11: Photography Yearbook

This afternoon Amber and Danny briefed us on the upcoming yearbook. Below are some notes from the briefing:

• Same format as last year.
• Work together in groups. No less than three people, as it's a quite extensive project. Concept, designing and production.
• Working with Jason from Evolution print, and Danny will oversea it.
• All have to pitch from Graphic Design yearbook. Other courses may need yearbooks too. 
• Graphic Design want a book. 
• Put together a powerpoint and concept of how we will carry this out..
• Work with spine in many different ways.
• Do not worry about budget at this stage.
• You to you as a yearbook team to gather photographs and content. Send Hi Res work, bio etc.
• One week. So at this stage it's about concept.
• Try stay away from last years.
• Not working with a square format, unless its a really good idea. Hard to design for.
• Give thought to layout, different types of work to showcase. How much space given to each person.
• Short powerpoint, but also something that can be printed out. 
• Potentially think about how it could work for the end of year show. In terms of navigation too.
• Think about wraps, spines etc.
• Does it have to have a spine? 
• Evolution are up for doing something unusual.
• Consistency, but let everyones individually run through too.
• How do you order the content? Alphabetical, discipline etc.

A key point I remember from yesterdays briefing was 'consistency, but portraying individually' - and I think this very important. We are all so different and this needs to be portrayed. It's just a matter of finding a concept that will let us find a nice balance of the two.

As Joe is currently on placement, we were not able to sit down and properly discuss this project at any length. So this evening we decided to have a group conversation over Skype discussing a few ideas and key points. Below are a few points that were mentioned during this chat:

• Progression - Images based on our progress through the three years. Show how we have developed.
• Offcuts - Mash up of work done throughout the course. Showing design process too as well as the finished results.
• Custom Typeface - Something that could be transferred to the end of year show too.
• A guy Joe is currently working with said last years exhibition lacked personality and was just style - this is something we definitely need to consider for the yearbook too.
• Following this Joe quickly mocked up a layout that could work for the mash up of images showing progression. The images could go left to right chronologically.

• Need to push different styles and variety of outcomes. We have a diverse year and all with individual strengths. 
• Using portraits to demonstrate this too. Images of everyone in the year will let personality speak visually too through their attitude and choice of clothing. However some people may not want to be photographed. 
• It will all people to put a face to the name, enabling people to approach someone knowing who they are.
• Allowing everyone in the class contribute to the book in some way that doesn't affect consistency.
• Everyone could be represented by an object.
• Distorting the images as opposed to a classic portrait. Doesn't have to be serious, shows personality that way.
• Last years book was a decent size.
• Do we include bios? or get tutors to write a short bio, or possibly peers writing about peers. Something to sum them up. Its much more difficult to sum yourself up.
• How do we gather images, some people may not have appropriate images for the yearbook.
• Could take a day to photograph everyone's work, just a hassle getting everyone to bring in old work etc. We would also have to consider how digital work is to be displayed.
• Photograph everyone's work together and make a poster from it too. Or possibly individually.
• Could photograph the back of people instead of faces, would still be instantly recognisable. or cropped significant features.
• Joe's busy this weekend, so myself Sam and Ewan can meet up and brainstorm concepts further. 
• Maybe use a questionnaire to gather a summary of our peers.
• For personality, I think we should use the sheets we filled out at interview stage with questions such as tea or coffee.
• Maybe dressing up for the yearbook? adding humour too.
• 52 people in our class including Amber - '52 Characters' of the alphabet upper and lowercase. Combination of personality and typeface.
• Mini interview/questions in the yearbook to show personality. Such as last album you listened to etc. If an employer was to look through a yearbook and noticed a few people that impressed, these sorts of questions could be used to gather a better sense of personality and whether they would be appropriate for their studio. Music, interest and hobbies all play a factor in this I believe. 
• Tea or Coffee etc. Or Hates... Loves...

