem to have one thing sorted out, it feels like more issues emerge. All of a sudden, out of the blue, two days before we have to pitch the our final proposals to the BAGD team they want a colour code, and they want to print colour onto that brown uncoated, not ink-ready paper stock. We're going to print a mock up and show them how this won't work, that if they want this paper stock, they need to either emboss onto it or foil-block onto it for it to look effective.

I feel slightly jaded by having these huge changes going on all of the time. They agreed to a type-face weeks ago, only to say they didn't like it a week ago, causing a, not insurmountable, but still unnecessarily late obstacle, and this feels like another large and difficult hurdle. I almost feel that now, we're having the design direction completely dictated to us and it feels unpleasant because they hired us to design, and therefor I was under the assumption that they agreed we knew better about design than them, or else what is the point in us being there?

On reflection, perhaps I should have formalised the agreements they made about typefaces and so on at an earlier date. But now, I guess it's about trying to reclaim as much of the design direction as we can by being firm with them about the things we know won't work. We have a meeting today to try and resolve these design issues and I want us to take a hardline, because ultimately we want it to look the best it can and what they want us to do, I strongly believe isn't the best for the yearbook.

Context review and where to go form here

So far I've been focusing on getting designers to email me answers to questions for my case studies, but this hasn't yielded many results. I'm going to email some more, perhaps with the strategy of having questions already on the email, rather than doing it after the exchange of a few emails.

Also I need to start getting beyond just this, to a wider range of contextual research. So, what interests me:

Typography, Print Finish, Publications.

So, I think what would be interesting would be to pick some of my favourite typefaces and do some thorough research on each. Look at a large range of interesting print finishes, how they're achieved and average costing. Finally look at some of the best publication work I've seen out there.

Typefaces:

-Helvetica

-Gill

-Futura

-Univers

-Akzidenz Grotesque

-Baskerville

-Georgia

-Caslon

Print Finish:

-Foil Blocking

-Spot Varnish

-Emboss

-Deboss

-metallic ink

-fluorescent ink

-laminate

I think the publications requires a lot of further research before I commit to any, but I'll try and get in contact with the designers of these things when I find out who they are.

Typeface research: Futura

http://www.prepressure.com/fonts/interesting/futura

What do you use Futura for?
Its distinct look and good readability make Futura a good headline font, but it is often also used for body text. Avenir, Avant Garde, Gill Sans and Kabel are good alternatives to Futura.

The history of Futura
German typeface designer Paul Renner designed Futura in the mid-1920’s. Its geometric shapes were inspired by the Bauhaus, the German arts&crafts school/movement. The font was commercially released in 1927 with additional weights being added in the years after. Many foundries, including Adobe and URW, offer digital versions of Futura. Neufville claim to sell the most authentic version.

Trivia
In 1969 the Apollo 11 astronauts left a commemorative plaque on the moon. Its text was set in Futura.
Back in the ’90s, people got so sick of Futura Extra Bold Condensed that there was a movement called ‘Art Directors Against Futura Extra Bold Condensed’.

This is OK, but it doesn't really give me a good idea about the specifics of why it was created and how it came into being. I want to know as much about the typefaces I research as possible, and then I want to look at detailed type specs, including distinctive features, what it looks like at different sizes as well as the differences across different fonts in the family.

If I'm goign to do this properly, I need to read books like 'Just My Type' to get a batter impression and then do some first hand analysis of the letterforms.

Photos for yearbook

Please don't really use them.

Fashion yearbook cover.

The fashion team showed us this cover as something they want it to look like. Whilst using the bolts and the screws might be a bit of a stretch, it might be possible to use a thinner paper of about 300gsm that's more malleable and can go round the spine more easily than 500gsm pulp board.


Here's some modifications ot the designs tryialling more typefaces, we were under the assumption they were happy with the typeface for quite a few weeks but apparently they want it changed, so that's fine, but I wish the team on their end had better communication so we knew about this a bit sooner.

