OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | Colours

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | Existing Book Covers & Posters for 'Interaction of Colour'

Before I start designing I looked into how other designers interpreted the book for their own designs.

Although all of these designs look very nice and all represent the content of the book very well, I personally feel that they don't make much sense to someone who is unfamiliar to the book and what it's about. 

The top design is my favourite as although it doesn't say anywhere on it, I think people might figure out that the top and bottom square are the same colour. This is something I will defiantly think about including into my design, although it will be hard as I can only have a maximum of three colours (including stock), and this example uses five.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | Stock

As I said before I designed my cover to be subtle so it keeps with the academic feel of the book as it is a very important book to study for art and design students, and as Albers was a professor and the book was dedicated to his students I thought this was fitting.

Due to this I thought a suitable stock for the book would be a grainy paper or that material that almost feels like fabric that is on a lot of old books; but as I don't know what this is called and can't seem to find it, I'm sticking with a think, grainy paper for the poster. 

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | Concerns with screen printing

The brief says that the poster must be screen printed which at first I was pleased about as I thought it would give the poster a good look to it; but after I designed my poster and was very pleased how it turned out, I  am worried that the whole colour aspect of the design will not work if the colours aren't perfect, because they won't be. I am hoping that if I get as close as possible to the top red and bottom pink it will still give the illusion that the squares are different colours.

If everything goes horribly wrong when it comes to screen printing I have a back-up poster that uses just black and grey that I can print on white stock.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | Final Idea

My ideal book cover would be the one shown below as it is personally my favourite of my designs and others also felt it was the strongest. I feel this is my best idea as I used the book (Interaction of Colour) to directly influence the design. As we are limited to 2 colours and stock colour, this was a challenge as the book explores the relationships between many colours at once. Although it was hard to think of an idea, I came to this one. At first it may seem like there are a total of 4 colours, but in fact the top and bottom squares are exactly the same colour, just the colour surrounding them alters the perception of them.

I think this works very well as a poster because at first people may look at it and not notice that they are the same colour, but once they are told, they will look at it longer and take it in more, meaning that the poster will be remembered. As for a book cover I really liked how it turned out. As 'Interaction of Colour' is a very renowned book and is studied worldwide and has been for decades, I wanted something that would fit nicely into a classic library, if that makes any sense. Instead of going down the 'many bright overlapping colours' look, I wanted something more subtle but interesting enough to be appreciated for good design.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | 'Interaction of Colour' - Josef Albers

My given book is 'Interaction of Colour' by Josef Albers. I am please that I got this book as the content is actually very interesting which makes it easier for me to look into and explore.

This book is about how different colours and their relationships with each other. For example one thing that is looked at is how surrounding colours can make the appearance of another colour change. This is something that really interests me and I will definitely look further into it.

'Interaction of Colour' is a very renowned book that is studied worldwide and has been for decades now and Josef Albers was a very respected man and teacher. I want the academic side of his work and studies to show through my use of colour, type and even stock as I think it is a very important factor of the book.

OUGD406 Studio Brief 2 | The Brief

For studio Brief 2 we all got given a graphic design theory book, which we then had to redesign the cover for it to be exhibited alongside Level 05 resolutions at Leeds Library.

At first look this breif looked rather simple, to redesign a book cover, but once everyone had read their books, some more complicated than others, we started to realise that this will be challenging, especially if the book already has a well designed cover, like mine did.

I got given ‘The Interaction of Colour’ by Josef Albers. I had never heard of this book before but after looking through it I really enjoyed it and was happy with what I got give.

My plan of action was to research the history of the book and Albers. I wanted to get a good understanding of the book and what Albers was trying to say, teach or explain.

After this I looked into the existing book cover and other variations of it, so I could see how others interpreted it and how they decided to reflect Alber’s thoughts through image. 

I wanted to make sure I didn’t limit myself to only looking into book design,  so I also planned on looking into exhibition posters and flyers, film posters, event posters, magazine covers and other mediums that communicate through image and type also.

This is the point I wanted to start thinking about designing. I established what look I was going for; whether I wanted it to be contemporary or classic, simple or complex, loud or subtle. All of this was crucial if I was to create a piece of work I was happy with. As this piece is to be exhibited it was added pressure to make sure I did a good job.