Infographic Design

MASTERMIND
ART DIRECTION, FASHION STYLING
AND VISIONARY PHOTOGRAPHY
EDITED & PUBLISHED BY 
VICTION:ARY 

Spine, dimensions. 

When looking for a book on a shelf, you're introduced to a variety of spines; a range of thickness, heights, materials, typefaces and colours. The spine is the initial most important part of book design as this is what continues the cover image, in order to inform the viewer on the contents of the book - to encourage you to pull it out, and into your hands. Spines need to jump out of the bookshelf, as this is the only means of identifying the book. 

The height and width (190 x 255mm) of Mastermind affects the spine width as each measurement works in correlation with each other. For one, the size of the book is usually dependent on the extent - how much text is there? How many photographs? 
Touching briefly on this point, Viction:ary have chosen the following internal format for this book: Preface (double spread), contents and abbreviation key (double spread), story board of introductory images and a quote (verso), a double-sided two-page 'inner book' bound to the gutter (180 x 130mm), interview text (recto) and then double pages of complimentary works (photographs). 
Due to this repetitive layout and voice, the dimensions of the book needed to be adapted in order to follow this layout of content, in order to achieve the desired number of words and photographs per page; thus, resulting in the width of Mastermind's spine. 

Due to the book being fairly tall and wide, this allows for a medium width spine. In comparison to other neighbouring books on the shelf, Mastermind isn't the largest book, but does dominate some smaller ones, making it stand out. 

The juxtaposition of the smooth texture vs. The grainy texture, along with the reflective appearance vs. Matte materials also strengthens the book's design, as the metallic, reflective card is more eye catching against duller books as it feels luxurious, new, modern and generally interesting; while the neutral, earthy, uncoated card is more economical, grounded and practical as it could be recycled card which resulted in cutting costs, in order to have the budget for a cropped gold sheet. 

The spine lettering runs downwards, in a traditional English fashion. The titles are vertical as the spine is not thick enough to accommodate horizontal type.
The chosen typeface for the title and subtitle is suitable for the subject of the book and the nature of the text. A Didone typeface with aspects of both continental and British taste (modern face) has been used as the gradual to abrupt contrast between thick and thin strokes is recognisable within the fashion industry e.g Vogue's didot typeface. 
Other characteristics of this typeface includes:
Vertical curves of the axis; 
the serifs of the ascenders of the lowercase are horizontal; 
double storey 'a' and 'g', 
horizontal cross bar, 
'f' sits on the baseline, 
single storey 'g' with open tail, 
pointed apex, 
and uppercase 'G' has a vertical spur.  
However, the title it's self has additional graphic characteristics, to resemble script types due to the cursive decoration. The letterforms are modular as they have been made up of separate elements. This has most likely been done in order to accessorise the type, making it more appropriate for the fashion-nature of the book. 

The spine is divided in 3 rows, the first row accommodates the figures (when concealed), the middle accommodates the title, and the bottom row accommodates the publishers logo. The height of the reflective, gold card has been perfectly cropped so that the title Mastermind fits directly in the center of the spine, despite being on the adapted book jacket. This gate-fold (more on this later) that overlaps the cardboard cover, conceals numbers that run horizontally down the spine. These numbers are horizontal as the spine has been divided into 3 columns, where the numbers inhabit the middle, central column, and accommodates the horizontal type. This is an interesting quirk to the design, as it contrasts against the vertical type on the gate-fold. 

Cover, gate folds, interaction. 