Open publication - Free publishing - More fashion

The black will be foil blocked, obviously, theres a few that seem to be working more than others that need a few tweaks. Mainly the one that has a reversed out rectangle with a hole at the end, it kind of hints at a fashion tag, but it's quite abstract and avoids being corny. I've tried out a few different serif fonts, namely Georgia, Baskerville and Caslon, of these I think Caslon looks the most interesting, especially when you italicise the ampersand, which changes completely.

FMP: Fashion Year Book: Print Quotation.

FMP: Fashion Year Book: Print Quotation.:

Ross got this quote from Duffield for us a while ago, he's since got a slightly revised one, so we're probably on target for the revised budget of £3,300.

Originally we wanted 124 pages plus the cover. But the cost for having an extra 4pp is £249.

We have managed to get the page numbers down to 108 which will save us a lot of money. Plus the fashion team have revised the cover, instead of the full colour cover plus litho, they want a brown card-y paper stock with a foil block on it.

Burgled

This is just a quick note to make an official record of the fact I was burgled and my Mac was stolen on Tuesday night, it means I may take a few days to get back on track whilst I gather all the work from various points and get my new Mac from the insurance company. I have a crime number but obviously I'm not going to post it on a public blog. I think I should be able to get back on track relatively quickly, it's just about dusting myself off and gathering everything together.

Design Progress Boards

I was asked by Paul to produce a series of boards that quickly demonstrate what we're doing in terms of the covers and the spreads to give to Sue:

Open publication - Free publishing

It kind of summarised very broadly the things we are using, as well as the 3 photograph system for each course that we're thinking of using. Apparently everything is fine except for the idea of using a photograph for the cover. Sue is worried that you can't summarise an entire course in one photograph and she's worried about the preconceptions that that may give out. I disagree, but I can see her point and so we have to think of ways around this, by using designs we've been working on and modifying them. I kind of wish we'd have been told this earlier, that Paul had consulted Sue earlier so we didn't have this sprung on us last minute.

Paul has a book that he wants the cover to be similar too, I haven't got photographs yet but when I do, I will put them up on this post. Suffice to say, we have to now get a quote for a cover of 400gsm board, a foilblock and no colour on it.

Here are some designs I have worked on for the yearbook, they're all very similar but I need other people in the group to start taking them apart and putting the,m back together differently. This is something Kate and Ross will be working on over the next few days too:

Open publication - Free publishing

Copyright-copytype

Ok, subject to the changes I mentioned in an earlier post, I've decided to drop back the Kubrick brief for a bit and begin work on something that I see as a potentially substantial brief that will be going out into the real world. I think it's something that will really summarise my design practice too. The issue at hand is to try and address the sense of community we as designers must operate with in regards to the proper use of typefaces and the respect we must show to typeface designers by going through the proper channels to acquire typefaces.

With that in mind, I think it's really important that I get to grips with the actual copyright law regarding typefaces and where the issues come from.

Here is an array of research from different sources on the matter, the most relevant parts will be highlighted by italicising them:

-http://www.vortex.co.uk/content/fonts/understanding/fontlicense.html
"About all that's clear is that font designers put a huge amount of work into their creations, yet their products are probably, in the creative world at least, 'borrowed' even more than MP3 music tracks. Companies do need to take this seriously, as this is both unfair to font creators and also leaves organisations with unlicensed fonts in a fairly bad legal position."

I guess this shows a similar problem to mp3's, so going in a direction that promotes respect, but not in a preachy way would be good. Something that makes the people I send this to feel like they're the good guys, the ones that are doing it right, but need to promote diligence on a wider scale.

