mariapilarstudio-III

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

REFLECTION

This brief has been one of, if not perhaps my favorite, of all the projects we’ve been assigned over the two years. I truly enjoyed the entire process: from sitting down and interviewing Mr Randal to drafting up my spreads to working with three absolutely wonderful and talented associate designers. The skills that I picked up were also incredible. I feel that, technically, I knew a lot of what I was doing, and a lot of the learning, pushing, and developing came from my actual method of working. Majority of the time, I work with illustration; it is my strong point and I am proud to say that over the years I have developed a style and skill in that. However, I wanted to challenge myself to use a different medium, and I am really grateful that I was in a publication that was heavily photography-based, because it actually pushed me out of my comfort zone. At first, I was worried that the interviews wouldn’t fit together because I was the only one with illustration - but this just made it more interesting and I am so satisfied and proud of how it turned out. Using a different kind of image-making was intimidating, but it showed me all the possibilities. As well as that, I truly challenged my design process: previously, I found it very difficult to work iteratively; akin to a dog with a bone, when I have an idea, I usually stick with it until the very end. Doing this helped broaden my flexibility of churning work out and focusing on quantity, before refining to quality; I feel that sometimes, I jump ahead and skip that. Without doing that, I would never have come up with the theme for this publication. Working with pen and paper has also been extremely beneficial. Overall, I loved working with different styles but also having that final say - it really scratched an itch in my brain of bringing stories together. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

FINAL PUBLICATION

*it has occurred to me that I forgot to delete the (or add specific machine) part in the acknowledgements, but it was one of those devilish details that I only noticed after I printed. It is amended in the digital pdf I submitted to canvas. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

WHITE TAGS ON THE OCCASIONAL PAGE

I was worried that the white tag was too disruptive. However, I was looking at it in isolation with just that one page of Mr Randal; when I looked at it all together, interspersed throughout the publication, it had a flow. While the blue boxes may have been more consistent, they felt too formal while this, to me, feels organic and characteristic of the publication; if somebody were to take a scan of these spreads and forgot where it was from, I feel like this folio would be the most representative of Navigating the Rocks. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

MAKIN’ IT WORK

Alternatively I could use a white tab for just this spread? 

Or simply switch the pages. In theory, this is the easiest options; however, I really did love the way that me and Grace’s spreads flowed together in that zig-zag like format; even if the viewer doesn’t consciously make the connection since they’re one interview apart, the overall subconscious flow of left to right is there. If I shift it to the right, it feels imbalanced. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

COLORED BLOCKS

This resolves the issue of it not being seen on Mr Randal’s spread. I prefer the blue over the red, because it fades more into the background; however, I’m still not sure if it’s right. It brings in a more structured element to the publication that I don’t believe was there before

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

HANDWRITTEN

I found that the yellow handwriting was illegible because: it’s in yellow, which is by nature hard to read, and also far too small. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

BLOCKS

I thought bringing in a block of color with the strike at the bottom for texture could possibly resolve this, however, when I tried it with the other spreads, it felt too blocky, like it had just been cut off. The yellow block also feels too distracting - since it’s so bright, it feels like the first thing the viewer should look at, when in reality, it should just be a small detail. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

MOVING UPWARDS?

To try and resolve this, I moved the image upwards, but I think that offsets the balance and hierarchy that I tried really hard to achieve in the first place. It simply doesn’t look right to me. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

YELLOW STRIKE

This is one of my favorite and, in my opinion, most effective options - it feels like it has character and really represents the publication. However, one of the design issues I’m facing is that it does not show up on Mr Randal’s spread since it’s on the left side. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

FOLIO ITERATIONS

Since I purposefully left the bottom margins higher than the top margins for that “luxurious” effect, doing a folio on top is too tight and looks like it’s part of the interview - worse, it looks like it’s sloppily part of the interview, as if I haven’t considered my margins. 

There’s definitely more breathing room at the bottom, but I am worried that it looks like it’s part of the body copy. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

FOLIO RESEARCH

One nitty-gritty detail that was missing from my work was the folio. I was unsure on how to really incorporate that, but was needing the consistency in the publication. I really like the below example for the iterations that they did - when researching visually, I learned that there’s no real “right” way to do a folio: the key takeaway is that it’s (typically) a small detail and as long as it’s consistent across the publication, you can make anything work. 

