Yearbook Sections & Title Pages

We spent today working on the Chapter title pages and section spreads as a team. We want the Chapter (thematic enquiry) title pages to be distinctive within the book - displaying a clear break to the reader. We tested a number of approaches for the Chapter title pages whilst accommodating the short explanation that will be accompanying the title pages.  We tested various approaches i.e. full bleed, info box, type reversed out, white text bar with a variety of type sizes and formating options.

Selection of Ian & Charlotte's Test Spreads:

Selection of my Layout Tests for Chapter Title spreads:

Once we had each laid out a selection of Chapter title spreads each we had a lengthy discussion about the merits and possible weaknesses from the selections. Through discussion we are all in agreement that a large white area for the type on the right-hand side of the Chapter Title spreads is the best direction to take. This is because the rest of the book is going to be very photographic and this large white area will be instantly recognisable as a change in subject matter and its positioning to the right hand side of the DPS will aid quick referencing when thumbing through the book. 

We found that placing text onto full bleed images lacked impact and didn't create a significant distinction between sections. When trying out the header type at different point sizes we found that the large it was the worst it looked because it distracted from the beautiful images too much - better to use the clean white space and a modest point size to create impact and break up the book. 

Having decided on the layout for the Chapter Title pages I set about mocking up a selection using dummy text to represent the different size description paragraphs. Through our discussion we agreed to use Avenir Bold 10pt for the heading and Avenir Roman 8pt on 11pt leading. We also agreed that no matter how large the paragraph, it will always be aligned in the middle of the top and bottom of the page:

Having decided on the form / layout of our Chapter Title spreads I had a go at designing layout combinations for the subsequent chapter inside pages. The aim of which is to add diversity to the flow of the book and its narrative. For this reason the DPS contain multiple images framed in a variety of ways - utilising white space and frame size / position to add to the variety of the spreads. 

I tried eye dropping the accompanying photo of the spreads but after discussing it as a group we feel that its not needed within the book because once printed it is too dominant on the page at that scale. The white space acts better to put focus on the photos and their representation of the course - exactly what the tutors want from the book. 

Having developed a flexible layout using our grid our next job is to lay out and print a chapter to take to our meeting with the Surface Pattern tutors tomorrow.