#istd brief

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Enochian sketches

To get the right forms, I used a dip pen and inks to experiment with drawing the alphabet out traditionally as I feel more comfortable with it over digital.

It took a few tries for some letters before getting the forms right, but it did help in drawing it all out in my own style first before transferring it to digital to be refined.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Reflection

I felt that the project, overall, went really well. I’m happy with the outcome and I feel like my abilities with type have definitely improved by taking on this brief. The book itself helps depict Canto 33 of Paradiso in a new, modern light, the translations aiding in understanding the words used, and my interpretations allowing the user to gather an understanding of the Canto’s contents.

The development of it went really well, many drastic changes being made throughout from tutorials, but they were much needed changes and made my outcome all the better. I definitely feel that my type abilities have improved and that I now have a greater understanding on creating more type centred projects, though it was difficult to understand at first. Though I did enjoy the project, it was difficult to get into the right creative mindset at first, as many of my initial ideas include imagery where imagery was not needed as I feel most comfortable with illustration. Trying to do the process book, the main project, and research for the dissertation at the same time was very hard as well, meaning you really had to tailor what you were working on to what tutorial, etc, you had coming up.

Regardless, I am very happy with the development I did, as though it may have been later than I’d hoped, it really benefitted my project. Though hearing about changes I had to do was hard, in the end it made my final outcome look really good and I feel really pleased with the development of my typographic understanding during this project. If I could do more for the project, I would really liked to have experimented with the bookbinding more to see if I could make a really unique cover for the canto. I do like the idea of creating other books for the final cantos of both Inferno and Purgatorio to make them all feel like a set, as I liked the idea of being able to translate these classic, yet important, texts for a modern audience.

If I could do the brief again, I would definitely try and cement an idea faster and to allow more development, as I felt that it was only halfway through the project that I actually started settling in to the brief creatively. I do feel that I tried my very best in this project, and I came to an outcome that I am genuinely proud of.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Final Printed Outcome

I’m really pleased with how my outcome came out, the changes being made previously working really well in the layout. Due to printing issues, I couldn’t print on as light a paper stock as I would have liked, but 80 gsm instead of 60-70 gsm worked just as well. The body text also came out lighter than my previous mock ups did, but I feel it makes the text more delicate, adding to the effect. In the end I went for a simple stitch bound spine with white thread, the more natural material really going well with the soft gloss of the front cover.

The size of the book works well also, and the simple cover looking really nice on the soft gloss paper. If I did create books for the final cantos of both other books, Inferno and Purgatorio, I feel Inferno could have a black cover, while Purgatorio would be grey, both summing up the books well and looking like a set altogether.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri : Paradiso Robert M. Durling, Ronald L. Martinez

Durling, RM, & Durling, RM 2011, The Divine Comedy of Dante Alighieri : Paradiso, Oxford University Press USA - OSO, New York. Available from: ProQuest Ebook Central. [22 November 2019].

As Robert Hollander’s notes only gave me one interpretation, I looked at a different source to see how someone else had viewed it. I found this version much easier to read than Hollander’s, having far fewer references to other classical texts, which made it easier to understand overall. The notes on specific lines and sections really helped as well, and I noticed how both interpretations do differ a lot, but they’re both valid ways to view the Comedy. It helped in making my annotations more consistent and understandable to be put into my book, and it was helpful revisiting my previous interpretations of the text before I read theirs, my understanding being different from theirs, but in a way a valid interpretation as well.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Paradiso front cover

For the front cover, I wanted it to be simple, yet effective. The white leaves the real impact to the text within, which is the main focus of the whole book. It could also be seen as God’s purity, the contents of Canto 33 being so unbelievable and beyond imagination, the blankness symbolises the limitless possibilities of Paradiso.

It gives all the reader needs to know: The name of the collection, the book itself, the author, and the section. It uses just enough type styling to be coherent, but also using creativity as well. It almost mimics the forwards in books, where the title is written much more simply on the inner page, preparing the viewer for the focal point within, which is the text.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Book Progress 3

Following the feedback I’d received, I dramatically changed the font size within the book, going with a much more delicate approach which helps add impact to the main text, especially with bold and italics. As suggested, I made the lines to 0.25pt, and went away from the curly bracket image, instead going for a straighter form that suited the layout better and worked with the type more easily.

It was also said the solid black of the text might be too harsh, so I opted for 80% to give it a lighter tone, alongside the changes they suggested for the red. It was too orange and could be warmer, so I instead went for a more warm red, darkening it down to work with the text easier and be nicer to read.

As the playfulness of the type was liked, I tried to incorporate more of that throughout the rest of the text, along with making use of the negative space to add impact to the text and its meaning. On a smaller note, the bullet points were removed from the first page, being a minor change but one that definitely works better with the text.

The definitions of words now fit within the margin space, which I edged over the main grid boxes for to give as much space as possible. If one of the lines overlaps, it has a small break so the text is still readable. The layout paper worked so well for the main stock that I scrapped the tracing paper altogether, combining both the red annotations and the original text on the same page.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Book Progress 2

Beforehand it was suggested sticking with two colours, as I did vary some of the type for effect alongside the text’s meaning, such as blue for praise to Mary as her dress is blue. Keeping it simply black and red adds to the overall impact of the text. The text itself needed to be much smaller, going for a smaller, lighter font giving a much more delicate feeling over the overwhelming nature of the bold text alongside the red notes.

The same was said for the lines used to denote an overlapping theme between the tercets, changing it from a weight of 2 to 0.5/0.25. Where the body text was originally 15pt, which in hindsight is way too large anyway, it was suggested to go down to 9/8pt, and for the smaller definitions of specific words to be 6/7pt. Along with the definitions, it was suggested to look into marginalia, and to put them into the actual margins of the page instead of alongside my notes.

Along with that, my hierarchy did need to be considered again, which I understand as I didn’t want it to be too basic. However, it seems here that it’s better to start basic and work up from it, so I will change the text layouts to be much more linear and blocky over fluid and varying with the notes. Considering the first and second halves of the book had been done at separate times, I’m not surprised the first half needed more editing than the second.

Unlike my previous idea, it was suggested that I don’t use the tracing paper at all and instead put the red text on the same page as the black. This did work out as there is enough room on the page for both to have a firm hierarchy. As well as that, it was suggested that I print it on paper similar to bible paper, as both the Comedy and the bible are religious. For this, I used layout paper, which was thin but gave a nice effect, allowing some of the text to be seen through the paper, but not enough for it to affect the legibility.

[lucyhart-viscomm]

Barrie Tullett - The Ghost in the Fog

As my book had my notes written in red alongside the original text, it was suggested I look at Barrie Tullett’s The Ghost in the Fog. 

For a better view, other sources were looked at to get a glimpse of the actual book itself and its layout. It’s along similar lines to what I want; a book that has the Longfellow translation of Paradiso, but also has my annotations I made during my read through of it to help the reader understand it better.

My draft has more mini paragraphs over small annotations, as I wasn’t sure if it would look too messy. It’s interesting that Tullett also used red for his annotations, The Ghost in the Fog appearing to simply be a book of annotations and notes by the proof-readers without the actual text itself. It’s an interesting interpretation, and definitely pretty similar to what I intend to create, except I want to include the original text with my book to help the reader understand Canto 33 itself alongside my annotations.