Masterminds uses multiple gate-folds to create the cover. Gate-folds are often used to display wider images, but in this case, they have been used to create layers of materials, textures and to peak interest by concealing information. According to notes of book design by Derek Birdsall, they should "always been wrapped around or bound to the center of a section". A wide image has been divided into three sections. The right section of the gate-fold, inside the book, has been bound to the fly-leaf, while the left section has been folded in half to wrap around the cardboard cover. 
The second gate-fold overlaps the first gate-fold, creating a layered effect and is bound to the spine to then wrap around the back cover. 
Where the two gate-folds overlap, in order to keep them flat and in place to prevent damage, a fastening has been attached to the right over the first section of both gate-folds. The colour of the fastening compliments the blue hue of the photograph on the first gate-fold, while being aligned with the text. By having this fastening, it peaks interest and encourages you to unwrap the cover, to reveal the concealed text beneath on the card. The fastening is also relevant to the fashion nature of the content. 

On the cover/gate-fold, particular attention has been paid to the hierarchy and disposition of headings, particularly through the use of font pt and line breaks. The increased leading for these few lines breaks up the unity, causing each piece of information to appear independent. 

The title Mastermind is again in the didone font with graphic characteristics. This appears to function like a logo for the book and is repeated in the same style throughout. Uppercase font has been used for aesthetics, and to also mimic the capitalisation of fashion magazine titles. By having this information ranged right, this could be considered to be potentially difficult for the eye to find as it hinders the reading process; however as this is only a short passage and the gate-fold has been cropped before it reaches the foredge, this almost centers the right aligned text, making its deficiencies less noticeable. 
By increasing the tracking between the capital letters of the book title, it prevents the type from appearing too crowded, thus an increased tracking makes it appear more elegant.
The same didone font (sans the graphic elements) has been capitalized and used for the subtitle as it's a smaller pt size, hence the caps for visibility and readability.
For the content lowest in importance (publishing company name) the type appears to be lineale geometric, constructed on geometric shapes, sans-serif and again in uppercase for clearer visibility. This style typeface appears neutral and so can be repeated throughout all of their works, regardless of content or nature of the book. 

The typeface for the cover page and fly-leaf is a graphic type, as the characters suggest that they have been drawn with lines rather than written. This reflects creativity, artistic elements while also being clear to read. All of the text written this way is in uppercase with equal x-height and pt size, in order the communicate equal importance, which is essential when depicting the creatives names and creative fields. An altered style has been used for the '+' character. The double line characteristic has been dropped as it appears that the double lines have been filled. The x and y axis of the '+' are equal lengths, making it appear geometric.
The horizontal numbers on the spine are also in this font and has the same base line as the corresponding creatives name. This gives the information dimension and movement as it flows around the spine and onto the cover. A horizontal line has been used in between the figures to separate them and to also add a sophisticated element. 

On the reverse of the first gate-fold, justified text has been used. The information has been composed with a variety of pt sizes used systematically, in order to prevent hyphenation. Horizontal lines are used as extended hyphens between the quote and the creative practitioner's name, this appears to be a fashionable solution to unsightly rivers that often occur with justified text. 

On the second gate-fold inside the book, bound to the fly leaf, the information echos the second gate-fold information in a clearer format. The black on a non-reflective surface with more contrast is clearer to read. It's punchier and more visible, while contrasting the darker photograph. 

Weight, binding.
Mastermind isn't very well balanced in the hand when held open, due to the weight and that fact that the binding doesn't allow for the pages to lie flat or to stay open on a particular page, unless forced. Due to this, the book is to be rested on a surface, and for your hand to turn the pages while holding the verso down. When forcing the pages to lie flat, the binding feels weak - this is due to the perfect binding. This method of binding is often used for magazines as they have a shorter shelf life and isn't very durable. However for Masterminds the pages haven't been glued individually, but as signatures with high strength, flexable adhesive so that it's more durable. This method of binding is a cheaper alternative to others. It's quick and easy as no sewing is required, so it's suitable for multiple publications. Viction:ary possibly chose to use a paper back cover as it appears that they like to reduce costs where possible so that the budget can be spent on higher quality paper inside for the photographs, as well as ink and the gate folds. 

Page layout, alignment 

The point size of the content internally is quite small in order to fit on one page. However in order to fit all of the content on the recto the size of the book has needed to be increased. The size of the book could fit in a handbag, but not in your pocket. Therefore this book isn't something that you read on-the-go, especially as it's more than likely needs to be placed on a surface. 