-http://www.gillhams.com/articles/352.cfm
"Although there is an international convention governing the law applying to typefaces, it is not designed to protect the most pervasive forms of typefaces: electronic fonts. The Vienna Agreement for the Protection of Type Faces and their International Deposit, 12 June 1973 is designed to protect typefaces produced in industry by a mechanical process. UK law allows for the registration of these typefaces as designs, however registered designs law as it applies to the online industry is in our view largely ineffective.
Designs law in the UK is designed to protect industrially prepared typefaces for use in a manufacturing process. Individual characters forming part of a typeface are protected as graphic works, sculpture or engravings.
Where letters, numerals and special characters in a font begin their life as drawings, the drawings of each character are protected individually by copyright as artistic works. In extreme cases, characters may be considered works of artistic craftsmanship, however in most cases the typeface need not be characterised as a work of artistic craftsmanship for intellectual property protection in the UK.
Protection by registration is required for each character, and the characters must be made and sold separately. Given the industry practice and commercial realities in the vast majority of instances, protection will not economically worthwhile. A single design registration in the UK alone attracts a fee from the Designs Registry of the Patent Office of £60 per registration."

This says a similar thing, the problem is a little unmanageable, practically, so in terms of enforcing it, it's perhaps about promoting respect for typeface designers. Perhaps it's best to come up with a mail-shot that is sent to designers and one with a slightly different message is used to target businesses.

-http://www.lawdit.co.uk/reading_room/room/view_article.asp?name=../articles/Copyright%20in%20typefaces.htm

A typeface is a font made up of letters of the alphabet, numbers, symbols and ornamental motifs which is artistically designed and used in printing (section 178, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988).

Typefaces can have restricted copyright protection as artistic work as they are graphic or ornamental in nature.

Under section 54(1)(a)(b) and (c), CDPA, there is no protection where the design of the typeface is used in the ordinary course of typing, composing text, typesetting or printing, or if someone possesses an item for the purpose of any of the above uses, or where someone does something in relation to material produced by the above acts.

Under section 55(1) and (2), CDPA, articles specifically designed or adapted for producing material in a typeface design which have been marketed by the copyright owner or with the licence of the copyright owner, have 25 years protection after which the typeface can be copied and anything may also be done in relation to any items made, without infringing copyright in the typeface.

Under section 54(2), CDPA, a person who makes, imports or deals with items which are made for the purpose of producing a typeface can be liable for secondary infringement.

However, there is no copyright infringement for simply applying a typeface to an item for printing purposes.

This one has actual references to the copyright law and establishes just how little protection typeface designers seem to get. Again, I think this reaffirms my conclusion that I need to promote typeface design as an artform that demands respect.

-Re-evaluating my deliverables, I think it's worth making a mail-shot that goes out to designers that is live, and then a mail-shot that goes out to businesses that is manufactured, at least one copy is manufactured anyway, but it isn't sent out. This allows me to change the tone of voice slightly, whilst keeping a similar design direction, it also makes the brief a bit more expansive. There's also the possibility of a mock website, so this brief is starting to look quite substantial.

Re-evaluation of my progress

OK, so after yesterday's briefing I began to realise how much I need to prioritise my briefs. I have briefs I want to get done that are substantial, and more importantly they're live, and I think I should be doing these so they form the backbone of my portfolio. With this in mind, I'm going to put the Kubrick brief on the back-burner for now, as much as it's engaging, it isn't going to be substantial and I have another substantial brief I want to start making a dent in. So I'm going to begin work on the Copyright-copytype brief and come back to the Kubrick brief at a later date. My aim is to have most of Copyright, Copytype finished by the time we come back for Easter.

Short post, but an important one.

