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The Brief
Use typography to create a series cover design for Faber Film’s range of books that reflects Faber and Faber’s long history of typographic excellence.
Considerations
- The Faber Film range of books covers a variety of genres and includes screenplays, technique guides and film history books.
- Faber and Faber will be offering this range for sale through the ‘Print on Demand’ service (PoD), which is exactly as it suggests, copies are made available on the basis of a single customer order.
- The cover designs should reflect the already high profile of Faber’s film list attracting both film enthusiasts and professionals alike.
I seem to have a natural affinity with book cover design. There is something about it that attracts, possibly the chance of the interplay between narrative and visual design. I originally wanted to tackle this brief using typographic visual puns playing on the title or subject matter of the book. However, on further investigating the existing faber Fiction Print on Demand series I began to deviate from this course and finally, perhaps, confuse myself. This existing series uses generative processing to create unique covers from a palette of decorative strokes. It also utilises a custom made typeface, a kind of modified version of the faber logotype. I wasn't sure whether the accompanying documents appear to allude to this a useful model for this brief. Anyway, I decided to experiment with film symbols that could be processed in a similar way. Although perhaps a little hackneyed, the great variety of shapes found in film spools was most interesting. Playing with these silhouette shapes began to produce some pleasing clean designs but in what way were they typographic solutions? There was little time for me to design a new and sympathetic typeface to support the designs, even if I knew how to begin to do that - which I don't really. Adam also opened a further field of ideas by skimming over what I'd achieved so far, suggesting that I should look more into processing and the language associated with film. I did experiment with this but the results seemed old hat, not very inspired and missing the mark for this genre of book.
The design has obviously gone through many incarnations and my personal favourite is the final shown here. I like the balance between the scale of the various elements and the way in which some advance and retreat according to their colour values. I think the overall effect is fresh, organic and clean. The idea is to produce each category of film book in a different colour theme. For the time being though I am putting this to rest while I concentrate on areas where ideas are flowing a little more successfully. My prefered design does not fulfil the typographic element of the brief and I see it as futile to continue at the moment.
Organised the printing of the cards through I Will Print of Telford following Neil's decision to go with the original burgundy/pink colour scheme. The print run was incredibly cheap and the results OK. I had asked for the cards to be printed matt on board with a slightly rough tooth. The results are far from glossy, and have a slight texture to them, but the ink finish gives the product a satin sheen which is less than ideal. These are not artisan printers and I guess that you get what you pay for.
Neil said that they went down pretty well when given out to fellow students, although I always get the impression that he's kindly sheltering me from true opinion. I like the concept of the little tea bag card but I feel it's a bit corporate in it's execution. If time had allowed I would have liked to develop the design to make it a little more dynamic or stylised, but time has always been of the essence with this project. The supporting posters and web banners suffer even more so in this respect and I am not proud of them at all. They fail dismally to arrest the attention of passing traffic - dull, dull, dull! I'm left doubting my stamina to truly stick with a project and explore a variety of potential avenues. Sometimes I think that I'm glad to conclude a brief, see the back of it, and move on. If this is true, I have to resist because it leaves me with a product I'm not entirely comfortable with. That's no way towards a pleasing portfolio of work.
On a positive note, I did a terrific amount of 'running and carrying' on this little project, including inserting over one hundred tea bags into cards. I have without doubt been reliable and pulled my weight.
Having scanned through the vast array of briefs on offer I had initial interest in PJ Smoothies, National Portrait Gallery and Homebase. Homebase relates to packaging and is quite complex in its demands while the other two briefs appear much simpler in their outcomes. It concerns me that I feel consistently attracted towards the more straight forward print-based projects. I view some of the others, say film, digital or animation oriented briefs, and do not feel confident enough to tackle them because I do not have the technical nous to conceive ways forward. I know all the received wisdom states that I should not adopt this attitude, but that is how it is for me.
Anyway I figured that these projects offered a strong platform on which to practise some of the ideas that have developed in my dissertation. However, having spent some time researching and working through a few ideas I am beginning to change my mind. Although I have given each brief time to incubate, and been able to identify and manipulate key symbols towards witty ends, the results, in my eyes, are less than convincing. The problem is that the results appear contrived, confuse the message somewhat and lack imagination in their execution. I know that it is not healthy to always pursue the big idea, that quantity of ideas is more important, especially in the first instance, but even so I see little to commend any of the number of clumsy attempts so far. I feel frustrated that the key idea will not come and am now tempted to consider some of the other briefs on offer. I know that this is tantamount to conceding defeat and would not be possible in the 'real' world but this is college and the work should be fun and rewarding so I don't have too many qualms about moving on if the ideas won't co-operate.
