Yearbook Magazine

Andrew NangpiSelf-Initated Project

Graphic Product Innvation

My Brief:My brief was to create a publication to commemorate the terminating course of (BA) Graphic Product Innovation (my course). The aim of the publication is to document the course’s existence and by doing so, it will always be remembered by the students on the course and also to a way to get it noticed by people.

This is my self-initiated brief and what inspired me to do it is that as a student in a course that hasn’t been round for long and it also plays a significant period part of student life. We have grown a bond together and got to know one another to become more than friends and better yet a new set of friends that will always be known and helpful in the future. Time does fly when your at uni, so the publication is a way to keep those memories documented and always treasure the three years of a students life.

Why do a publication on your course?

(BA) Graphic Product Innovation has not been around for long. In fact it has only been around for three generations of students: me being in the second generation of the course. The course was new and it was definitely a roller coaster to remember. Due to the cut backs the university are making, GPI unfortunately was one of the courses they decided to get rid off. We shared a lot of valuable moment doing work, in the studio and going to trip etc. that it would be nice to not forget about what happened over the course of the three years. To a student those years are maybe the last years of their youths, last time to party and the last time of freedom and assurance that knowing that they have to go back to Uni in October. It very unfair that the legacy of the course cannot be carried on, hence with this publication it can mean more valuable to the students since no one will know it had existed.

What is Graphic Product Innovation?

The title of the course may be confusing; after all it contains two words, which conjure up very different and possibly separate activities.

‘Graphic’ implies graphic design with connotations of print or digital based communication while the term ‘product’ conjures up images of artefact design.

‘Innovation’ is defined in the Cox Review of Creativity in Business as "the successful exploitation of new ideas" and "the process that carries them through to new products, new services" this course will give you the tools necessary to become an innovator that understands the changes that have taken place within the design industry.

This interdisciplinary course allows students to focus on ideas and design principles that can be applied across and outside of traditional design disciplines. The aim is to understand how design thinking can be used to analyse existing situations, communicate with a user and solve problems.

Source: www.bagpi.co.ukCourse Director: Sylvia Grimaldi

Class of 2009 - 2012 (BA) GPi

Obtaining Content

Obtaining content is the important part of the publication. Without no content, I am unable to play around with them on the page. I first of starting what I wanted as the content of the magazine, and since it was about the course, I wanted to ask question about how they felt about the course and describing it in general. I sent out quite a long questionnaire to get this information and its quite long so that I can play around, by picking and choosing what to include for their page.

After obtaining the right amount of content needed, which were images of their projects, themselves and the answers from the questionnaire, I was ready to paly around with the layouts and where to place things on the page.

Initially what I had in mind was a structure that has a section for every student in the class and showcasing their favorite work. With that, I can start to play around make it as appealing as I could.

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Initially, this is how the spreads looked like at the beginning. I had intentions of making them very plain and simple very clear and very calm to read. I didn’t have the intentions of reading it like a magazine however; it turned very open as it wouldn’t be nice to read because there is a large body of text. The quotes that are used should be more interesting and striking so the page looks busy. I did have a lot of content to play around with which mean I had to consider the layout more. I wasn’t as simple as placing them simple like this on the page.

Initial Layout Designs

Playing around with colourBusy

Magazine Layout Influences.

Included more images Playing around with the Type

Because I felt as though my spreads were looking too plain, I decided to look at magazines in particular car magazines because they seem to have striking qualities to make you want to read the page. They play around with a lot of typography, colour, include much more images and also pick out some

very important lines and create them as headings to keep the reader engaged. That way they make the page look much more full and alive rather than composed and simple. At the same time it is a course that I am documenting so it is bound to have a great amount of content.

Developed Layout Designs

After countless time of changing and altering the layout and concentrating on the attention to detail, the pages I have designed are much more playful, in your face, and much more appealing to read. Rather than the body of text even if people do skim past the pages, the shapes with text and the massive lettering can capture the readers’ eye.

For the student’s project page, I made it clear and simple to read for the images to take control of the page. Their project are the centre of the page with a small piece of text describing the project and on top with their names and the name of the project so the reader doesn’t get confused. On the other page shows spreads of some other pages I added, such as some photographic memories to let the reader get an insight of what went down in the course and to also make it much more sentimental to the student of the GPI class.

ConclusionIn conclusion, the publication took successfully took form of a playful magazine. At the beginning I did have intentions and visualization of how the book would look like but it changed over the numerous times I kept playing around with the layout.

Initially It took me through stages of how to publish a magazine, how to structure and time manage one. However, a prototype of the magazine is needed to visualize how my spreads would look on print. i.e. colour, quality of images etc. I got to play around with the colour, the typography, the experiment on the type of letter spacing and sizing that would suit best on a particular sized page which was the creative part of the process. I wanted to show that I am capable of handling any amount of content and trying to create it in a way where it can be appealing to reader.

I designed a book that would be valuable to a GPI student and if anyone were to read it they can get an insight of what happens and information of the students that took part in the course. It will always be remember on this book, which makes it special to the students of GPI.

Final Book Published

The publication I designed consists of nearly 100 spreads, and about 50 pages in total. The whole documents a sense of journey to get a feel what its like being a graphic product innovation, what its like being a designer in the course and more importantly to show what GPI is all about. It shoes student profiles, person responses work from nearly all the three years and also personal memory pages. By doing this, people can understand that our course was actually fun and enjoyable.

End.