Author: Aidan.Murphy

18, Graphic Communication Undergraduate at Cardiff Metropolitan University

Dissertation PDP

Researching and writing my dissertation has been the longest and most academically challenging project that I have undertaken to date, while it has been exceedingly challenging, it’s rewards have matched it’s difficulty, I think my research methods have been dramatically increased as well as particularly my ability to write extended papers, the tenacity and perseverance required was something that I thought of as a large elements of writing a dissertation, but it was far more prevalent that I first thought.

My dissertation covers the transgression of propaganda and its dynamic relationship with branding and advertising. I found some issues upon extended research due to this transgression occurring covertly, however this found its place within my dissertation as a way to alert readers to the issue itself. I found this area of research is something that is useful for my degree area of graphic communication, I was able to offer my expertise on multiple occasions as well as develop my skills as a designer throughout but focussing on design theory throughout.

My preliminary documents of my dissertation, such as my proposal ensured that I had a strong concept for my dissertation as well as to check if the thesis document was the best choice for me, this ultimately made my dissertation much stronger as well as offering opportunities for feedback. I think I used my tutorials well and engaged in sophisticated academic discussion that guided me into the right direction and ensured that when my motivation was stalling, I was still able to find new ideas and information from which to write from.

The research stages of my dissertation were extremely interesting, I found new topics that I had not considered before and unearthed an issue today’s society faces, then developed this into my 8000-10000 thesis. Throughout my process of creating a dissertation I was always sure that I would choose the thesis option as I felt that my academic and extended writing has always been strong, and this allowed it to grow ever stronger. I felt the actual topic of my dissertation was found early in the process but found constant development once extensive research had begun. I discovered additional research potential, even while writing my first draft, my structure was fairly straightforward, I think this was because my first two chapters are a relatively simple structure, simply describing key terms and analysing examples. I found my third chapter particularly challenging as it felt much more dynamic and investigative, my third chapter explored how propaganda had come to influence branding, and vice versa, this was the most interesting part of the dissertation to me and really motivated me to ensure it was written and researched to the highest quality.

I felt my research was of high quality, the sources I used are a mix of academic papers, independent sources as well as online newspapers, this ensured a well-rounded and engaging thesis that serves to both educate and inform those that come into contact with my dissertation question. As for my dissertation question, it was something that I found did not take as much prevalence as I expected, I think this is since I could simply write it after the main planning stage of my dissertation, this allowed my question to suit the text perfectly, ensuring that it was titled correctly.

I think that in my previous years of constellation, i would have benefitted from further practicing of referencing, this is not a skill that I think has been focussed on enough. My lack of knowledge on referencing did not affect my end result much at all, but did ensure that I spent a day learning how to do it immaculately, however this meant that my referencing skills were fresh for when it was needed within my dissertation.

I think the strongest elements of my dissertation is my structure and topic choice, it is something contemporary and historical, but that still had lots of undecided factors about it, allowing for multiple paths of research to be conducted. However, I ran into issues when trying to conduct primary research and instead swapped those research methods to a more traditional secondary approach. This type of research did, however, allow me to gain a greater amount of credited, academic opinions on my chosen topic area.

The lack of library access towards the end of my dissertation limited me somewhat, but I was still able to access most of my needed material from home and what facilities were available to me. This was made easier by my chosen dissertation topic, the majority of my dissertation discussed visual material and so the support of images and photographs helped to condense my word count while ultimately expanding my dissertation inclusivity. I think that if I were to do this project again, I would like to focus more on an older topic that it more documented, this would allow me to conduct a greater amount of research in older and more traditional books and papers as opposed to relying on newspapers and website to find the majority of my content. While I do not think I would find this type of dissertation more interesting than what I have created here, I do think that it would appear more academic and perhaps, be a greater source of information for others to examine and review.

Moving forward I now hold greater academic skills that will be used throughout my professional career as a designer as well as an overall greater knowledge on both propaganda and branding, alongside this I think I hold a greater confidence in myself as a professional that will assist in the highly sophisticated and competitive interviews that will follow my post university life. giving me a greater chance at succeeding as a graduate Graphic Designer.

