Over the last couple months, being a part of the team has involved taking part in group meetings to decide things like - the name of the event, pitching ideas to the year group, invitations etc. My primary role within this, however, has been to design and print a catalogue, with Louis Byrne, featuring examples of everyones work and details to act as a 'group portfolio'.
Initial aims : To make something small and portable that visiting professionals would feel willing to pick up and take away. It had to be easy to digest and engaging - but still include an example of everyones work, their contact details and their individual interests in the creative industries.
Key problems : How do we fit and present over 50 peoples work and details in a small/portable publication, whilst still making it not so formerly laid out and simplified that it becomes non-engaging?
Design Research / Inspo :
Idea 1 : At first we planned to format the catalogue so everyone would be placed into categories representing different areas of the creative industries , namely - adult publishing, character & narrative, children's publishing, editorial & reportage, and product & retail.
At the start of the catalogue there would be a list of everyones names and corresponding contact details. Each person would then have the opportunity of a max of 3 images to put in the catalogue with the choice of 1 image in 3 dif. categories, 1 in 2 dif. categories or 2 in 1 category.
This idea, however, was not carried through as there were a number of problems came to light with formatting it in this way ie. professionals having to flick back and forth to find peoples contact details and some people not being sure/having a lot of different potential interests in the creative industries. As well as there being a lot of content to handle and design - which would be difficult both in terms of time restrictions and keeping the publication a manageable size.
Final Design:
- Every person has their own A5 space in which they could place images in a number of different formats (providing more variation).
- The people are ordered alphabetically.
- Underneath are their corresponding contact details, limited to: email, website and Instagram.
- Next to every person are coloured blocks representing which areas of the creative industries they are interested in pursuing, corresponding to a key at the bottom of each page.
- To echoe the branding and title of the event, the final publication is formatted like a map - long, thin and folded.
Submission of work:
To gather everyones work for the catalogue we made a shared google drive and sent out a document stating the guidelines for submission: using estudio, a year group email and the facebook pages and messaging groups.
Final Outcome:
- I am happy with the final outcome in terms of its formatting. I think it represents everyones work and interests to the best of our ability, whilst still keep the publication manageable.
- I wish we had got it professionally printed! Not having made a big publication like this before I forgot to put in a gutter meaning all the pages were off-registered and binding it an absolute nightmare.
- We should have left more time to send it off to a professional printers, but with COP so close to the Hanbury event, other work got in the way.
What I learnt/moving forward:
- I am not scared to voice my opinion within the setting of a group/collaborative project. I think this is a strength, as long as I keep it constructive.
- I really enjoyed making a publication and working within the team to put on this event. It's made me think of looking into pursuing other roles within the creative industries - such as working for an online/print publication or a gallery/event space.
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