Progress

Ongoing progress so far:

We've emailed Paul our deadlines that have been worked around his deadlines:

further to our conversations and your email, here is a list of proposed deadlines for our work.
Wednesday 30th March- Present 2-3 cover variations with mocked up cover shoot photographs, 2-3 layout variations with the final written content and mocked up photographs supplied (full colour, proposed stocks or similar). From this meeting we will have finalised designs for the yearbook, both inside and covers. -We propose that if the test photographs for the cover go well, we try and shoot these properly before we break up for Easter (28th-1st April), so we can have a cover absolutely finished before Easter. -We also think that photographs of the staff and the studio should be taken in this week in order to supply us with as much final photographic content as possible, as early as possible. (28th-1st April)

Wednesday 27th April-
-Provide an entire pdf mock up of the entire book in order, minus photographs for you to review, plus samples of prints on proposed stocks etc. From this you can make any changes to the order of content should you require. -Fully proposed layouts for website minus photographic content, plus method of delivery finalised.
Thursday 19th May- -Will have worked ridiculously hard and placed all images into book in 8 days and double-triple-quadruple checked for typos! Mission. Friday 20th May- -pdf proofing Monday 23rd May- -Send to print
Friday 27th May -discover quadruple checking for typos is not enough.
June 1st -web delivery finalised with photographic content, ready to code and upload
June 8th -Aim to have web delivery finished. Thanks Paul, if any of these deadlines seem off, please let us know as soon as possible. Much Love, The Fashion Yearbook Team.

So we now have a fixed set of goals and deadlines which is/was cool.

Today, based on our scouting for photographic areas for the shoots that Myself, Kate, Jonny and Paul himself had been working on, we decided to trial some test shoots at the wood workshop area, he brought some students and we had our photographer Adam Fussell there as well. We immedietely came to the conclusion, with the students and the sound advice of Adam, that this style of photography isn't very utilitarian and won't suit everyone's garments. We decided that it would be best to use a photo studio and have the students prep their own photoshoots.


wood workshop, bottom

This is really helpful in a way because it means we can totally step away form photography which we may have got too absorbed in before. They've managed to book out the photography studio with similar timescales for it, which means it doesn't effect our timetables too much.

Second proofing

After making the corrections form last time, here is a second proof, and my further decisions based upon that proof:

I want to scale the star shape down, it's far too dominant and overbearing. I also need to tidy some stuff up with the tape linking to the words.


I'm really not keen on the type on the back of this, I also think it's unnecessary. Either I'll leave it black or come up with a different option.


Mostly fine, need to take the point size of the pull quote down form 12 to 10, which looks better and suits the page more, plus it will be uniform with the other pages.


I need to rwork this again because it doesn't look much better, still messy.


Happy with this, looks really strong.


Not sure the photo works against reversed out anymore, will try just the right hand page reversed out.


Small typo with the spacing between question and answer.

These corrections will finalise this ready for print, then its figuring out a method of packaging, making the mix tapes and then manufacturing the whole thing.

Email form Paul

So Paul emailed quite late last night with the timescales on his side, and we have to use this to work out our own timescales, which is something we need to do this morning, but this is definitely an encouraging step in the right direction in terms of getting this brief back on track.

Dear Graphics students,

Further to our meeting earlier today, please find a Production Schedule below.
(Please factor your own production time around this schedule and e-mail it to me)

Monday 21st March
Test Photo-shoot/Location

- Front, Back and Inner Visuals

Wednesday 23rd March (rearranged date)
Student & Tutor Biography Deadline

- Inner pages with Biographies

- Website design

Tuesday 26th April
Student Product/Garment/Promotion Hand-in

Tuesday 3rd May – Friday 6th May
Photo-shoot in Print Room (specific times TBC)

Monday 9rd May
Images on disc to Paul Luke

Wednesday 11th May
Return selected images on disc

- Placing Images

- Website design

- Amends and proofing

Monday 23rd May
Send to print

Friday 27th May
Completed Books delivered

Saturday 28th May
Find major typo’ whilst admiring your fine work...


Let me take this opportunity to thank you for your creative and professional attitude towards this project.

See y’all Monday 2.30pm – Room 206.


