George Eley

GDC Year 3

[georgeeley]

One Last Word

Cant believe im at this point but this is the last post ill do on here. Uni has been such a good experience but its just such a shame it had to end this way. Im really hoping we get a chance to display some of our work at some kind of show but im honestly not sure if its going to happen. We’ll see. Im super happy with the FMP I produced this year and the process project, I cant wait to start dong some side projects until the world reboots a bit. Goodbye blog my old friend. Lets just pray that the zip file I submitted works.

[georgeeley]

Process Deck

I completely redesigned this deck too and im actually super happy with it, its one of my favourite decks ive does so far I think. I kept it in the same style as the FMP deck so its nice and clear and I used green as the colour throughout as its about natural paper making. Nature. Green, you get it. But anyway, here's the deck. I liked the outcome of this project so it was nice to update the pack shots and just make the deck look so much nicer overall. 

[georgeeley]

Riposte Deck

Did a complete overhaul of this one. I hated the basic look of the last one and to the honest I cant believe I actually handed it in! Here is the updated one with some new t shirt mockups that looks so much better.

[georgeeley]

HANDED IN

Honestly don’t know how to feel, its a bit strange because I can't actually be with my course mates celebrating after hand in but it is such a massive weight off my shoulders. I’m so glad that I've handed in something that I'm proud of and im not in a massive rush doing work like I usually am. Anyway, I have spent the last couple of day perfecting the decks so I will share them on the next post. I found a brilliant website called Issuu which lets you display magazines online, so here is the link to that if you want to have a little read through. PEACE OUT

https://issuu.com/georgeeley/docs/newspaper

[georgeeley]

Semi-Final Deck

Ofcourse I’m going to fiddle around with this a lot but here we go so far. So happy to be at this point.

[georgeeley]

The Deck

Feels pretty crazy to finally be at the stage where im putting a final deck together for FMP considering everything that's happened.. After Covid, Teacher strikes, a bad project streak and generally a pretty weird year, im finally at the end. I am really happy with this project and its definitely the best think ive done for while. I think its because I’ve been so passionate about the personal reasons in this project. Another reason I think this was successful is that I didn't actually work on it through the uni folder, I had it in a separate one called scans. It felt like my own work that I was doing for myself and that's why I think I loved it, there was no pressure to win. A lot of competitions this year. I will post the deck separately for reference.

[georgeeley]

LiveSurface Context

Ive been doing some mockups with LiveSurface Context and its absolutely brilliant, its so easy to use and I would definitely recommend it. I started with the free trial but it didn't give too many options to use so I ended up paying £10 for the months use. It has hundreds of different surfaces you can muck up on from dog coats to ties to cars, I even found a lovely matchbox one that I am going to use for the cover of my deck. Thank you Kieron for the recommendation. 

I am super lucky too that the mockup size is the exact size of my zine too so no warping to get it to fit. Another great feature of this mockup generator is that you can add a long list of materials in to make some really nice mockups, which is how I added the extra newsprint material to the band around my cover.

[georgeeley]

New Spread

I was given this lovely reference to create a new spread and I think it might be one of my favourites so far.

I decided to put the boxes into colour format which looks nice but was an absolute nightmare to do. I started doing it all mathematically but it waste sitting right because some of the matchboxes aren't completely straight so I ended up just doing it by eye which isn't as bad as it sounds considering I did have a nice grid setup. I forgot to write this earlier but all of the matchboxes in this zine (except a couple on this spread) are 1:1 scale so they should be more relatable when looking at the printed zine rather than just images, it gives a sense of tactility.

[georgeeley]

Where I’m At

I’ve been working solidly on this editorial for the past few days and this where I’m at with it. I didn't see the sense in blogging EVERY single detail but after I changed the system at the beginning and chose fonts and colours, the whole thing just came together quite nicely. I have literally moved everything on every page a million times but its all sitting nicely now. I have used a 4 column grid with an extra ruler which gives the page numbers some extra white space. I have actually really enjoyed working with the quite large 15mm margins that are compulsory with newspaper club because I think they frame the content really nicely, especially when you have colour right up to the margins.

I have used some solid colour illustration to break up the pages and make it all flow nicely and overall I’m really pleased with this project. This isn't really like anything ive designed before and Im really happy to say that I think ive made up for my bad editorial in second year. I’m not going to print this for hand in because theres not much point when I cannot physically hand anything in person so I’m just going to mock it up. I’m having a zoom crit tomorrow with Mr. Hasleham so I suspect there will be a few finishing touches after that ready for the mockups.