The alignment of text throughout the book ranges from ranged left, ranged right, centered and justified. The alignment appears to be selected based on fashion, as opposed to a particular reason. However the quotes that are placed over the storyboard photographs appear to be aligned based on a balanced composition and for increased and more appropriate visibility. 

The text inside of the book has been arranged in 3 columns. This makes large amounts of information more approachable and thus, easier to read. There is also a hierarchy for this content, which has been displayed through the use of underlines and capital letters. 

The use of a computer during book design, allows the gutter margins to have a matching number of "x-heights" to a given millimetre depth. Often, trial and error methods are used to determine the perfect design, in order to achieve the desired number of words per page. This includes: number of lines, type size and line spacing (leading). 

Colour, photographs 

Mastermind combines luxurious colours that are often associated with wealth, along with neutral, earthy tones. Gold and blue are the luxury colours that juxtapose the white and the un-coated, cardboard brown. 

Inside of Mastermind, there is a white gutter margin, and a warm toned grey-beige background. This is a nicer alternative to a white background, as the contrast against the black text is softer and less harsh. The same effect is created on the first inner gate fold, as navy blue text has been used on white - again, less harsh than black on white. 

Photographs have followed the fashion nature of the book, as they have been displayed to resemble a collage/story board. The images have a range of scale, different orientations, and some bleed up to the head or foot of the page, overlapping the gutter margin. This gives it a more unique, fun and interesting appearance, as it's more spontaneous that a simple grid layout. Referring to the double page photographic spreads, some of the images even overlap the hinge, however these have been carefully placed so that the focus point of the image, is off centre and not disturbed by the hinge itself. The photographs have also been categorised, not only by photographer, but also colour schemes. This helps to make the pages more aesthetically pleasing, while also maintaining some structure so that the images compliment each other.

Typographic Poster

Using a supplied font in three different pt sizes, I created 3 A3 posters. The first one was designed using just one font size (left), arranging all of the supplied information. I dislike this poster as it's quite boring and has no dimension to it. Also by all of the text being the same font size, it's difficult to navigate clients to the primary information. 

For the second poster (top right), I used two fonts. This is a much nicer effect as you can highlight the primary information and push back the 'less important'. I was highly influenced by the National Portrait Gallery posters, however these posters have portraits/images in the centre of the poster, thus I used the primary information typography to create almost an interesting shape to stand in as an image, while the secondary information is neatly positioned in the corners. 

For the third poster, again inspired by the National Portrait Gallery posters, I used 3 font sizes. This creates a much nicer aesthetic as it's more interesting to look at, but it also helps me as a designer to navigate the audience through the information. Due to this, I feel that the 3rd poster is my favourite, as I like the three levels of important information, and also the aesthetic and composition. 

Primary information:
What?
When?
Where?

Secondary information:
Who?

Tetriary information:
Travel information.

100 new uses for a brick

So this is my first project for University of East London (where I have achieved a full Vice-Chancellors Scholarship for Academic Excellence to study BA Graphic Design).
The brief set asked the students to illustrate 100 wacky uses for a brick, and then arrange these illustrations on an A2 black and white poster.


In order to respond to this brief, I began by creating a mind map, listing these 100 uses, and then creating a tiny, rough sketch to go next to each idea. I then decided to grab my sketch book and redraw each of these designs in more detail with better and more clear line works. These drawings are roughly the same size as an A5 sheet of paper, but of course some sizes vary. For these, I used a fine liner pen in various widths, as opposed to my initial sketches being created with an ordinary biro pen.


Using my very unreliable printer, I scanned in each of these drawings, page by page (there are approximately 5 illustrations per A4 page), before then opening each page in PhotoShop to increase the contrast of each; these were then re-saved and opened in Illustrator, allowing me to Live Trace the pages, to create clean, smooth vector drawings.
Using PhotoShop, I used the magic wand tool to remove the paper background from each Illustrator document, leaving the clean lines only.