Following our chat on Skype, we met up as a group today to quickly discussion where we were in terms or concept. But also to speak in person for the first time as explaining ideas is much more efficient this way. Below are some notes from this chat:

• Sleeve on book - Or potentially not even a book.
• Think about the spine.
• The past three years have just been books. Lets thinks about something different. Evolution print also seem up for doing something different.
• Stefan Sagemeister book
• Sleeve could have the dots of location prior to Leeds college of art. All dots coming together to produce this work, in the form of a yearbook.
• Reflection and location ideas are two different ones. I wouldn't try combine the two. If we could find common ground maybe...
• Offcuts are interesting but no way 51 people are all going to like the same thing.
• If we transfer these dots into the book itself, we don't know where they will be placed and we want to keep a consistent layout. 
• Having said that it could just be an overlay. But we don't want to get too conceptual and have something that looks ugly.
• We like the idea of location, we all have different background and now we are here, this is what we have produced. Also would work well for the end of year show. 'We are here' - 'You are here' etc.
• How are we going to categorise people? If we do the location option could we do it by regions? Does previous location have any influence on current work? Interesting to see.
• Everyone has found themselves on this course. We wanted to come here, could have gone anywhere but chose to study here.
• Could the dots be colour coded in some way to show what type of work that student does or is interested in?
• Dots can relate to end of year show, wayfinding etc.
• 52 characters – a play on type and personality is very interesting. Something we should definitley explore.
• But if every person is allocated a letter it will not look consistent. Just really random.
• Conceptually in the 52 characters is great, as it's relevant to graphic design and personality which is what we are trying to push. Perfect but the visual aspect of it is tricky. I don't want to compromise on the design and visual side of things to accommodate for this concept. 
• Page number with characters instead of numbers?
• The location concept would work for any course, I rather have a concept that would be specific to our course.
• We could incorporate personality by using  a tool or something that each of us have had for the duration of the course. Or just something personal to us. Like a T-shirt you bought in first year, or trainers, a pencil etc. All these objects shot together could be interesting. 

We met up as a group again today to discuss the yearbook project. We decided that we should maybe take a step back and ignore concepts for the moment. We have a few good ideas floating about, but no real direction.

Below are some notes from our discussion:

• Bio or Manifesto? Uniform format?
• What type of contact details? How do we keep it current? But then business cards haven't the same situations, so we shouldn't worry about that too much.
• Need to incorporate personality some how. Maybe keeping it light hearted.
• If possible, use the question sheet we filled our during our interview. Nice way to reflect. Could answer them again, and show the difference from three years ago.
• If we cant get hold of those sheets, the ask similar questions again. Such as tea or coffee etc? Employers often look for personal they can work with and fit into their studio in addition to the talent. Everyone on our course has ability, but our personality sets us apart.
• Obviously you cannot judge that from tea or coffee, but similar questions could work. But this is something we discuss at a later stage. We could make it work for most concepts. 
• Featured in, Exhibitions etc.
• Need pages to break up the content. A lot of work to digest.
• One question, the whole class answers. Presented in a grid, or possible even info graphics.
• If we go with the location theme, we could incorporate infographics based on demographics too, which could be interesting.

Me and Priyesh had a chat about ideas and concepts. Here is some notes from our chat:

• Haven't thought about the reflection idea much. But that could work well for the show, we could generate some really nice visuals.
• It's really literal.
• Use mirror board in the yearbook. Using mirror text on the front. But that would most probably look like 12|51 as opposed to 15|5.
• Maybe in between spread, but wouldn't be very practical really.
• Could be called 'Looking Back' or 'On Reflection'. We could still us mirrors and stuff, but the main objective is reflecting on our time here.
• If we think about how the yearbook and show link in together, it would be good. Don't want too many concepts all over the place.
• We are here. Made it through the course, and this is what we have achieved.
• We are here, draws attention to us. Who are we?
• We all are ready to be employed, so could be a message to employers. Best designs graduates... we are here.
• People have come to the show to see our work, and now they have found us. We are here. Directions, way finding etc.
• Could be most interesting
• Signing in sheet. Its something we have been using for three years. It has been with us for three years.
• Personal.
• Nothing more personal than our signature. But might not be safe to have our actual signature up. So possibly an adaptation on everyones signature. That they have done.
• Some people might not want this exposure.
• No one will know it's not their actual signature.
• 51 statements, and fill in the blanks.
• Chalkboard wall
• Enrolled three years, and now we are signing out.
• Altering a generic statement.
• Checking out sheet, plans after uni?
• The dots could be just be on the outside, they don't have to be within the book.
• If they are in the book, would he have change the page layout or have the dot overlaid.
• Cant merge concepts together. It will just be trying to do too much, with no real direction.
• Which has the best concept for the book, ignore the show for the time.
• Do we present more than one concept, or just present one? Need to sort this out. Then we can progress from here.

