For this unit I chose Kris Sowersby as he caught my eye and I enjoyed his type radio interview. I started off by quickly glancing at his work and looking at quotes from the interview and idea of the simplicity of type’s raw state interested me. It’s just black and white space arranged on a page. Kris Sowersby also expressed how he enjoyed drawing out the typefaces to understand them better and find the subtle details. I decided early on that my colour scheme would be grayscale and he didn’t like using colours and I myself feel colour can mask bad design. So I started looking at cropping and blowing up typefaces to show more of the detail. I tried making letters out of the details as well and even tried to copy out a type face in pencil which is harder than I thought. After a critique I decided I need to highlight the subtle details not cut them up and destroy them. So I looked at how type is displayed and looked at a vast variety of type catalogues and how people show case type to look its best. So I started with my own sort of type catalogues. After another critique I decided to use the space to accentuate typefaces and zoom in and make larger abstract images so they start to become an art form in themselves. Then I needed to start arranging them on the page and how they would fit. But after another critique I was urged to go even bigger so I started to think I need more space on the page for the letters and I wanted to keep the pages simple. So I experimented with layouts and only using black and white as it reflects the simplicity of type. After another critique I needed to start thinking about format and how large I want the page to be. I also had to consider the typefaces to use. Do I use one of his, do I use serifs, but I decided to use some he talks about in his interview (Gill Sans and Futura) and some other ones that are well known. Using a mixture of serifs and sans serifs. I also decided on a larger format to give space to the letters so I based my size on baseline magazine. I created many layouts and got various feedbacks from them. But a lot of people like the black pages and with the letter going across 2 pages. After a tutorial I was advertised to look at a book by Robert Bringhurst called ‘The Element of Typographic Style. He talks about paragraphs and where not to hyphenate and some other good points about how to place type on a page. So I decided my text box on each page should be the same width and body copy is the same font throughout so there is consistency. I also decided to alternate black and white pages. I hadn’t thought about the front page of the interview so I scanned through the interview and found he talked about being ‘A Visual Magpie’. So my black and white theme seemed to fit even more. The background is the interview in block, as when experimenting with designs I tried to block the interview but it was hard to read but was visually appealing and it’s a bit different. In my final critique I got really good feedback and just needed to keep an eye on some grammar and hyphenation. There’s consistency with the layouts and it flows well and visually is appealing. Some areas are a bit tight so I needed to move some images, other than that it was all ready for print. This project has been my favourite of year one. It’s completely pushed me out of my comfort zone and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. I’ve learnt many new skills and I’ve become a competent user of in design. I’ve explored magazine design and how to create something that’s appealing but also is legible to a reader. I think I have reflected Kris Sowersby as a type face designer through the simplicity of my design as this shows how he feels about type faces in their raw state.

When it came to choosing my final layout the critiques and tutorials helped a lot. The type face I used for the body copy was Gill Sans as it was easy to read and he does refer to it in his interview. Experimenting with layouts and printing them out full size helped me determine how large the type should be to be legible with ease. I decided to use a range of typefaces some serif and some sans serif as a range. I chose letters which were interesting to look at I explored glyphs and the ampersand seemed obvious to put in. Although the serifs are more interesting Sowersby creates many sans serifs as well so a mixture seemed like the right choice. I chose a range of layouts with some letters across pages and some on only one page.  What was important was to give the type space and not have a crowded page and to make the pages balance and using the white space well. I also wanted the typefaces to take on being an art form and I think I succeeded with that as in tutorials some people didn’t recognise the letters until I told them. I chose a larger format rather than smaller as I think the letters need more space and it would look more dramatic and they start to look more like shapes rather than letters.