[georgeeley]

Seeing Red

I decided to change all the highlights to red from the peachy colour I had. I think it will be more consistent and is much nicer as a colour. The reason I kept the peach is just because it is the default highlight colour for errors in InDesign.

I went through a few different colours but sticking to one main colour throughout makes the most sense. Especially when some of the illustrations are so bold. 

[georgeeley]

New Cover

After looking at some references, I finally created a new cover that I’m really happy with. 

It suits the rest of the zine and actually features one of the illustrations that I cropped down to fit nicely. I really like the look of this cover and it’s not like anything I have done before.

This image gave my the idea to try and use different type on the cover in different sizes, weights and even italic. I’m happy with how it looks but I might go back in and clean it up a little bit. If I documented every change I made you wouldn't hear the end of it...

[georgeeley]

First Spreads

Ive created some spreads that I’m really happy with. They need some refinement but I think im on to the look that I want for this zine.

Ive decided to put the same sort of information blocks for every matchbox to keep it consistent throughout and I am using the highlight colour red for this zine to tie it together. The reason is that I wanted to use the Kodacolour print stamp that was on the original photos I found belonging to my grandad and I wanted it to look like it was stamped on with red ink as it is on some of the photographs. The cyclist matchboxes feature a dashed circle around each face of the cyclist so I am also going to use that throughout the zine. A system is really coming together that I’m happy with now and Forma looks great big on its side!

[georgeeley]

Changes

After changing the detail type to InterstateMono, I have decided to change more of the type to that same font. I found this reference on editorial.grid, a great account on instagram that features some amazing spreads. 

I love the look of lots of information on one page, and I thought this could look great if I used this sort of system for my zine, by taking all the information that I could find from each box and putting it in the zine. I have tried this idea with some of the cyclist matchboxes that I found and this is how it's looking.

I originally had it in Verdigris but I changed it to InterstateMono to match the other information. My thinking is that by making the zine look sort of like code and data-led, it completely contradicts the matchboxes and makes them pop so much more out of the page. It also brings them into a new context which I really like the idea of. One thing that happened was when I changed the typeface, Interstate has no italic so it highlighted the are where a mistake was made, but I think I will keep these highlights and use more throughout as another small detail.

[georgeeley]

Systems

I have decided to use Forma DJR Display for the display font in my zine. It’s such a lovely display type, it reminds me a lot of Helvetica in shape but a bit more modern. One of the best things about it is its kerned really nicely as standard so you have to do next to no kerning to get it looking lovely. For the body, I have decided to use Verdigris MVB Pro which is a great serif to use for a body copy. It’s a bit more condensed than Baskerville and carries a slightly heavier weight as standard so it looks good when theres a lot of type on one page. For my detailing font, I am using InterstateMono which is a fresh monospace typeface. I thought this would be good for small details as its quite informational and almost resembles code. I originally used Forma for the detailing but I decided it looks a bit clunky small and I really wanted to show it off more as very large display text.

[georgeeley]

Polygonal Day

Ive scanned in all of the 142 match boxes that I want to use today AND cut them all out individually. I thought I would just be able to do this with the magic wand but they just weren't coming out right. I decided to do every one with the polygonal lasso too which was an absolutely huge task. But work it because they look great. The reason I needed to cut them out is because I want them to look consistent in the zine with a realistic looking drop shadow on to tie it all together. Well im very glad its all done.

[georgeeley]

New Covers

I’ve attempted some more cover designs without any additional type on, just trying to play about with the repop type I created. I have decided that instead of just jumping in trying to create some spreads im going to define a couple of things first such as the body type and display type. I was previously using Baskerville but its just not the look im going for. I really want it to be quite information and data based, stepping away from the usual stuff I make. Im going to try and keep what I have but strip the whole thing back and create an identity for Repop that's recognisable through every page.

Still just messing around here and I know these aren't what I want at all. Time for more reference searching.

[georgeeley]

Not Convinced

I’ve done some more layouts for the magazine and im still not convinced. 

I think its just too much and I want it to be stripped back a bit. I have also decided that I’m going to get it printed with Newspaper Club. I really like Will H’s Lives in Slides zine that he made last year and its the first thing ive properly seen printed with newspaper club. They do some really nice stuff and I think printing on newsprint also gives the zine a more retro feel which is what its all about, but with a modern twist.