Following this chat, we asked Danny whether we should present one idea or three concepts. He said ideally in a pitch you would only present one idea, your strongest idea. So suggested we pick our best one. Although we cannot chose between the concepts at the moment, we know that we have to chose one and just go with it. 

Priyesh summed up each idea we had in bullet points to make it easier for us to choose one:

Concept One — 51/15

• 51 Students on our course
• Finish the course in 2015
• Reflection – Metaphorical and literal. Reflection 15/51, and reflection on our time on this course. This is what we have produced.

Concept Two — We are here (Location)

• Progression from previous study location.
• We all came to Leeds College of Art to study on this course.
• This is what we have produced.
• We are now here, this is BA Hons Graphic Design
• You have found us. Relating to the exhibition.

Concept Three — Signing out

• We enrolled 3years ago onto the course, we are now signing out.
• We use our signature to sign in each day, as well as enrolment. 
• A mark to signify acceptance that is personal to each individual.
• Each individual is also unique in terms of personality and design process.
• A combination of digital and hand rendered design.
• Circle the answer - Tea or coffee, Marvel or DC
• Fill in the gaps.
• Adapt a generic statement.
• We have people who like type and layout and more illustrative people. Best of both, showing the variety on the course.

Having spoken as a group about the three options above, knowing we had to chose one concept to present, we decided on Concept Three - Signing Out. We felt that this was conceptually and visually strong, providing us with that balance we were looking for. 

To summarise this concept:

• The hand rendered elements would represent the variety on our course. Being the last year before the new BA (Hons) Illustration course started, we have many people who enjoy illustrators and hand rendered work on the course. This concept would portray the variety on our course.
• We wanted to add personality to the yearbook, and an individuals handwriting is personal to them. Their signature is also a sign of identity which is personal.
• Artists and illustrators also sign off their work using their signature too. It can also resemble completion. In this case, completing the course.
• The hand written elements also represent the process of learning and making mistakes. We plan, refine, and think. Not just sit straight on a computer. We also self edit, make mistake and correct them too.
• And essentially we are now signing out. Three years ago we enrolled and now it's time for us to go.
• Everyday we sign in to prove our attendance, so this concept will tie in well with our course and daily routine too. 

In addition to this strong concept, we had also gather many strong visuals with a similar aesthetic to what we were looking for. Studios like Hort use the combination of digital and hand-rendered to produce visually amazing work:

Something that involves handwriting conveys much more personality than something digitally designed.

Having decided on a concept, this afternoon we all started to think about the visuals and how this concept could look. We agreed on giving each student a double page spread to show two projects, one on either side. 

To add a bit of personality to the standardised spreads we decided on letting people personalise their own page. For example, Priyesh experimented with a few options below. There could be a few ways to do this, but it might work best on acetate then scanning that back in. 

We spent a few minutes making loads of marks on paper so that we could scan them back in and make them digital.

We scanned in our sheets so that we now had a range of marks we could play with for the presentation. We want to show how flexible this concept is, and how it could look for the end of year show.

Our final presentation:

Having been notified we did not win the graphic design yearbook pitch, Danny spoke to us today to give some feedback and thoughts on our concept.

• A lot of potential, and lots of strong visuals.
• One reservation is that it was a really democratic idea that everyone would be able to alter their page, but what if people's mark were very pleasant etc.
• Still potential to do another course.
• The aesthetic would work well for other books too. 
• The signing in sheets could potentially give off negative connotations.
• The black board idea was good too, thinking about how the concept would work with the show. But concerns about people drawing/writing inappropriate things.
• Learning from mistakes is a strong concepts. 
• Black on pastel colours is cheap but really effective. 
• Black cover was surprising.
• When does personality start to overshadow the work in the book. 

The main point that Danny made that I think perfectly summed up why we didn't win was 'how much personality is too much personality?'. I think that we invested too much effort in the idea of making the book personal that it ended up taking away from the imagery, which is counter-productive. I feel that we all worked very well together, and we decided that we still wanted to work together on another yearbook. Our second choice was Photography, which luckily we got.

This morning, Jason from Evolution Print who are producing the yearbooks came into college to talk to us about what is possible and to provide us with a rough guideline. Below are a few notes.

