Open publication - Free publishing
Evaluation:
The Yearbook brief has definitely been the most challenging brief to date. The brief began with myself, Amy Leigh, Natalie Jackson, Nick Morgan and Stephanie Ogelsby. Steph left the group within a few days, but this didn’t make too much difference. Amy and Natalie were the original group members so we were briefed on their concept and we helped to develop the concept further ready for the first pitch to the Fine Art team.
It was clear from the beginning they were not happy with this concept – I must admit it was quite sexualised. Looking at the final design, I can see just how far away we were.
Amy took on the role as the project leader, which became difficult at times due to not being able to get hold of her, or not turning up sometimes. The next concept was underway, I was never fully behind it, as it seemed too literal, but I grew to like the idea. The group were having problems at this stage, as we had been delegated jobs, which left us doing the harder work while Amy was responsible for the flyer. As I am new to publication design I found it very daunting to all of a sudden be responsible for a quarter of the layouts.
We agreed on a grid and begun working to this to come up with layouts, it was tricky as Fine Art were supposed to supply us with statements and images, but were slow in doing so, it became tedious for me to have to mention at every meeting we were still awaiting images.
At this time we were still developing the second concept we called the ‘glitch’, it was a glitched students image for the front cover. We were struggling in our weekly meetings as Fine Art didn’t appear to be happy about the ideas we were coming up with which made tensions rise between the groups.
Amy left the group and all of a sudden the concept dilemma didn’t matter any more. Down to just four people, we voted we wanted to come up with something new, something that was ours, rather than the idea of one person. We still carried on part of the concept which was the stamp. We had to work quickly as time was ticking. While I was in charge of images I realised over half of the images didn’t match the spec. I did state at the start to send over 300 dpi TIFFs but this was ignored and overruled by my group – which lead to problems with images later on.
We finally had a concept that we liked and Fine Art liked and this really uplifted the spirit of the group, and it became more enjoyable. It made Fine Art more cheerier which is always helpful.
I definitely learnt to bite my tongue in this brief, we all did. Towards the end Sheila was extremely rude to us, and refused to see us when we desperately needed her to sign the design off to avoid missing our deadline.
We are all happy with the publication, although I wish I had a more design role in the end stages, as I was more admin, and sorting out images. I was involved more with the beginning design development, but I guess not everyone can do the design.
After Amy left, there wasn’t a real sense of leadership from anyone, Natalie was the main point of contact and organised meetings but she didn’t lead. It was more of an equal effort, which appeared to work for us.