I can barely see the folios of the below examples at first glance - but perhaps that’s the point - they’re just little details to pull everything together. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

Duotone yellow

While it was too much for the wharf image, I feel like the yellow duotone of the rocks adds depth and brings life to what is otherwise a very flat, pale image. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

Developing the yellow

I only wanted a hint of yellow in the back cover, just enough to tie it in to the front. I did try this iteration, but feel as though it’s too much yellow and too similar to the front cover. 

This feels more subtle.

Again, more subtle. I think it’s just the right amount. 

Using the same technique of adding a completely different color into the gradient - the first two are too much yellow. 

Subtlety seems the way to go. 

I felt the duotone pink and blue was too strong considering I had never done it before, and it felt like it was too late a place in the publication to introduce it. Lots of people agreed the “until next time” piece should be a different color, not blue, as there’s already a lot of blue in the publication - red would’ve been too similar to Alicia’s, which is a spread above it - and, since we’re adding yellow in now, it feels fitting to make it yellow. I did change the duo tone because it wasn’t working with the image on the left - but I feel that now it’s too pale and yellow and there’s not enough difference? 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

Working yellow in?

This happened completely accidentally by adding a third, wildly different color in the gradient on the left image, but I actually find it quite striking. It gives me that chance to have the risograph effect that I cut out in early iterations of my spread. I think it’s working for the thematic outro, but unsure of the pink and blue. Just wanted to balance it out a bit more. 

I don’t think this is the most effective way to incorporate yellow into this image. I think the old thematic intro was already really strong (peers concur!) and I think this has taken it in a completely different direction. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

Feedback

Overall, the color scheme is working really effectively 

“Navigating the Rocks” is a lovely, poetic title that draws the viewer in. 

Remove the dots from between P.O.P - go back to just “POP” 

The yellow is a really strong aspect on the front cover - can I bring it in to the other elements? Otherwise cut it out and see how it looks just red and blue

In regards to the last bit of feedback, I actually have tried many covers with just red and blue and found them too flat. Thus, I’ll try and incorporate more yellow. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

DEVELOPING THE EDITORIAL/CONTENTS

I tried the pattern in yellow, but found that it was too pale and I didn’t like the level of contrast - the pink just felt lovelier and ‘deeper.’ 

However, I did make the decision to bring it back up to a full bleed image. I feel that in this iteration and in the last one, I was trying really hard for a photographic collage to “match” the rest of the publication - but then I asked myself, what if I pushed it so that it was the complete opposite? What if the thematic coherency comes from a similar color palette and body copy, not necessarily similar treatment of images? I feel as though the photographic collage layout was coming from a place of fear that it wouldn’t “go” with the rest of the spreads, and thus played it safe. However, it then had the risk of being overly monotonous/extremely literal. I wanted to experiment with what it would be like to have the publication linked via theme and color, not image treatment: that way, the viewer still has an idea of what they’re “in for”, but it’s something different and fresh to the spreads, so that when they do see the beautifully curated and crafted interviews, it’s something new and exciting that they haven’t seen before. 

Since I was “flipping” the publication by having full bleed images for the thematic intro/editorial/contents page, I decided to go all the way. Instead of having a collage of block-like images such as in the spreads, I swapped it out for blocks of white. That way, the viewer is being introduced and eased into that blocky formation, but in a reimagined, slightly different way. 

[mariapilarstudio-iii]

Pattern Inspiration and Execution:

The full bleed image didn’t work the way that I wanted it to, which frustrated me greatly; I also wanted to balance it out somehow because I know the thematic intro is heavily photographic, and I didn’t want it to feel monotonous. Again, I did some more visual research to see what other people have done, and I found this really striking illustration.  

However, since most of the content in this publication is photography, I wanted to maintain that aspect. In my previous iteration of this, I was disappointed that I could not use the image I wanted to, because it didn’t ‘fit’ - but I realized that the movement of the sand and water was really similar in that it’s loose, organic, and free-flowing, and could make a really lovely hero image - I could use it as a pattern instead of necessarily an ‘image’ - similar to the rocks on the front cover. 

Still wasn’t entirely happy with it, but definitely did feel like it was working better. Since I was still in the same photoshop file as the old editorial iteration, I had all my gradient masks; I accidentally turned the pink one on, but found that I liked it much more than the original color. My favorite details are the shells and the converging sand.