OUGD405 - Studio Brief 02 - Design Process - Information Design - Ideas & Development

Initial Ideas - After finding the content for the leaflet and gaining some inspiration I was able to begin sketching some basic ideas. By considering the types of folds and most appropriate distribution methods I decided on two main concepts to briefly present to a small crit group. Despite the sketches being quite roughly drawn, it was interesting to see which would be preferred in terms of the target audience and overall aesthetic.

The first drawn idea was a z-fold leaflet that would simply contain all the information needed over a double page spread. The front cover would highlights a large, bold question - IS YOUR CHILD SAFE? - which would draw the reader in and immediately grab their attention. The inner two pages would then be split up into 5 main sections - What is child abduction? , What are the dangers of the internet? , How to prevent, Stats and figures and Contact numbers. These sections would be laid out in a grid like manner with distinct headers, pictograms and images. The last page would then highlight information about where the information has been sourced from. This is less important, therefore would be in a smaller point size.

The leaflet would be placed in a commercial flap envelope and distributed across the UK. This would be relatively cheap to produce and thin enough to fit through a letterbox; however, the stock could increase prices as I would not want to use cheap, glossy stock which feels like a takeaway menu.

This second concept is inspired by the continuous half-fold piece analysed earlier. The folding technique would be the same, consisting of two inner double pages which fold out to a full A3 page. The leaflet would be A5 in size when folded up and would be distributed to households in an ordinary A5 letter. The letter would have to be something more interesting than the typical baronial white envelope to ensure that parents would be intrigued enough to open it.

The front cover would highlight the same bold question - IS YOUR CHILD SAFE? - alongside an accompanying background graphic. The title of the leaflet should be clear to read and very direct. For the background image I had the idea of putting two keyboards opposite eachother with one cable connecting them. They would be divided with two different colours to highlight the child's side and the dangerous side. The following unfoldable pages would have large, striking statistics and figures that really grab the users attention. They should not be aimed to scare the reader, they should rather open parent's eyes to the real, up-to-date stats and create a response whereby they want to learn more about the preventions available.

The folds would open to the final A3 page, which has all the crucial information parents need to know. This will be the same content as in the first idea. Stock used for this leaflet will also be high-quality; however, it cannot be too thick to ensure that the leaflet will fit inside an envelope and fold up easily.

Feedback - The crit session provided a good amount of feedback that will allow me to develop forward more ideas. People agreed with the content chosen and thought that it was suitable for the target audience. The main opinion that I wanted to receive was on the type of fold I should choose to use. People thought that the z-fold was less appropriate than the half-fold piece, mainly because they thought it would not be as engaging and that it reminded them of takeaway menus. The second concept is much easier to design on too, as the z-fold is quite thin and restricting in comparison. Due to this feedback I will develop the half-fold piece forward even further.

Further Development - As a starting point I focused on the colour scheme of the leaflet. The main idea that I had is to use the following:

•   White is a known symbol of innocence and purity. This suitably links to children and how they are so naive at a young age.
•  The definition of a grey area is 'a subject or problem that people do not know how to deal with because there are no clear rules'. This strongly relates to the situation that young children are in; if they have not been warned about talking to strangers they will not know how to react if they are messaged or spoken to. For this reason, a grey shade will be used in the colour scheme.
•   To oppose these two slightly light tones a darker, contrasting shade of red will be used. This is used to indicate the negative side of the internet and to visually represent how dangerous it can be.

The tones selected are Pantone 1805 C, 427 C and White.

The colours in this scheme are very similar to those in Swiss modernist design. As I want to make the leaflet more modern and appropriate for the digital age a modernist design scheme seems suitable.

The work by Josef Müller-Brockmann is of particular interest due to the colours he used and the structural typgographic layouts. The red againgst the off white text/grey text creates a strong contrast that does catch your eye. The black on red however is much lower in contrast and is not as strong as the white/grey text. For the most optimum readability and contrasts I will use white/grey text on a red background in the leaflet and black/grey text on a white background.

