As an extra piece of design to help new students I decided to create a screenprinted A2 poster that could be used by all the first years to put in the studio and write down deadlines. The design of the calendar is the same as the calendar that folds out from the leaflet, with the motivational phrase 'plan now. design later.' behind the text.

I found that screenprinting at larger scale was harder than ususal and needed more pressure and ink. I am happy with some of the prints but many of them have smudges and ghosts.

I believe that the reason for this poor quality of print was the fact that the positive which I used to expose the screen was a bit blurry.

Despite this, I got a few prints which I came out well. I managed to mixed the blue ink with more binder so that it was more transparent and easier to write over the top.

To put the design in context, I have placed it by the sign in sheet and group sheets for the first years.

Alternatively it could be put up in the studio.

The design of my leaflet is aimed at design students, so I have used a bright blue to make the leaflet informal along with the sans-serif font 'ADAM'. The tri-fold leaflet format worked best for the amount of content I had as well as the ability to fold out into the A3 calendar. 

Apropriatly my layout is a 3 collumn grid to keep in theme with the number 3.

Feedabck in the crit was very positive. Everyone said that the actual design of it was very engaging and interesting. It was suggested to maybe use a lighter blue as it would be hard to write over the top and read what you have written on the calendar as seen below.

It was also suggested in the crit to change the layout of my introduction or cut it down as it seemed like a large body of text which no one would bother reading. I have addressed this by cutting out some of the writing and putting the text into  2 collumns.

As an extra to my project I would like to create large scaled calendar that could be put in the studio for the first years to use and add important information to like deadlines, group crits and hand-ins. The calendar would be editable because I will mount the calendar inside a plastic sleeve as seen below so that it can be use with a whiteboard marker. This isn't particularly needed. I could alternatively just screen print it.

If I do use a plastic sleeve around the the design, it will either need to be quite large (A2/A1) or have quite a fine liner board marker.

As you can see in this A3 mock-up my board marker takes up roughly 3 lines.

I may alternatively create a stack of A3 or A2 calendars that can be perfect bound together and perforated so that they can easily be teared off and brought home by each student.

Below are a my final layouts for studio brief 2. They have changed from my original layouts which were on a 3 column grid system, whereas these are on a 2 column grid system. I found that 2 columns   made the content much clearer, although I worry that it makes the layouts look dull. My layouts don't vary much from page to page but this consistency makes the spreads collectively easier to navigated. The reader knows that the text runs along the top and diagrams/examples a fit into the bottom section of the page.

I believe my layouts are very effective in presenting the content in a clear way. Feedback showed that the content is easy to navigate. In future I would like to try creating layouts that stand out more to a passer-by as these do not, but these layouts are intended more for a book where it is less necessary, and more important to view the content clearly.

Here are my initial layout designs that I adapted from some thumbnails. They are set to a 3 column grid at B5 format. Was not fond of them but could not tell why until I printed them out to scale.

I originally believed that my layout were clear, but quickly realised a few problems with them once I printed them out to scale. The type is too large and makes the layout quite messy.

To change this I change my layout to a 2 column grid, which looks much simpler and less cluttered which content. I also made the point size of all the type smaller and changed the title fonts to a tinned font called 'dekar' and used futura for the body text.

During the crit on our layouts it was suggested that I scaled down the title and categorised the page as seen below into 'colour', 'type' or 'layout'.

This layout is clear and functionable. It is clear that your eyes should move down the page. I worry that the layout is too dull, but it is very consistent.

To see how my design looked printed out I tested the design at A3 size. The actual design will be A2.

 The pages looked good, although I mixed up a few of the pages. The scale is good and fits well in the hand. I'm worries that the 20x20cm pages will be oddly large.

 It may be possible that I change the final design to A3 as it is easier to print more. I would like to print one for each new member of the course, which is around 50.

 As you can see below, it is a fairly good size calendar to write on but t would be nicer if there was more space.

 I began by looking into ways that I could create a leaflet that incorporated a fold out calendar. My initial idea was to create a hotdog fold, but as you when I attempted to create a mockup I found that the hotdog fold doesn't work with the amount of folds that i wanted my leaflet to have.

 In the image below you can see that the hotdog fold would not have the clear back and front that it would have with less folds.

Alternatively I could use a simple fold, but I also found issues with this as well.

 The amount of folds I would make here would cause the leaflet to not flatten well and always be opening itself up as seen below.

 This type of fold would ale cause me to have many many small pages which I didn't find suitable as the leaflet should be neat, organised and straight to the point.

 When fully folded out the 'title' or front page would be upside down which I didn't like.

I then looked at leaflets I had made in the past and found that a tri-fold would work well as the 3 vertical folds and 1 horizontal fold would divide my calendar design well without having folds where you would need to write. 

A tri-fold would make my A2 folded calendar into an almost square leaflet as seen below which seems appropriate for a the organised theme of the leaflet.

I was in waterstones the other day when i found a book which featured a slogan which i thought was brilliant and very appropriate to practising designers. "Think now. Design later."

I am thinking about putting a twist on this slogan and making the name and general message of my leaflet "Plan now. Design later".

I began designing a simple, straight forward and overall 'organised' calendar. I played with displaying my message 'Plan now. Design later' behind the calendar so that it can be a general message that can be read when not up close to the design, so that the design works on two levels: calendar and motivational poster.

When it comes to producing my design I plan on screen printing, which would mean that the coloured text in the background would be printed first, then the black text over the top.

Below are a few variations of fonts and layout experiments.

Colour-wise I felt that blue was more appropriate to appeal to a wider audience.

I wanted the text to read well from a distance, but not be the centre of attention when up close.

I will print a few variations out and get feedback with others to see if it is appropriate to experiment with the type layout or not.