Reflections & Considerations for ISTD Submission

This project has been a challenging task, with very large amounts of work to complete in every aspect, heavy research on Italo Calvino and Marco Polo themselves revealed interesting prompts for formatting and type setting, and even heavier research into each of the 55 cities available allowed me to understand the book, this was supported by large amounts of research into the themes and tones of the book. All of this combined with the demand for a large format book made me stretch far out of my comfort zone, originally choosing this brief due to the lack of real, thought out typographic design within my portfolio I found myself undertaking the most typographical experimental brief I have seen to date within my studies. This has not been without reward; I find myself more experienced and confident in both my typographical and time management skills. My researching skills continue to develop incredibly well throughout Level 6 thanks to more complex briefs with ever more challenging design problems to solve. My current outcomes suitably challenge the current systems used to read books and demand an active engagement from the reader throughout, I think this matches my target audience of experienced readers who are looking for more from books. I found that I never stopped experimenting throughout this project, consistently coming up with new and innovative designs throughout the project, even up until the day before when my message behind my end papers were discovered. I have considered elements for the first time, such as choosing from a wide range of paper stock and delving ever further into type setting and layout options within InDesign (even stretching the tools available to me to greater lengths by designing round spreads). I think that my work could now be more improved by first answering the questions I have given myself in my previous entry, mainly further experimentation into stab binding and font weight. But I also think my outcomes could be improved by creating more expressive cities type, while I think that my outcomes express the themes and characteristics of the book in general to an exceptional extent, I do not think that the cities characteristics and idiosyncrasies as individuals are celebrated to a good enough extent. I plan to improve this by creating further atlas spreads and seeing what works in the future. Overall, I think that these outcomes have the potential to be awarded an ISTD, but they still require further revision and development to reach the level required, the ideas and concepts are good enough, but I think it is now a case of stopping the concept experimentation and refining my now outcome into a professional, rounded typographical celebration of Invisible Cites.

A link to my full, unedited personal notes for this project are found here: https://www.icloud.com/notes/02c0dLxHMt_1ljdL48ENLb5Kg#Despina_Co_ords_10,0,40,8

Outcomes & Format

Book Layout without tearing open french fold pages

Layout-for-book-not-tornDownload

My choice to include some blank pages into my layouts is an informed and purposefully done one. I wanted my reader to feel a sense of discovery in every aspect of the book design, every opportunity within this book something new and surpising is implemented, from similarly coloured elements on the cover, using large amounts of small letterforms to form an overall silhouette skyline image, to using my end papers ot deliver a message (and a map) of venice, eluding to the fact that each of these cities that Marco Polo describes is indeed, simply different parts of venice, a place he is afraid to lose if he puts into words and so disguessies them by giving them the names of women and stating they are these 55 different cities that are mentioned throughout invisible cities.

the biggest discovery and surpise of the book is within the french fold pages, the need to use the map that is given to the reader proir to each chapter to direct them to the correct place on the large format (500x320mm) atlas style coordinate utilising map found when the french folding pages are fully revealed. Using double folded pages allowed me to hide thhe entire content of each chapter within the pages, not just the map with the five cities per chapter on, this allowed the book to, at first glance, only contain the end papers and the wheel, a tool needed for the reader to progress any fither within the book.

Torn French Fold Spreads

french-fold-pagesDownload

For my French folding, I have some options as to it’s style. I can use traditional french folding, where the end of the page is simply torn or cut open, revealing a hidden spread within (or in my case, one double spread and a double sized map). I also have the perhaps more interesting option of utilising japanese stab binding to hold the hidden spreads together, techniques and examples of this style are in the link below.

Bookbinding 101: Japanese Four-Hole Binding
A tutorial on specialist stab binding

More complex stab binding allows for not only the concealment of folded spreads, but also allows me to incorperate small designs or patterns on the actual page ends themselves, this could reflect the types of cities (E.g. cities and desire, thin cities) in the stab bound pattern. Or this could be used to inject a flash of colour to the book, given the rest of the book is in blacks, grays and whites, the binding string could use bright and attrctive colours that reflect the emotion of desire, or of thought as well as functioning to make the book stand out on a shelf more. This binding could be torn with a blade to gain access to the folded pages, or could be untied to preserve the string for aethetic appeal.

