Publishing Design - Task 1

 

Week 1 -Week 7
Tai Tong En / 0363164
Publishing Design / Bachelor of  Design (Hon) in Creative Design 
Task 1: Exercises

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INSTRUCTION

LECTURES

1. Lecture 1 -Historical Format

Numerous civilizations have had a significant influence on how we record and disseminate knowledge, according to research on the historical format growth of books.

1.1 Mesopotamia Civilization (Iran-Iraq)

• According to Denise Schmandt-Besserat's research, the earliest writing system replaced counting technology.
• Bullae developed from simple and sophisticated tokens, paving the way for pictographic writing on clay tablets. 

1.2 Ancient Egyptian Civilization (Egypt)

• The only people who could read and write Hieroglyphics were Egyptian scribes, who recorded information on papyrus, a unique paper created from the pith of the papyrus plant.
  
  

1.3 Indus Valley Civilization (India-Pakistan-Afghanistan)

• One of the oldest writing systems was cuneiform, which was employed on soft clay tablets for trade, governance, and religious documents.

1.4 Han Chinese Civilization (China)

• Thin bamboo strips connected by thread were used to write early Chinese characters.
• The modern Chinese character for a book, which represents bamboo strips stitched together, developed from this practice.
• The Diamond Sutra (868 CE), the earliest printed book, was made possible by the invention of paper in 179–41 BCE.

1.5 European Civilization (Turkey & Beyond)

• In Europe, animal hide parchment took the place of papyrus and bamboo in the production of books.
• Paper's lengthy but essential westward voyage to Europe included stops in the Ottoman Empire and the Persia-Arab empires.
• Between 1400 and 1500 CE, paper became widely accessible in Europe, and in the 1860s, wood pulp was adopted.
• In the early ages, the folding format became widespread in Europe. This began with thread-stitched wooden blocks and later expanded to incorporate parchment and paper, with the latter being sewn, bound, and glued.
• Throughout the history of book forms, technological breakthroughs were frequently accompanied with innovation, opening up new possibilities and changing the trajectory of different civilizations. 

2. Lecture 2  - History of Print

2.1 Chinese Printing (2nd - 8th Century AD)

• Confucianism's six major classics were etched into stone by the Chinese Emperor in the year 175.
• To create white lettering on a black background, Confucian scholars used charcoal to rub paper on the carved slabs.

2.2 Printing Korea and Japan (AD 750-768)

• A sutra is the oldest known printed document in the world, and printing began in Korea in AD 750.
• In AD 768, Japan produced a million copies of a prayer or fortunate charm as part of a wide circulation operation.

2.3 The Hyakumanto Darani (One Million Pagodas & Dharani Prayers)

• A famous large-scale woodblock printing project in Japan during the same period.

2.4 The First Printed Book (AD 868)

• At the conclusion of the T'ang dynasty, the first Chinese printed book was discovered.
• The 16-foot-long scroll contains the Diamond Sutra and the earliest printed image of a Buddha on a throne in history. 
  

2.5 Chinese Publishing (10th - 11th Century)

• Chinese printers produced a wide range of writings throughout the tenth and eleventh centuries, including Buddhist and Confucian classics.
• Prior to the invention of moveable type, this required time-consuming woodblock printing. 
  

2.6 Movable Type (From the 11th Century)

• Movable type was experimented with in China but faced challenges due to the complexity of Chinese characters and the fragility of clay type.

2.7 Korean Type Foundry (c. 1380)

• To increase printing efficiency, Koreans set up a foundry to cast movable type in bronze.
• In 1443, they also developed Hangul, their own script. 
  

2.8 European Printing (AD c. 1400)

• In Europe, woodblock printing of playing cards and sacred imagery began around 1400.
• Printing became a pillar of Western civilization in the 15th century because to technological advancements in Germany.

2.9 Gutenberg and Western Printing (AD 1439 - 1457)

• Johannes Gutenberg played a crucial role in Western printing, developing the printing press and metal type.
• Innovative skills with metal and typecasting were significant.

2.10 The World's Largest Book

• A reference to the Kuthodaw pagoda in Mandalay, Myanmar, which is home to stone tablets arranged around a central golden pagoda.

3. Lecture 3 - Typo' Redux

3.1 Typography Basics

• A crucial component of graphic design, typography is essential for expression and communication.
• A solid grasp of typography is necessary for book designers to produce work that is captivating. 
  

3.2 Typo' Redux - Legibility

• For text to be readable, legibility is essential.
• Select fonts that are open and proportionate, such as sans-serif and traditional serif fonts like Garamond and Bodoni. 
  

3.3 Legibility - Special Styles

• Don't use special formatting styles excessively.
• Think about underlining and how it should be aligned.
• Make good use of all capitals and small caps.
• Use special-purpose styles with caution.
• Steer clear of shadow or outline styles and excessive text scaling. 
  

3.4 Type Size, Line Length, and Line Spacing

• Balance type size, line length, and line spacing.
• Optimal line length is around 50-65 characters.
• Too small type makes text hard to read.

3.5 Legibility - Character and Word Spacing

• As necessary, change the word and letter spacing.
• For fine-tuning, use kerneling and tracking.
• For emphasis, use italics sparingly.