• We mentioned as we might have photographs across both pages, a coptic bound book may work well. As we would not lose any of the image once bound, unlike a perfect bound book. 
• However Jason mentioned we should think about quantity and budget. Think about the commercial aspects of the project. What might be a great idea might not work. As they are commercial booklets.
• Minimum 300 books.
• Digital you pay for every sheets, Litho you pay for a make ready. 
• For an idea of price and what is viable. Jason gave us an example of last year — 500 perfect bound, uncoated 120g text, 300g cover, 92 page book was just over £3000.
• All four books were similar last year, everyone had perfect bound books. 
• Think about stock. Gloss and matt in the same publication is possible. But you would have to work out the pagination, as we work in 4, 8 and 16s. So 8 page gloss section or 4 page gloss section.
• Gloss section can look nice in an uncoated book.
• On commercial printing they can only print up to 450g.
• Trucard — Coated one side, uncoated on the other.
• Every time you do a heavier cover, you have to create an extra set of plate and make readies so it comes at an additional cost. An alternative would be a self cover, same sheet as text.
• When perfect binding, the spine has to be over 3mm. They can work this out if we send them the indesign document in single pages.
• Try get the final design sent to Evolution Print by May 22nd.

No individual budget, its just one overall budget. So if we're not over ambitious we should be fine.
Might have to compromising on a few things to achieve the most important elements.
Roughly around £3000 — £4000
We could possibly push for a bit of a bigger budget as we think Photography need high quality stock.
Possibly matt and gloss within the same publication
33 photography students
Newsprint will bleed, so wouldn't be as good quality.
They liked the example of Crack magazine we took in.
We also proposed a bigger size than standard yearbooks, which they also thought was a good idea.
Get a sense of scale with a big publication.
Coptic bound may be a bit more expensive than perfect bound, but would depend on quantity.
Working in 32, 64 or 96 would be cheaper.
Get the format, stock, pages etc. finalised in the next two weeks, so that we can get an estimate from the printers. Then if we have to make cuts, we have the time to rethink.
Something small and chunky or bigger and less pages.
All yearbooks are always a similar size.
Depends on how many images they want to include.
Would a newspaper format devalue the the yearbook.
Newspaper size, heavier stock maybe?
Quantity wise, they are thinking 500 books.
Keen to not include the year, so it becomes more timeless.
Half the pages, but bigger page size.
One project per person, max 6 images each. Last year was only one image person and in their opinion it was a bit boring.
Less text, more people will read it. More text, less people will read it.
Around 120 words artist statement, plus contact details.
They really want an online version, and how it would work.
Do they prefer the size or the the fact it could be a newspaper.
What if we just had big sheets, which was contained within something. A folder possibly.
These could then be framed.
Save on binding etc.
Perfect bound, but perforated along the edge so that we can take sheets outs. But possibly too expensive.
They like the idea for single sheets.
For next week, we will try think of ways we can hold/bind single sheets.
The idea of framing/displaying the work is also nice and would be unique to photography.

They had thought of the name Lux, which is a measure of light.

Anything over A5 starts to get over the postcard feeling.

Cheaper cost effective solution similar to the Aesop box.

Loose sheets, gets away from the book. But how do we hold these sheets together. Bind method?

Lux has connotation to luxury? Maybe a newspaper wont is appropriate?

Coptic stitching could still work with the name Lux. The laying flat is a real advantage.

Temporary bind is nice, such as the ring binder. Enables people to take out sheet to display. Similar to an exhibition.

Not just a standard yearbook, another use. Considering this is photography too. A lot of people frame and put up imagery on their walls.

Joe has a book by Anthony Burrill which is basically heavy stocked posters that is perfect bound but loose, enabling us to tear each out. This could be ideal for this project.

So would still work as a book, but also tear out sheets, if you wanted to display them.

Possibly is a cheers alternative to perforating.

Bigger size, so maybe one sheet per person.

In terms of deadlines — if we work backwords from the deadline for print, we can start to figure out when we need the imagery/text etc. We shall email this across to the photography team when we get this sorted.

First week back from Easter break. Friday.

A short 120 words bio.

Sample images, so we can start to think about layout. Range of sizes too, square, landscape and portrait, as we don’t know what we will be dealing with. Need to figure out a layout that works for all sizes.

Photography meeting 23 April 2015.

I received an email from Danny on Monday stating the total estimate is above the overall budget allocated to yearbook, thus asked us if we could make any changes to bring the price down. We also received another email from Danny informing us that Jason would be coming into college this afternoon, so we can bring questions to him then.