As for the content within the concealed pages, I used large 27mm margins in order to echo the looks of the old manuscripts that I have previously analysesd as well as to make the text appear smaller, more concentrated on the page, attempting to reflect the large cities that are bordered by massive, expansive deserts seperating them. I think that the justified text used helps support this by having the text appear more ordered as well as showing more consideration and care, justified text is something that looks simple and create on the surface, when infact the elimination of rivers is often more work than simply using an align left/right setting.

I think I have done a professional job in setting the text, empty space is utilised and I have not felt the need to overfill the page, while I think I could include the “type fall” effect to the empty space within the margins, I think that the empty space surrounding the text actually says more than if i were to fill the space with hardly visible floating letterforms.

Atlas Spread

The entire chapter conent quite easily fits onto one of these large atlas spreads due to it’s large format size of 500x320mm. This meant that careful consideration of space and ration needed to be considered, I think this worked well, the point size is 6pt and so scaling up is being considered, while the titles and pull out quotes are still substantially larger as to attract more attention and direct the heirarchy without taking away too much attention from the overall image and map feel of the large spread.

I have attempted to replicate the small blocks of text with large spaces between effect seen in the utilisation of large margins in the previous spreads by the continued use of full jusitified text, this is once again a timely process to carefully and meticulously build each paragrahp of an approratie size as to ensure rivers are eliminated, but yet the line length remains professiona and engaging, this then had to be balance with the fact that a strong heriarchy had to be input in both each individual city and within the large spread overall, to help direct the heirarchy as well as demonstraight that while these cities exist as seperate entities, there are key elements that link them together by incorperating small japanese dots that draw from several cities, breaking up to paragraphs or linking one paragraph to another.

Creating a spread of this size without much of the needed timeframe for prototyping and print testing was challenging, I had to constantly remind myself of the size of the spread, and as a result I think this spread has a sense of impact and is engaging to look at as a whole, but still has delicate details and layering when each cities typography is looked at individually.

Map Wheel

mini-wheel-1Download

The map wheel has been ammended massively from my origional thoughts, origionally to be the size 400x400mm it now only contains the names of each city and some small dummy letterforms, it has been reduced to a size of 150x150mm in order to fit into the books natural size of 160x250mm, allowing it to sit on a shelf when folded. I think The map wheel is where my improvements lie, the font needs to be ammended as I think that it is too bold to exist on such a small document, however I only have access to the two weights used, a medium weight would allow a balance of impact and delicacy, the full weights are available for purchase (although they price at $400), for clarity, here is the medium weight font I would choose for the map wheel letterforms if it were availble to me within the free version of Migra Serif.

I think having a medium weight font would help bridge the gap between headings and body copy, possibly using this weight for my pull out quotes as well, as I think this would allow my designs to be more interseting and dynamic with the inclusion of a third weight.

The small coordinates are placed nicely next to the titles, I think the wheel would need to be a larger size for these to be improved as a greater contrast between the size of the coordinates and the city names would make for more of a discovery when they are made sense to the reader, however If the wheel is made any larger, it is then not able to fit within the book itself and would need to exist as an individual entity, I think this would discupt the immersion and inclsusivity that has been created by having everything within one small book and so would require further thought if change is needed.

Overall I think that these spreads show a clear concept, as well as clear potential within the colour scheme and formatting, however they will need further thought and refinment, as well as multiple chapters being created as to allow me to contrast and compare the different visual language as well as more experimentation and prototyping into the binding of the book, there is potential to use a plethora of techniques and this will need to be figured out if my work is to be submitted to ISTD.