Some of the imagery in the old Swiss designs used a birds eye view of objects and their shadows. Two found examples can be seen above. This links in with the birds eye view sketch that I initally created of the opposing hands and keyboards. To try and replicate this style I took a few photographs of mouses, wire and hands. A royalty-free child's hand was used from online. I decided to use a mouse rather than a keyboard because the hand creates a more visible shadow against the background. Furthermore, as the mouse is much smaller than a keyboard the hands are emphasised more, making the direct connection between a child and adult more emphasised.

As my leaflet is more current than the old Swiss posters I only added a subtle noise grain to create less of a retro effect. This adds to the textural look of the piece and slightly links it to the inspiration above. The composition for the leaflet's front cover can be seen below. It really works in terms of the page division and colour combination. Next, the typography will be added.

In terms of typography, most old Swiss modernist designs use the Helvetica typeface family. Initially, I experimented with using Helvetica Bold in different layouts. I wanted the text to be in the centre of the page, on either side of the division for clear readability; however, the two compositions created below did not work that well. From another crit I received feedback on the two compositions below. The majority of the group thought that the typography in the left example is to small and not engaging enough. Overall, people preferred the layout on the right; however, many said that the wire going over the text was distracting.

The crit session made it very clear that neither layouts were acceptable to keep. In order to create a fresh, new approach I moved the hands and wire to the right hand side of the composition. This allowed the text to be flush left, as opposed to centered, which, according to Vignelli, 'makes more sense since in our culture we read from left to right'. Rather than using Helvetica I chose another font which has slightly similar characteristics - DIN Next LT Pro Medium. The typeface is much more modern, as it was designed in 2009, as opposed to Helvetica which was developed in 1957. Furthermore, the x-height is slightly taller, which gives the overall aesthetic look broader and aware.

The idea that I presented to the crit group can be seen above. It was much preferred to the earlier two ideas; some of the feedback highlighted how the new text alignment improves readability and that the larger type size makes it more visible from a distance and catches your eye. Also the emphasis on the word safe highlights the key message, rather than all the words having a presence on the page.

Feedback - The crit session provided a good amount of feedback that will allow me to develop forward more ideas. People agreed with the content chosen and thought that it was suitable for the target audience. The main opinion that I wanted to receive was on the type of fold I should choose to use. People thought that the z-fold was less appropriate than the half-fold piece, mainly because they thought it would not be as engaging and that it reminded them of takeaway menus. The second concept is much easier to design on too, as the z-fold is quite thin and restricting in comparison. Due to this feedback I will develop the half-fold piece forward even further.

Positive Feedback:

•  Everyone in the crit group agreed that this style suits the target audience effectively.
•  I discussed using fairly light, newspaper-esque stock for the distribution of the leaflet. This would be similar to the stock used in the inspiration. People in the crit commended this, agreeing that it would allow the leaflet to fold up easily and also make it fairly cheap to produce.
•  The use of bold colours and high-contrasts grabs the users attention immediately.
 
Improvements & General Points:

•  CMYK printing can be expensive, therefore I will need to look into various printing methods.
•  For the large A3 poster people thought that I should include some pictograms with the typography to make the information a bit more engaging. Suggestions included to use icons instead of social media text and pictograms/scenarios of where parents think it's safe.
•  Red envelopes could be used to catch the users eye before even opening it.

Another point that was raised was that the colour change between pages needed to be resolved as it looks slightly odd when fully folded out. This was easily fixed by merging the colours in Photoshop. Some text about the sources of information was added to the back page in order to allow parents to visit the government's website for more details. 

The back page of the leaflet would act as an unfoldable poster which contains all the important information about child abduction, the Internet, ways to protect children and useful contacts. Content was taken from the initial research and placed in the same grid that the foldable side used. To make the information as clear as possible the page has been divided into 4 main areas and some pictograms have been used. Paragraphs have been made short and concise to ensure that readers do not lose interest and flush left alignment has been used because it makes 'more sense since in our culture we read from left to right' (Vignelli Canon).