3.6 Legibility - Alignment

• For readability, choose ragged right alignment and flush left alignment.
• Use caution when aligning the center.
• Consistent word spacing is appropriate for justified text.

3.7 Legibility - Paragraph Spacing and Indent

• Apply appropriate paragraph spacing to improve readability.
• Use paragraph indents for design and consistency.

3.8 Special Formatting

• Pay attention to em-dashes, en-dashes, and hyphens.
• For readability, use line breaks (shift-return).
• Steer clear of headlines with hyphens.
• Drop caps work well for special sections or new chapters.
• Make use of accurate (smart) quotes.
• Continue to lead the sidebars consistently. 
  

4. Lecture 4 - The Grid

4.1 Raster Systeme System

• Design concepts have been greatly influenced by designers such as Jan Tschichold and El Lissitsky.
• Grids are a manifestation of a professional and constructive design philosophy.
• Focuses on thinking in a straightforward, objective, practical, and mathematically beautiful manner (Muller-Brockman, 2010).

4.2 Purpose of The Grid

• The grid provides typographers, graphic designers, and other creatives with a crucial tool by segmenting space into smaller fields or compartments.
• By enabling logical and useful layouts of text, images, diagrams, and other components, it helps solve visual difficulties.
• Compact planning, intelligibility, clarity, and design orderliness are the outcomes of this. 
  

4.3. Modular of The Grid

• The grid provides flexibility and is modular.
• The grid allows designers to make a wide variety of combinations.
• Depending on the book's topic, it's critical to set boundaries when writing a book in order to preserve coherence and continuity.

4.4 Readability and Legibility

• It is the duty of designers to guarantee a flawless user experience.
• A well-done design blends in seamlessly with the background, letting the text speak gracefully and clearly.
• The grid makes reading more enjoyable by improving comprehension, retention, and engagement.

4.5 Conclusion

• Through their experiments and ideas, designers such as El Lissitsky, Jan Tschichold, Paul Renner,Moholy Nagy, and Josef Muller-Brockman have expressed their design philosophies.
• Information that is presented logically and clearly enhances comprehension and retention.
• The grid is a tool that is modular.
• Effective design lets the content take center stage while operating quietly in the background. 
  

5. Lecture 5 - Elements

5.1 Book

All publications consists of 3 major elements -

• Type
• Color
• Image

5.2 Variation

• When working with elements like text, color, and images on a page within a grid system, it's essential to avoid predictability. 
• Strive to maintain consistency across a book while introducing variations within the layout. 
• Keep some aspects fixed, such as the hang line, typeface, color, and image style, but experiment with different combinations and arrangements.
• Variation within a grid system occurs through creative use of content elements, allowing for consistent yet diverse layouts. 
• The result should be a sequence of layouts that surprise the reader at every page turn. 
• Not every page in a book must be entirely different, as you can reuse and rotate formulas. 
• The grid is used in a modular fashion to position elements logically and compositionally attractively.
• Often face challenges when first attempting to create variations within a grid system. 
• The process can be overwhelming, with numerous problems that require quick solutions. 
• To address this, exercises like the "form and movement" exercise help students develop problem-solving skills and cognitive decision-making processes.
• With practice and guidance, the elements in your book will fall into place as you discover the diverse formulas possible within your grid system.

5.3 Conclusion

• With every page turn, try to surprise the reader by avoiding predictability in your design.
• Your work will benefit greatly from the decision-making abilities you've gained from the exercises and your familiarity with the grid.
• A well-designed book should engage the reader without them even recognizing it, taking them on a subtle trip.

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Week 1 - Week 4

1. Task 1 - Exercise 1 for Task 2

1.1 Text formatting

Task 2 requires us to write a 3000 word essay on any topic we are familiar with, such as yourself, your family, your inspiration, your hometown, an experience, an idea or conviction that you hold dear, etc. It should be broken up into three chapters, with two subtexts and one pull quote in each.

 

1.2 Final Text Formatting PDF

Week 5-Week 7

2.  Task 1 - Exercise 2 - Mock-up making

2.1 Mockup - Book Size

We must make three distinct book sizes for this exercise that are smaller than A4 but larger than A5. We must measure the desired book sizes and fold the A3 paper in half.

2.2 Book Sizes

I created three different sizes of books.

• 16.5cm*21.5cm
• 17cm*23cm
• 17.6cm*25.6cm

2.3 Progression of Book

Since this is the most appropriate size for my book, I choose to make it 17 cm by 23 cm. I think it's the perfect size for my book—neither too big nor too small.

2.4 Final Book Mock-up making

Week 3

3. Task 1 - Exercise 3 - Signature Folding Systems & Zine Printing

3.1  Signature Folding Systems

WEEK 4

4. Task 1 - Exercise 4 - Classical Grid Structure

Week 5 

5. Task 1 - Exercise 5 - Determining grids

Week 6

6. Task 1- Exercise 6-Form & Movement

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REFLECTION

This semester, I experienced my first hands-on project, which involved making a book and a magazine using creative folding and cutting techniques. Initially, I was curious and excited, and the process turned out to be both fun and challenging. I discovered that practical tasks require patience and precision, as even small mistakes can lead to imperfections, requiring extra time to redo the work. The most rewarding aspect was seeing my efforts materialize into a physical book, which was different from my usual digital projects. This experience highlighted the importance of careful design decisions in achieving a satisfying final product.