Picked up my book this morning. Louise from The Book Binding Studio did an awesome job, and it turned out amazing. Decided to stick the badge in the lower corner. I did a bit of research into car manuals. Didn’t turn up with much, but the few I did find with a leather look/black cover often had the logo in the corner (rather than the centre). I was conflicted about which positioning to choose, and in hindsight, I would have liked to discuss this further with the class in a critique. From this I learnt it is better to finish things early and get feedback on the finished product before hand-in, not just in the semi-final stages. Because the actual finished product often has things that you don’t think of or miss out (small details) until it gets to that stage. I think it would look better if the badge were smaller, but I couldn’t source a smaller badge with decent quality. Overall, really happy with how it turned out. The padded cover really makes it feel like a manual, rather than just a simple hard cover book, so I’m pleased and glad I went ahead with that decision.
The printing also turned out really nice — thanks to my mum who had a contact with Hummingbird Print, who did an amazing and super fast job. Some of the images didn’t turn out as well, but I think that’s more to do with the quality of the images and it would be something I’d need to keep an eye out for in future design work. The images I got from the BMW website turned out really nice — just goes to show how important photography is.
Since sending it off for printing, I’ve thought a lot about things I should have, could have, would have liked to add to the book. While I learnt heaps about the BMW brand, and the basic ins and outs of an iconic brand, I do think there is still so much I could have covered and talked about the brand. BMW is such a rich, deep brand, with a lot of history and achievements behind it. This just goes to show all the hard work generations of engineers, directors and employees have poured into the brand to make it the iconic brand it is today. I don’t think you can really capture a brand in its entirety within a small book. But with this publication, I hope to have tried to brush the surface of what I believe is something much deeper and bigger. Many factors play into the brand, and it would take ages to uncover and discover them all. It has after all been around for nearly a century.
I really enjoyed the whole process of researching, designing, critiquing and creating the final product. The research was informative, and it helped that I got well engaged with my brand. The design was fun and a big learning curve as always. I really enjoyed the critiques this time round — maybe its a sign I’m getting used to them more? I do think it helped to openly talk to my classmates about my work and theirs. To learn off each other and use this to improve our own work. The advice and guidance of both my tutors/lecturers, Gjoko and Eden, really helped to bring the quality and standard up, and I feel there’s so much more to be learnt from these two. The final product at the end was a good way to have accomplished something from it all. And at a high standard. So overall, I felt this was a well-rounded, and definitely the best assignment I’ve ever done thus far. I look forward to many more assignments like this.
Some things I’d like to know more about, aside from branding itself, is the process behind getting it printed and testing, and also timing. I felt that we started on the assignment a bit late, and didn’t quite get into full gear until about half way. So this pushed back the time we had to test print and mock up covers etc. I think I managed to barely scrape by, getting mine printed and handed over to the binder a week before the due date. But I feel that an extra week would have really helped to polish it off better. I may have gone a bit far with the content of the book in this regard. Leaving me with less time to polish it to the perfection I want, or rather I feel like I might have needed. It may just be I need to get used to the short time between finishing and getting the work sent off to the printer, as in the past I’ve often finished assignments early, it felt like I had done everything I could by the time I needed to print it. It’s something I’ve have to adapt to as I continue to work towards the busy pace of this industry and work style.
