Final Major Project

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Is print dying?

About 18 weeks ago we were told to come up with our final major project, the outcome of which we would be displaying at our degree show. It was a pretty daunting prospect working on a single project for such a long length of time so I wanted a topic that matched a couple of criteria, 1; it had to be something interesting enough to keep me going and 2; it had to be a meaty enough subject so I didn't spread it too thin. With this in mind I looked at something that was a prevailing issue at the time (and still is): the launch of the iPad. To be truthful it was only announced a couple of weeks into the project but I knew it was coming and that it would act as a lightning rod for the main issue; is print dying? I took this to be my title early on and ran with it. Anywhere you look it's being talked about; blogs, magazines, even newspapers. For the first five weeks I researched and researched some more and by the end of that time I still wasn't sure what I was going to produce. I had a lot of ideas, a website to prove the end of print? An app for the iPad? A newspaper or magazine? But really in the end it was always going to be a book, I couldn't escape this.


By this point it was our four week Easter holiday where we would be working in isolation from our tutors so I used this time to decide on the content and design the book. I settled on a 40 by 25 cm spread (the closest rational approximation of the golden ratio) and a 7 column grid. I then split the book into five sections that followed headings I had decided upon earlier on: Physicality, Personality, Permanence, Futuregazing and Creativity. There was also an Endpaper section that dealt with tying things up at the end. The first three headings are the attributes I feel print must emphasise to survive, they are unique to print; Physicality is the way it feels, Personality is the layout and Permanence is as it sounds, blog posts get lost in the flux quickly. The Futuregazing section allowed me to explore what was coming and Creativity was a section for my work.


When I came back from the Easter holiday I had 180 pages of content that over the remaining weeks was refined, it was mainly the work I was putting in the Creativity, to begin with I was using it as an excuse to print my work in a book but I felt this wasn't wise so now it's only work that it relevant to the tactile nature I've been exploring. To get as good a finish as I could afford I ordered GF Smith paper, got it printed at Colourworld and bound at P&G Wells. The cover was a transfer stamp and visually represents the dying of print.


InDesign Spreads (click to cycle)

Here is a selection of flat spreads from my book that give you an idea of how the book is designed and laid out rather than the look and feel of it which you get from the above photos.


Of course the only way you're going to be able to see in its full glory is if you come along to the Winchester School of Art degree show from the 17th until the 23rd of June, there's plenty of good work to see.

TraDigiZine (click to cycle)

Each week I produce a 'poster zine' of what I've done the week before my Thursday tutorial, by poster zine I mean an A3 sheet that's printed on both sides and folded down to an A6 booklet. I'm also trying to maintain a colour gradient throughout.


The point of doing this is to act as a record of my FMP, to practice my layout skills and experiment with different paper stocks.