Paul Luke

Fashion Disasters

OK so today we had to pitch what was oging on to Amber, unfortunately Ross made it sound really negative, the information we were supposed to be supplied with by Paul has failed to materialise, including still not knowing the number of copies we need as part of our run. It wasn't as bad as Ross made it sound, but it did make me realise how much we've let it slide. I guess we placed a lot of trust in Paul to deliver and he hasn't as of yet. Also, though, we haven't done a lot of designing since the initial pitch of my proposal that we gave Paul. Having all these problems, we spoke to Amber and decided to create a plan of action:

Request this information from Paul and stress the urgency;
-the number of copies
-30-40 word bio from students
-their contact details
-quote from himself and Sue about the course
-a deadline for the photography

ALL BY MONDAY

Meanwhile, I'm goign to hand over the work I did for the pitch to Ross, Jonny and Kate for them to blow apart and change around because I'm stuck in a rut of just doing the same thing with it at th emoment, I need them to try out new things for me to feed off of, this will mean we have a series of different looking spreads to present to Joe in our meeting with him at 1.30 tomorrow.


UPDATE:
The meeting with Paul felt constructive at the time, we set out our agenda and he agreed we needed to sort things out urgently, I think the reality of how tight time is really hit home with him.
-He's given us the print run, which will be 600 copies... hopefully this relaxes our budget a little bit and allows us to get some accurate quotes.
-He's set a deadline for fashion tutors and students info for Monday, but we're going to contact the course administrator and make sure she sends out an email.
-He's set an accurate and feasible deadline to have all photographs to us by May 11th, which seems quite late, but hopefully we'll have the full skeleton for all of the photographs to go into so it's just menial labour by then, that we can divide four ways to make it go quicker.

Unfortunately he was going to email me the minutes today and he's failed to do so, which makes me worry that it's going to be the same old unorganised mess, so I've let Fred know about that, he was going to be CC'd into the email anyway, and if it continues and I don't get an email by tomorrow I'm going to let Fred start talking to Sue to try and take care of this situation before it spirals out of control.

Printing proofs

I've got to a point now where most of the magazine is assembled and it looked to a standard I was broadly happy with (tweaks aside) So I figured it's probably time to print proofs and see how it's looking and correct any errors that become apparent in print. Here are the first proofs and my corrections, I'm going to print proofs again in the morning, just to ensure that the corrections are to my liking:


With the cover, the white wasn't quite white which was an issue. Also, I'm going to try the title centrally aligned more like the 'Kinsella Chronicles' type, which is more framed by the 'tape' vector running through it, where as it's a little distracting on the cover here.


On this spread I need to correct some widows and double check the alignment, I wasn't sure I was happy with this one on screen but the print looks of a nice quality, and the photo, the standard of black and the contrast is pretty nice. Also, it became apparent across all the spreads that the line weight of the division lines was too heavy at 2 pt, so I'm going to try taking it down to 1 pt and see what that looks like.


I really like this spread, but need to correct some typos. I don't think the widows matter here so much because they're very small chunks of writing, relatively spaced out, so your eye needs to move fro one paragraph to another in a way that's quite broken up anyway, however I will try and correct some of these.


This spread isn't working as well as I think it could, the photo looks too short and wide. It feels very awkward and forced in. I'm going to try and reduce the column height on the left hand side to make more room for the photograph. I think that the type and 'tape' vectors feel a little forced in too, so I'm going to try and reduce the presence of the vectors and create more space for them to breathe. Also, I need to correct as many of the widows as possible, and there are a few alignment issues.


This one works reaosnably well, I need to bring more white into the photograph, because there's not enough contrast in it at present. There's some spacing issues between questions and answers at the moment that need correcting, as well as widowing issues.


The problem with reversed out spreads is that I put a 0.1 weight line on them to make sure they don't get lost in the bleed, the problem is that this is too much, the text looks ridiculously weighty, so I'm going to take it down to 0.01 pt and hopefully this will still protect against the bleed.


Apart form a spelling error, I really like this spread, I think it looks really clean and sophisticated, and there's no widows, huzzah!