As for the layout of the poster, I played around with a couple of ideas. My initial thought was to get creative and create almost an advent calendar, where each 'day' is a brick which folds open revealing a use of the brick concealed beneath. However we only had Friday to Friday to complete this whole project, with other classes on Wednesday and Thursday; meaning there was only 4 days to complete the illustrations and the poster.

Inspiration and playing with

orientation and layout.

I like this layout, however the illustrations

would have been too small to see. 

I opted for just a simple poster in the end. However I didn't want to just lay my illustrations out one by one in a 10 x 10 grid format, as I felt like that would be the obvious option for the majority of the students. I'm really into science, so when thinking of an interesting grid format, the periodic table came to mind with its categories, irregular shape and much more interesting layout.

As I used the periodic table as my inspiration for my layout this caused a couple of issues as there are not 100 elements/noble gasses within the periodic table, so it required me to rearrange the design, place some illustrations outside of this grid, dividing them with a simple line. As for the typography choice, and the overall design, I was inspired by Chanel as I appreciate the cleanliness, sophistication and simplicity of the branding. Considering the poster was required to be in a clean black and white colour scheme, I turned to the inspiration of Chanel, and also incorporated a thick black border with a solid white background, which is classic for the brand.

Overall I am quite happy with the design. I feel like it does look a little boring and not as impactive as I would have liked. However given the brief and the timescale, I feel that the outcome was successful and I am happy with my inspirational choices as I feel that it took the poster from being a simple 10 x 10 grid so something more hearty and irregular. I also rotated one on the illustrations 180 degrees, to create a decorative floral piece. 

Final Piece

Showpack Designs for London Fashion Week S/S 16

There was a time when I was SO good at being loyal to my blog, with weekly posts and a constant flow of artwork/designs. However 2015 has definitely been the year to boost my career! I have been lucky enough to freelance with Select Model Management, and since the resign of the Head of the Art Department, I have now adopted that role. During my time at Select, I have been fortunate enough to design some showpack ideas for London Fashion Week Spring/Summer 2016.

Here are a few previews of my designs:

Not final designs. Must not be used without permission. Copyright S.Sargeant©

Special Bookings

Retouching

So it seems that my last update/blog post was all the way back in April. Usually my consistency with social media is quite admirable, however recently my personal work has been put on hold while I have been freelancing with my agency - of course the artwork created within these companies can not be shared on social media, hence my lack of updates!

What I can update you on however, is that my recent freelance work has been focusing on retouching and artworking at Select Model Management. Due to this addition on my CV I am now considered to be a retoucher, and so I have been working on a new retouching portfolio!
Here are some of the images:

Not all initial images are my own. Intended for personal use to practice my retouching and to demonstrate my skill.

The Skin of Plenty

You wouldn’t wear human baby skin. 

So why wear animal skin?

For my Final Major Project I have tackled the use of animal skin/fur within fashion, and the abuse that the leather industry promotes, through an installation piece. I aimed to achieve this through the element of shock in order to provoke a reaction from the public. I have exhibited the cruel conditions of the animals who are slaughtered, along with highlighting the inhumanity within these acts. The shock factor, is that I have reversed the prey-predator roles, by using ‘human’ skin to create garments - not just human skin, but babies. This way I hoped to create an emotional response from the spectators.  

The Skin of Plenty is exhibiting on Tuesday 28th April 2015, 6-9pm at London College of Communication

I feel that I have done well to maintain my original idea and plan, while making necessary alterations which have improved the piece in terms of aesthetics and communication. I feel that my original plan was good in theory, but practically I felt that some of the components were unnecessary. I decided not to include the medical table with bloodied tools, or the contrasting poster. I felt that I reached a stage, where The Skin of Plenty communicated the idea well enough and anything else would have lost the rawness and distracted the audience from the message. If I continued to work on the piece by adding elements, I knew that I would have over-worked it. 

