Exercise 5: Reflective practice

Begin by reflecting upon the sorts of projects, exercises and assignments you have enjoyed most:

* Do you enjoy the creative freedom of working with your own text and images from scratch, or do you prefer working with text and images that are provided to you?
* Do you prefer working in a ‘hands-on’ way, physically manipulating paper and materials, or do you prefer working digitally, laying out the pages and page elements on-screen? Which of the subjects covered in this unit have interested and engaged you?

Below are some pointers of what has been covered in this unit, as a reminder. They are very broad areas, so as you’re reading through the list, reflect upon the more extensive content of each. Consider what aspects you enjoyed the most (and the least!) and make notes in your learning log.

Contextualisation:​ Researching designs and designers
Typography:​ Principles and experimentation
Colour:​ Colour management and working with images
Paper:​ Properties and qualities
Printing and bookbinding: ​Processes – traditional, digital

Try to identify a specific topic within one of these subject areas that you are interested in and can look into with more detail. You might know immediately and instinctively what you want to pursue. You may want to know more about traditional methods of bookbinding, for example, or hand-making paper. You may be interested in the mathematical principles underpinning the Golden Mean and Fibonacci series, and how these principles apply to page layout. You may want to design your own typeface. You may want to extend and adapt one of the projects and exercises you’ve already undertaken on the course.

The focus of your interest may be quite specific. Identify it through this exercise by exploring each of your interests in turn and taking note of your resulting thoughts in your learning log.

I think I tend to enjoy working from scratch with complete creative freedom more than working with images and text that are provided. When I had to create my own zine for Assignment 1 I was plunged into this modus operandi and I embraced it and I think I created quite a strong piece of work. In fairness, I didn’t create all the images myself for the first assignment but I did choose them to create my vision, with few limitations I could work more freely and creatively.

Despite this I did enjoy Exercise 3.3 where we had to create experimental typography for a passage from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In this exercise the text was provided but we had to think laterally and approach the text with experimental typography, this was a challenge I enjoyed.

My preference for working digitally over a ‘hands-on’ approach is much clearer. When working digitally I feel much more comfortable and I can play to my strengths. An example of this would be Assignment 2 where I created covers for Robinson Crusoe. Even though I didn’t use my strength of photography I could create strong minimal illustrations which wouldn’t be as strong if I were working physically.

I had to create an altered book for Assignment 4 and it was my most disappointing output so far. I felt out of my depth and couldn’t rely on my strengths.

Contextualisation

I’ve enjoyed researching designers in this unit and have found some very interesting designers and work. I’ve also enjoyed broader research areas such as the future of the book in Exercise 1.2. In this exercise it was particularly interesting to read about transmedia. Exercise 2.3 was focused on book designers and their approaches, despite enjoying this initially I found the sheer volume of designers made this exercise become a little tedious in the end.

Typography

I enjoyed Assignment 3 where we had to make a book of good typography and bad typography. I worked quite methodically to create a book showcasing good typographic choices and conventions. I then inverted it to create bad typography, although I did worry that it looked too unprofessional.

Colour

Exercise 4.3 and 4.4 involved creating and sequencing images for Tango with Cows. This was a really fun exercise where I had to think about how to work with images and the interplay of colours. I’m quite drawn to using different colours to break up designs and symbolise themes, I tried this also in Assignment 4 but had poor results.

Paper, printing and bookbinding

Exercise 5.4 was a useful exercise where I tried different papers and could note how they changed the visual appearance and quality of certain images. Printing didn’t always achieve what I expected it to but the unpredictability was part of the fun. I have tried basic sewing bookbinding in the course but would like to explore it further if possible.