So I'll make these changes today, and barring a major crisis with the fashion book tomorrow, I'm going to try and print these proofs, make any additional changes and have the negatives ready for screen-printing on Thursday.

Things I need to do:
-I've realised that I made a bit of a cock-up on the paper size, it's 2 cm wider than the fold down of sugar paper, but! I really like this format, the fact that it's between A5 and A4 makes it quite a nice companion sized booklet. It also means I've opened myself up tot he idea of different stocks that are still cheap. I want to try different colours, which is something that can perhaps change from issue to issue, these are things to test when I've got the screens ready, make a few test prints and ensure everything is OK.

-I need to figure out how to package it, I have a few options; comic wallets, wrapping it in paper sealed with a vinyl sticker, tying it with magnetic tape, so I'll try those out ASAP too.

-I need to finalise some distribution options; contact record stores local to Newcastle, which I will do tonight.

-additional materials such as a poster and a badge would be good too, so I need to cost those up and see whether they're feasible

Film Makers and their traits:

We know from a previous post on Kubrik, that his traits are intricate detail, ruthlessly methodical. Here are some famous traits of other film-makers, I've emboldened useful traits:

Wes Anderson:
Wesley Wales Anderson (born May 1, 1969) ^[1][2][3][4] is an American film director, screenwriter, actor, and producer of features, short films and commercials.

He was nominated for a 2001 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay for The Royal Tenenbaums. Anderson has been called an auteur,^[5] as he is involved in every aspect of his films' production. His films employ a similar aesthetic, employing a deliberate, methodical cinematography, with mostly primary colors. His soundtracks feature early folk and rock music, in particular classic British rock. Anderson's films combine dry humor with poignant portrayals of flawed characters – often a mix of the wealthy and the working class. He is also known for working with many of the same actors and crew on varying projects. He also works with Indian Paintbrush, Steven M. Rales's production company.

Alfred Hitchcock:
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980)^[1] was an English filmmaker and producer.^[2] He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in his native United Kingdom in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. In 1956 he became an American citizen while remaining a British subject. Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style.^[3] Viewers are made to identify with the camera which moves in a way meant to mimic a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism.^[4] He framed shots to manipulate the feelings of the audience and maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing to demonstrate the point of view of the characters.

Martin Scorsese:
Martin C. Scorsese^[1] (pronounced /skɔrˈsɛsi/;^[2] born November 17, 1942) is an Americanfilm director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. He is the founder of the World Cinema Foundation and a recipient of the AFI Life Achievement Award for his contributions to the cinema, and has won awards from the Oscars, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Directors Guild of America. Scorsese is president of The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation.

Scorsese's body of work addresses such themes as Italian-American identity, Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption,^[3] machismo, and violence. Scorsese is widely considered to be one of the most significant and influential American filmmakers of his era, directing landmark films such as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas – all of which he collaborated on with actor and close friend Robert De Niro.^[4] He won the Academy Award for Best DirectorThe Departed and earned an MFA in film directing from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts.

Stephen Spielberg:

Steven Allan Spielberg (born December 18, 1946)^[4] is an American film director, screenwriter, film producer, video game designer and studio executive. In a career spanning five decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an archetype of modern Hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. In later years, his films began addressing such issues as the Holocaust, slavery, war and terrorism. He is considered one of the most popular and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema.^[5] He is also one of the co-founders of the DreamWorks movie studio.

Spielberg won the Academy Award for Best Director for Schindler's List (1993) and Saving Private Ryan (1998). Three of Spielberg's films, Jaws (1975), E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), and Jurassic Park (1993), achieved box office records, each becoming the highest-grossing film made at the time. To date, the unadjusted gross of all Spielberg-directed films exceeds $8.5 billion worldwide. Forbes puts Spielberg's wealth at $3.0 billion.^[2]

Michael Winterbottom:
Michael Winterbottom (born 29 March 1961) is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features. Three of his films — Welcome to Sarajevo, Wonderland and 24 Hour Party People — have been nominated for the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival.

