The brief: Create two books explaining and exploring the typographic and layout principles you have researched in this section. Book 1: My Little Book of…Good Typography Using the reference material that you’ve gathered throughout the exercises and research tasks in Part Three, design a book which explores traditional ‘good practice’ in typography. What is readability and, as a designer, how can you aid it? Visually explain the typographic principles that we’ve touched on in

As a student on this course you have access to Bridgeman and Oxford Art Online image libraries, which are a wonderful resource. If you haven’t already done so, spend some time finding your way around the Bridgeman Art Library and Oxford Art Online. You can access these through your OCA/UCA library access via the OCA student website. Searching I logged onto the Bridgeman Art Library via Open University library website and found lots of images. I searched for patterns, pop art

Below is an extract from Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Using a single typeface of your choice, lay out the text in as inventive a way as possible. Experiment with the letters and words, using the typographic principles you researched in earlier exercises to significantly alter the arrangement of the text, its rhythm and readability. Think about design group Tomato’s definition of typography – ‘Sound as form’ – and how this concept might apply to your own work. U

In Exercise 3, you have to choose a typeface for the text, but how do you choose a typeface? In Notes on Book Design, Derek Birdsall describes clearly how you can choose a typeface that is appropriate for your text. Read the section ‘ on choosing a typeface ’ in the book, Notes on Book Design, and use this as an approach in Exercise 3. Notes from choosing a Typeface. While reading through Derek Birdsall's section "On choosing a typeface", I made these notes. The typeface you

This two part exercise aims to understand the relationship between typography, the grid, and the page in more depth by analysing existing layouts and creatively developing alternative ones. Both of these activities will feed into assignment three. Understanding layouts Research into book layouts that you find interesting. These could be art or design books, or others that have more complex layouts that balance images, typography and other content across multiple columns. Trac

The Golden Section, or Golden Mean, has been applied by artists and designers over the centuries to create harmonious formats for their work. In his extensive research, Tschichold discovered that many book designs were based on the Golden Section. Based on a mathematical formula, and directly linked to the Fibonacci series, the Golden Section provides a method of creating and dividing space that is a useful working framework for the book designer. Look into the golden section

Find as many examples of type as you can from a range of sources, including newspapers, magazines, flyers, leaflets, online, and printed ephemera. Broadly classify them into serif and sans-serif groups. Explore your computer to see whether you have any of the typefaces mentioned on the previous page. Find other examples on your computer that relate to these classifications. Print these off and begin to create a collection of type samples. Identify Choose five different typefa

Assignment two provides a creative opportunity to put into practice what you have learnt so far, by exploring the physicality of the book in relation to its function and working through the design process in relation to a set brief. Your brief Design the book format and cover artwork for two different versions of Daniel Defoe’s classic 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe . The publishers, Viking Press, have decided to re-release this title as a new pocket edition for readers on the mo

Following on from the discussion of George Orwell’s novel 1984, look at the covers for Margaret Atwood’s equally dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), in which a woman finds herself surviving inside a harsh American fundamentalist society, that sees women’s roles as subservient cooks, matrons, and mothers. Alternatively, you can pick a different book to respond to, but it needs to be one with more than one cover design, so avoid recently published books. Are there key c

1. Undertake a combination of library and internet research into the following designers, identifying a number of book cover designs for each. Reflect on their conceptual and/or expressive approaches to design. Write a very brief description of your selected cover designs and a brief overview of the designer - try to focus on keywords rather than long descriptions. Do this in note form, using the designer and the chosen example design to visually inform how the information ap

Further inform your understanding of paper and bookbinding by reading pages 165–180 of Alan Pipes’ chapter ‘ On Press’ available as a downloadable resource at http://www.oca-student.com/ Collect lots of different paper samples, and assemble these into a standalone book, or integrate them into your sketchbook. See this as the start of an ongoing resource that you can add to, and refer back to. Add notes to your paper sample book/sketchbook identifying the paper source, stock,

Research task: Book terminology Familiarise yourself with the terminology used in describing the anatomy of a book and write some brief notes in your learning log on how the various structural elements could be modified to reflect the book’s function. Anatomy of a book I began by sketching the various components of the book's physical structure. Anatomy of the books - terms. Board The board is made of thick cardboard which can be covered by cloth on the outside of the book. C

Identify a range of books that have fundamentally different functions in terms of how these books are engaged with - how they’re held, where they’re read, by whom, and for what purpose. Try to look at least six books, but you can extend this if you want to. The differences between these books might be determined by their genres. For example, you might look at a cookery book, a biography of a sports personality, a travel guide, a work of historical fiction, a teenage film tie-

Your first assignment asks you to create a small publication or fanzine based on your interest in books and their design. It allows you...

Based on your work from the previous exercises, think about how your designs within the context of the book. For example, visually...

There are two elements to this exercise - thinking about how you produce your publication, and making a smaller scaled down version as a...

Firstly, review your visual ideas based on from the previous exercise through a process of critical evaluation. Which ideas are you drawn...

Use one or more of the following book related sayings as a starting point to generate visual ideas and responses: ● Bookworms ● A...

Using your research into artists’ books and fanzines as a starting point, think about their physical or design qualities, and creatively...

Browse the American based Smithsonian Libraries’ Artist Book archive to identify books that you find interesting or questions the notion...