I mentioned the situation with the group on Monday and we decided to meet up yesterday to discuss how we could save money. Considering we had a meeting with Photography today, it was necessary to discuss these issues before we presented them to the Photography team. During our meeting yesterday we made a list of ways we could save money and what compromises we might have to make, which we bought up today in the meeting.

Furthermore, following yesterday’s discussion we also individually started to think about page layouts so that we could present these in today’s meeting.

Below are some notes from the meeting earlier today.

They liked the physical samples that we had taken in, good example of what we can expect.

Photography are numbering their photos from stating their favourite. This helps us we can use their favourite image as the big image on one side, then smaller images on the reverse.

In terms of layout, we think it would be better to have two bio pages then two bigger images. So that a big images does not get confused with the smaller images of the previous person.

As all the image sizes are different and because we do not know how many images each student is going to supply. Thus, it is difficult for us to start designing. We cannot figure out a grid or format that would work for everything.  The alternative would be to have the images scattered but following a grid system, so that there is still some structure to the design and not randomly scattered.

We showed them the visuals we had done yesterday, and they were more than happy with it. They didn’t think it looked bad either.

No titles for the photographs, but just the project.

Name, contact details, bio, project title.

No text on the exhibition side. As if someone wanted to frame the image, it would clean and more professional.

We also had thought about what we would do with landscape images. We suggested that we should rotate the image 90 degrees so that it fits into the portrait book. This wouldn’t matter as this book is not a conventional book, people will take out pages so would not be an issue. Would only be an issue if it was a standard book and readers had to keep on rotating the book.

You want the image big as possible and you don’t want a landscape picture on a portrait page. It wouldn’t do the photograph justice. The photography team were happy with this solution. They were happy for us to rotate their images.

A sacrifice we could make is the small booklet inside holding the contents etc. We can ask Jason later this afternoon how much this would save us. Also, we wouldn’t mind sticking in these booklets too. We presume this would save us money, so this could be another option to save money.

We also thought about reducing the size down to B4. Hopefully using a standardised paper size would also save some money. They wouldn’t want to compromise on the size any more. To be honest, we do not want to either. A big yearbook will be different to standard and previous yearbooks.

We could compromise on stock, however it wouldn’t be as functional when taking out pages. It may be too flimsy. Moreover, we need the book to be over a certain depth to allow for it to be perfect bound.

We were also having issues with the name ‘Lux’ — we don’t think it looks very good, and we don’t want people to think it’s a shortened version of Luxury. Although conceptually strong, it might just not work. We agreed we would all try thinking of new names, if not then we still have Lux. However it’s not stopping us from progressing at the moment.

Another way to save money would be to have one standard stock. But as there a divide, we could ask Jason if there is anything in between. Also having gloss and matt pages randomly throughout the book would mean the price also increases, as this would be done by hand. So we should try avoiding this.

Ask Jason for samples of stock.

This afternoon Jason from Evolution Print also came into college to discuss ways we could cut the costs for our yearbook projects. This was ideal as we already had a few suggestions from our meeting earlier today with the photography team. However prior or discussing price, we learned that books were not taxable. It was the tax that was taking us over budget, thus we may be on track now and not have to make so many cuts.

Nevertheless we still spoke to Jason about our projects and clarified a few things.  Even though we may not need to make cuts now, it would still be ideal if we could save money.

As we had a couple examples of the type of book we were looking for, it was good to show Jason a physical example. He kept the books so that he could shows the guys back at Evolution Print.

Jason also stated that B4 might not even save money as it depends on the bigger sheet of paper. Making a small change wouldn’t make a difference really.

Cheap uncoated stock for the 4 pages that will hold contents etc.

We also mentioned to Jason about the stock issue. If the gloss and matt are together it would be cheaper. As the sheets can be removed, there is no need for it to be indexed alphabetically anyway. Cheaper 50/50 than 70/30.

We also asked about satin stock, which is like a flat matt, in between gloss and matt. Jason said he would be able to provide some samples of a job they did on a similar stock. Flat silk stock, but still retains the colour.

We also said we should up the stock to 300gsm, as we guessed 200gsm but 300 was more like the sample we showed.

Due to other projects needing to be prioritised, this project didn't really get anywhere in time for hand-in but is obviously something that will be getting done as soon as the hand-in is out of the way.