Layouts & Alternatives

With the introduction of a circular format, I have experimented with different layouts, all of which attempt to make this circular format work for me, as opposed to seeing it as an obstacle. I am unable to create these slices in InDesign, but I can draw out the slices using the pen tool and then input body copy and titles accordingly. I think these layouts show a variety of styles, pace and hierarchy while still containing some key themes throughout, the existence of body and letterforms on the border between two rings is done on purpose in order to more interestingly distort the text when the rings are not spun correctly, initial thoughts for my final outcome to ISTD would be to create strange letterforms with the half and half sections that would be resting on each side of the ring and then photograph the “homemade” letterforms that form as the different wheels are spun round. I like this idea as it makes for a more organic and interesting reading and interactive experience.

I took my rough digital sketches and then input them into InDesign where I met with difficult challenges that made my body copy paragraphs lack both impact and immersion.

Due to InDesign need to create documents in a rectangular format, the circular support tools are lacklustre, therefore the body copy paragraphs here are appearing less dynamic than in the sketches previously. There exists a type on a line tool, where you can draw a circle and type a single line over it, however there is no option to type more than that one single line onto the path, and so to create the circular paragraphs seen in my rougher digital sketches I would then have to create each paragraph, line by line, this would not be achievable within my timeframe and would also make experimentation much more difficult and much less free flowing, I do not think this would be a good idea to do due to the fact that I could spend my remaining time available on this project experimenting more elsewhere, with more ambitious formats and layouts, as opposed to simply create small amounts of copy paragraphs that would curve with the discs.

Moving forward I think it’s best to leave these copy paragraphs in the square and rectangular shapes that are currently in, then proceed to move on with more varied ideas, if this proves to be my most successful idea, I will then take the time to create each paragraph line by line for my final submission.

After assembling the separate layouts into one full size map, I find the rings to be very heavy and flush with text, however the cities do begin to build their own pictures and make imagery within themselves, allowing the quite close together to still exist separately, while the heavy amount of text will still make for some interesting combinations before the rings have been correctly assembled, this enhances the feelings of discovery as well as illustrating each cities characteristics and idiosyncrasies.

Combining Concepts

3-strong-approachesDownload

After my research, brainstorming and ideation I have three strong concepts which contain visual language within each of the ideas, I need to choose one to push forward, my idea can be one from the three presented here, or could be an amalgamation of several of the more successful elements from each concept.

At this point I have clear criteria as to what would make a succesful outcome, this is gathered from both my primary and secondary research of invisivlw ciites itself and from researching and examining previous successful entries to ISTD from previous years. My criteria include:

Must slow down the reading speed in order to allow for reflection of each city

Should use an unconventional format, different from that of a regular book, appropraitley refelcting calvinos wiriting style

Must reflect at least some of the themes present within the book, these include;

Venice

Cycles

Decay

Perception

Deception

Discovery

Approach 1: A letter to the Khan

My first approach uses the books format to it’s advantage, the cities act as indivdual episodes of an anthropology, with little to no connecting factors inbetween cities, given this in combinatinon with the clear conversation happening between chapters amongst Marco Polo and Kublai Khan my first approach leans into this by using a letter format to present individual cities, with one city per page. The visuals of a letter can be echoed throughout the book, with a cover that looks similar to the front of an envelope and a back that could potentially be opened similar to a letter, with wax seal and lifting flap with the content within, allowing the reader to feel more involved and invested with the book, treasuring each city as an indivdual letter, rather than one page within a larger book.

I found myself particularly intersested within body copy manipulation, particularly from my research and deconstruction of KAPOW! and my research into previous ISTD entries, copy manipulation is something that I have not considered in previous projects and needs to be done elegantly and carefully in order to perserve the documents heirachy, but still be interesting and engaging to read. Within my document I have taken a traditionally square paragraph and kept its normal boundaries, but then within the paragraph there are expressive manipulations that reflect the text of which is being manipulated. While this is interesting to look at and the manipulation are quite subtle, at the moment they are simply illustrating the text itself, which may not quite be sophisticated enough to achieve and ISTD, for a first draft this shows a clear idea, but the end execution should be more thought about and use differing point size or use different rotations other than right angles or 45 degrees. I think this would look interesting due to the refined and sharp corners of the outer paragraph and the perfect and carefully constructed serifs of my chosen typeface will contrast with the almost randomly rotated paragraphs, this would allow me to evoke different emotions and wildly change the hierarchy at unexpected points, without being too illustrative in my text composition.