David Lynch:
David Keith Lynch (born January 20, 1946) is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist and musician. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound design. Indeed, the surreal and in many cases violent elements to his films have gained them the reputation that they "disturb, offend or mystify" their audiences

The Coen Brothers:
Joel David Coen^[1] (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen^[1] (born September 21, 1957), known together professionally as the Coen brothers, are American filmmakers. The brothers write, direct and produce their films jointly, although until recently Joel received sole credit for directing and Ethan for producing. They often alternate top billing for their screenplays while sharing film credits for editor under the alias Roderick Jaynes. They are known in the film business as "the two-headed director", as they share a similar vision of their films.

Terrence Malick:
Terrence Malick (born November 30, 1943) is an American filmmaker, screenwriter, and producer. In a career spanning decades, Malick has directed five feature films.

Numerous critics consider Malick's films to be masterpieces. Some critics have even hailed his movies as among the greatest films ever made.^[1][2] Malick was nominated for an Academy Award for both Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Director for The Thin Red Line.

David Fincher:
David Andrew Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962) is an American film director and music video director. Known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), and Zodiac (2007), Fincher received Academy AwardBest Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and his 2010 film The Social Network, which also won him the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Director.

These give me some words to play aroudn with when making marks and visuals:
-dark and stylish
-five (feature films)
-two headed director
-dream imagery, surrealism
-seventeen in fifteen years
-many themese and genres (diversity)
-Roman Catholic concepts of guilt and redemption
-The Gaze/Voyeurism
-Primary Colours/Wes Anderson's Colour Palette
-Methodicalness/attention to detail

With these I can play around with some interesting and abstract shapes to represent them, or at least I hope so.

Book Covers, more focused direction:

OK, so I didn't really know what I wanted to do with these book cover designs, but below are a series of images that represent the kind of direction I want to go in, using shape, form and colour to represent the director's film style, rather than using something more literal. Below are some more abstract cover designs:


This is a nice piece of abstract image making, however it's really difficult to tell what the book is about because there is no typographic content. For whatever conceptual reason this may be, to the laymen to 'zen masters' it means absolutely nothing, so I think I need to ensure I have type to contextualise the shape/image generation that I do.


This isn't technically that abstract, but it's a veyr simple, stri[pped down cover design, that I think works quite well.


This is much more the kind of thing I'm into, the really abstract shapes are nicely composed and tied together with the typography below it pretty well. I want to make sure the shapes are related directly to the film traits of the director, but are enjoyable, simply as abstract shapes.


Again, just very simple shapes used to make an alien-like face. This is perhaps too figurative for what I'm aiming towards, but the simplicity is important.

I think the simplicity of this one is also something to admire, it's nothing special, just very strong, simple design that makes a very attractive cover.


basic print-making is also a possibility to explore, perhaps even collaborating with a printed-textile student in order to get nice prints that represent the film-makers accurately.


The intricacy of this is something that could directly influence the Kubrick book, although it is a bit of an eyesore, also not a fan of the central skull and crossbones.


This one is vaguely figurative, but I think it's abstract enough for me to apply something similar to what I'm looking at.


A really beautiful abstract approach, with nie colour choices.


Similar to above, but I'm not a fan of how delicate this looks, I think it needs to be more stripped down, given a lot fo the film-makers come from a a less traditional background. Sans-serif seems more appropriate.


I like that this is manufactured entirely from playing around with paper and a hole punch, the simplicity of the idea is what makes it quite clever in my eyes. Messing around with paper might be something I should pursue.


Again, abstract circles, limited colour palette and a strong simple outcome.


Background generated by simple mark-making.


Again, the intricacy is Kubrik-esque, so that's something worth exploring, playing around with detailed, optical imagery.



Another book cover generated using simple mark-making exercises.

I think what is clear from this is that I need to try a variety of approaches to mark making based on research into the film-maker's stylistic traits/quirks, and see what I generate.