Original Design Idea

View of the installation from above

I think overall the materials worked well together. I initially had a few complications with how I was going to create the skin-like texture without using leather. I had originally hoped to melt the tattoo practise skins, to create a distorted mosaic of skin as my ‘fabric’. I tried applying heat to the skins to melt them, however they just turned to ash and crumbled. 

As an alternative I decided to use liquid latex and tissue to create the texture of damaged skin. These materials were easy to mould, to peel back, to rip etc. thus I was able to create any effect I wanted such as holes and cuts in the ‘skin’. Brown and red acrylic paint stippled onto the latex and tissue worked well to create a dried-blood effect, while also enhancing the texture (by applying Brilliant Red to the high-points on the surface, and a dark brown to the sunken areas). Also, as the practise skins are slightly rigid, it was difficult to design a garment that could be created using these materials. 



I do not think the actual design of the dress that I pursued was the best out of my sketches, however it is the one that worked well with the materials. However I really like the long latex part of the dress which was inspired by David Koma’s debut for Mugler Autumn/Winter 2015-16. I think that by contrasting the effect of thick flesh with thin, stretched skin, worked well. The pieces on the hips are a nod towards Jean Paul Gaultier, as he uses leather in his work and often has pieces on the hips within his designs. 

My Dress Design Idea

I also had an issue with the overall presentation of the piece. I had to consider the possibility of not using a dark, isolated room when being exhibited, thus my design had to be suitable to be displayed in the dark, and a bright open space. As you can see through the cage, this would have made it problematic to really view the design as a whole, as there would be distractions. However, I combated this, by throwing a black photography back-drop sheet over the cage, and then throwing back the front. This actually worked very well as it enabled me to isolate the design, without relying in the design to be in an isolated area. As the front is thrown back and all other sides are concealed externally, it also encourages the spectators to walk around the design, curious, until they reach the front and then they are in total shock, then it would be completely unexpected. This also aides the effect that I was hoping to achieve. I feel that because of this, the design works well in a bright, open space.  

Design in a dark, isolated room.

For a dark space, as I have played with composition in order to create shadows using lights with green lighting gel. The green gel gives an eerie and uncomfortable tint, whilst giving enough light in a dark space to make the design gently emerge from the darkness. Due to this lighting effect, it conceals some elements of the design at a first glance, causing you to look deeper into the design. This means that the audience will learn more about the design, the longer they look, as nothing is clear at a first glance - exactly what the leather industry is like. There are so many secrets within the industry that people are ignorant to, which I hope to reveal; such as the fact that you do not no what your leather came from - or who.  

The lighting and sound design was highly inspired by Alexander McQueen’s Savage Beauty exhibition (an exhibition that was full of animal materials used for fashion). I admired how the designs were enhanced with the use of lighting to create shadows and sound to add an uncomfortable setting. Each collection had a unique set design suited for that inspiration. I feel that this exhibition strongly influenced my final design. Audible sounds in the exhibition are similar to sounds within my own, such as the use of Savage Beauty using a mother’s voice singing to her child, while I used a child’s voice singing about laying beneath a weeping willow, (“O Willow Waly”, Isla Cameron, The Innocents, 1961) whilst my babies I created, are discarded in a pile beneath the skin dress. My sounds were also inspired by Lou Reed, ‘Berlin’ album, 1972 “The Kids”, as the producer used audio recordings of his children calling their mum as they have been put to bed. I on the other hand, recorded babies crying and repeated/overlapped them in my piece.  

I think ‘The Skin of Plenty’ is successful in creating an atmosphere and playing on the spectators emotions. I’ve asked peers and other sources to view my piece and they all had a very shocked and speechless reaction - exactly what I hoped. Many of them exclaimed that I am “not normal” and “need help” due to how “disgusting and messed up” my piece is. However I am very pleased with this response as when I reversed the accusations and highlighted that the leather and fur industry actually do this, they were in agreement that the industry is wrong. The Skin of Plenty was able to highlight the leather industry behind-the-scenes in a new light, causing the spectators to see leather in a different way, while educating them on how “disgusting and messed up” the industry is and that it should be stopped.  