Inspecting futher into the letter format, the actual date of this book is back from the 14th Century, during the mongols reign and Marco Polo himself. An interesting point of research, particularly within this concept is the mongol “Yam” post system

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/postal-systems-in-the-premodern-islamic-world/mongol-yam-and-its-legacy/090AB53E36D25FBB7089C4ACA28F43A1

A very important element in the estrablishing of the expansive mongol empire, praised for it’s efficency. This point could be echoed within my format, researching into how this post system worked and then reflecting this within my visual language could make for an appropraite and consistently themed visual language, that has a purpose for it’s look, beyond simply existing to look aesthetically pleasing.

Taking more inspiration from the time period of the Marco Polo, where manuscripts were commonplace, these manuscripts are flush with elegance and gold foil letterforms, ancient dropcaps (petrus lombardus) that themed the entire page and often included small illustrations that would interact with the first letterform of the manuscript, this has been quickly drafted within my three approaches PDFs, using themed Lombardus for the start of each city would allow me to engage in large amounts of interesting experimentation in order to achieve a range of outcomes, the letterforms themselves could reflect the characteristics and idiosybcracies of the cities, as well as expand out to form a border of the text as shown in the slideshow below. I think that having a border to the paragraph could allow for greater experimentation of body copy manipulation, forming some kind of structure would allow me to layer the heirarchy better as well as allow me to include colourful and visually interesting fleurons as a garnish to the informative and engaging body copy that it contains.

While my colour scheme is black, red and white in this example, I think that having each letter as its own document would allow open up and opportunity to have a contrasting and different colour scheme for each city, this would perhaps allow me to utilise colour theory to better reflect the emotions and characterisitcs present within each city, or even simply having one colour scheme per chapter, e.g Navy and Slate Gray for Thin Cities & Red, green for Cities & Desire.

I think this approach has lots of potnential, but at the moment I am not sure how I would achieve a large format specification, given the small amount of body copy per city (Around half a side of A5). If I would then like to have one city per large format spread, this would need to be further explored if I choose to push this concept further.

Approach 2: Wheel Based Discovery Map

My second concept takes the format experimentation much further by having the spreads as a large circle with smaller circles placed ontop, this would allow for the body copy and headings to be re orientated at the viewers will, I think this as a concept shows huge potnential, dummy paragraphs and headings could sit on the borders of the circles as well as the actual copy, I think this gives a strong sense of discovery as well as perception, the actual shape of the page echoes the theme of cycles present within the book. The circles could exist as it’s own document or could be folded into a larger, rectangle book as shown in the top left, This allows the book to sit on a shelf comfortably, but would then have to be of a very large size in order to reach the brief requirements. I think that the idea of layering is also a strong concept, while I am currently thinkng of combining the layering concept within a circular format I think that having many translucent pages laying ontop of each other, each with their own small fragment of information, but when the reader lays them ontop of eachother in the correct orientation allows the reader to discover the full range of information of multiple cities, having the pages acting as only parts of a whole, challenging the traditional way of reading books as well as hopefully forcing the reader to read slower and prompting reflection after discovering each city/chapter.

Approach 3: Mind Atlas

My third concepts plays more on the theme of discovery again and more effectivly slows the reader down in their reading speed.

The basis for this concept is using a constrasting colour scheme (In this example I have used red and blue, but this could be any combination of colours) the copy and headings can then be placed on the page with 50% opacity, the reader, armed with a coloured acetate lens can then scroll through the page, with double stacked, illegible body copy with the naked eye, can then use the different coloured lenses to examine individual copy paragraphs in isolation allows the reader to literally discover each city for themselves.