Overall I am pleased with how my piece finalised. I learnt about the leather industry in detail, and whilst being inspired by artists, exhibitions and museums, I was able to recreate the scene in a dramatic and shocking format. I also visited animal shelters and hospitals to inform my final piece and experimented with solutions when working with materials. Some of the materials were great in theory, but in practise I found that I had to make alterations. However I now feel that they worked well together and created a similar effect to what I originally designed. If I could improve this, I would maybe recreate the dress, as visually, I’m not too fond of it, however as I have designed this to appear as though it’s ‘in process’, I’m not too disappointed. I feel that if I was able to take this idea further, I would love to create furniture, car interior and shoes out of the same materials, as a collection.

WANT TO SEE MORE IMAGES? CLICK HERE

UAL Final Major Project progress update 2

I'm currently working on my Final Major Project (FMP) which will determine my final grade for my Foundation Diploma in Art and Design at University of the Arts London, London College of Communication.

Since my previous blog post I have added small details which have made an improvement. To begin with, I stained the 100% latex part of the dress with 'blood' (diluted acrylic paint), by soaking the material in this solution for a few seconds, and then hanging up to dry vertically, allowing the 'blood' to run and drip. By staining the dress this way, I was able to create an uneven coverage, which helps to add more texture and life. Also, as the dress was hanging vertically, the bottom of the dress has more saturation, causing a nice gradient which balances the once top-heavy dress. With the help of my 8 month old brother, I coated his hands with mixed acrylic paint, and let him grab and pull the fabric, leaving his tiny, baby hand prints over the material and creating aggressive movements with the strokes. The asymmetry of these hand prints suggest spontaneity, and thus depicts the story of how animals animals in the leather industry are desperate to get away from the brutality that will be their murder. Whilst my brother had messy hands, I also let him tug and pat his white baby grow that he was wearing. Once I was happy with the coverage of baby hands, I then soaked the baby grow in water which had been lightly mixed with brown acrylic paint, to give it a subtle dirty tint, as I felt that the baby grow was too white to begin with.

I also made some intestines; experimenting with tissue, wool, liquid latex and paint. I will arrange these intestines so that they appear to be spilling from the babies all over the floor. I may also hang some intestines from the top of the cage, discard them in a pile etc. 

I have also made some changes to my original design. I have decided not to include the medical table with bloodied tools, or the contrasting poster. I feel that the current stage of the design communicates the idea well enough, thus I do not want to over-do the design, losing the rawness and distracting the audience from the message. In addition to this, I have removed the abstract piece in the background and also the black 'wall' to the cage. I now want my design to be open as I have also decided not to have the design in a dark room with dim, green lighting. I have decided that my piece will be displayed in an open area, with white walls and floor, under bright lights. However, what I will do is throw a black sheet (I am currently using a muslin photography backdrop as it's perfectly opaque) over the cage, and the flip the front back. This will conceal what is in the cage, until the spectator can view it from the front - still capturing the shock effect that I was after. As the black sheet will cause some slight shadows and darkness, I have purchased 3 small Stick 'n' Click lights, no more that 3" in diameter each. With my theatrical knowledge, I then purchased green lighting gels, which will be cut to shape and placed over these lights, to create a green hue. 

The fine details that I am currently working on includes staining the baby grow with more blood to make it look like the babies have been ill-treated, colour matching the intestines to the babies a bit more, (as they are currently too bright), possibly making some more intestines, finishing the sounds of babies crying - this I may possibly dicard, arranging the lighting and possibly making a label for the dress ("premium leather" or something along those lines will be used, alighting the fact that the leather industry does not state which animal leather is obtained from, and could even be animals such as dogs and cats - or in my case, human babies).