My research into different designers using this techniques shows that it can be done and is easily achieved, additional visual language for this approach engages the idea that these cities do not exist, and are created from mere human perception and imagination, they only exist for the duration that the page is turned, linking this into a real life example, I came up with the conceppt for an “Atlas of the mind”. Prompted by the quote “Cities Constructed not of Steel, but of Thought”. I examined the visuals assosiated with the altas and the visuals associated with the mind and discovered that highlighted roads within an atlas are extremly similar visually to the neurons located within a persons brain, these are often used to store and recollect memory and so were perfect for experimentation.

Taking the Center of the neuron as the start of the readers journey and the outtravelling extremities as the reader travelling out and discovering the different cities present on the page, within my inital examples here I have illustrated the neuron visual and placed the different cities beside the “Arms” of the neuron, having the cities appear as destinations the reader reaches along the journey that “invisible cities” takes you on.

My inital thoughts for the pakaging would be taking a traditional fold out map, made with thin and easily folded paper to contain all the copy and headings for each chapter, one large map would fold out to a size of 500x500mm and contain five cities per map, exactly one chapter. These maps, when folded would be of a reduced size and then as a result could fit into a roughly traditionally sized box of pakage that is then branded with the cover, and introduction on the backside of the box, acting as a blurb, these maps would be loose within the box, alongisde the acetate lenses. By not having a concrete order to the maps and having them loose within the box it allows the reader to take their own approach to the reading of Invisible Cities. Allowing for the concept of perception and discovery to be prevelent throughout.

While traditonally I would include one chapter per map, given my acetate styled approach, I could indluce two chapters per map, having each city stacked ontop of each other this would create a confusing heirarchy to begin with, hopefully prompting the reader to realise they must utilise the acetate lens in order to gain access to the page infront of them.

I think this is my strongest concept to date, it still has lots of room of experimentation and further development, some aspects of approach one and two could be incorperated into my third approach. I think that key considerations here are my format, I think that simply putting my maps in a box is not very innovative and needs further consdieration, this format is fine and is funcitonal but i think there is so much more that can be done here and feel that, at the moment I am missing out on an interesting and innovative design opportunity.

Three Initials Developed Concepts

My three concepts for my recent tutorial can be summerised as;

Concept 1: UV Exposure creating ephemeral cities

Concept 2: Decaying through overstimulation

Concept 3: Illusions/Atlas

Using Uv exposure to create ephermeral cities

Given that these cities described within the book only exist in the minds of those that read through “invisible Cities” I think it is important to consider creating a work that exists in a temporary space or goes through some sort of distorition process over time, the most effective way I can think to execute this idea at this stage is by using underexposed UV sensitive paper and then pakaging my publication within a light proof bag, leaving the paper untreated will allow for the type on the page to exist for a short amount of time, before dissapearing and fading similar to how a persons memory operates.

While i think this idea is fresh and interesting i have many inital concerns. The actual execution of this technique may not work, I think underexposing would make the work either too simple to be able to be read in time, or to underexposed to be able to be read at all. It is not possible to time which areas of the page are exposed first without the aid of a completley lightproof stencil and so thhe visuals of the page could not be appreciated, this idea in theory is good but I think that the actual real life execution of it simply does not have enough longevity.

Where I think this idea could be used is within the front cover, the cover could be very minimal as to be read easily before the expossure takes place, as well as being on the front of the book so the reader would be able to apprerciate the full extent of the exposure effect. I think the use of stencils could fix the problem, however I would need to be able to print on the UV paper without the use of any light at all, my inital ideas to do this would be using spray paint and a stencil to create simple text, this text could be painted the same colour as the paper stock so a reveal effect could be created. I think that revealing something possible using this technique, but hiding text is much more difficult and will likely lack visual impact or the effect will be missed entirely, given that the exposure time for paper stock is only a few seconds to a few minutes so if the book is opened but then placed on a shelf, it will expose withhout and audience to witness it.

An example of using spray paint to reveal ink that exists as exactly the same colour and the un exposed paper stock is shown below.

Slideshow hererererere

Concept 2: Decay Through Overstimulation

Concept 3: Illusions/Atlas