A blog for the summer 2016 NEiA Advanced Layout class with instructor, Coni Porter. The purpose is to offer faculty and peer feedback in a timely manner, allowing and encouraging the students to progress in a focused and productive way.
Monday, August 22, 2016
Elizabeth_Brochure
Here is my updated mock including my folder and brochure
Elizabeth – making good progress here. Your logo is bold enough to call attention to itself in your identity projects, and yet it holds some lovely detail (in the small colored triangle). The brochure is eye catching with some really nice areas of balance and color. Some thoughts:
Business card backside – it appears that all the type here is overly dark and bold, and doesn’t match what I see on the letterhead. I suggest you use the lighter weight font but find a way to emphasize the person’s name. That is where a contrast in style needs to happen, in my opinion. Have you tried all caps? Also – and I failed to mention this last time – the name of the company isn’t seen here in its branded font, which seems inconsistent. Once a brand is set, a font change in something as important as the company name really shouldn’t happen. Not sure what the answer is. I had suggested you use the logo icon, bleeding off the right side of the card – which could actually mean you wouldn’t need to use the company name at all on this side. Keep thinking about your typographic treatment here, it is important.
Brochure: I think I am seeing a 1 fold design, is that right? So there are 4 panels. The expectations were of a multi-fold design (which means more than 1 fold) but I have no problem shifting that, as long as you have a good reason for it. Does it fit in an unusually creative or successful way into your pocket folder? Make sure to consider this marketing project as a whole, where all the pieces are designed to fit together well.
Cover: The lower gray area could use a quote of some sort, maybe a testimonial from a satisfied customer… or something that allows this area to add to the message content.
Inside left: This is particularly nice, with colors that interweave around each other and seem to stitch this composition together. Nicely clever “A” in About reminds us of your logo. Please carefully read the text and substitute Visionary Prints for Boston Business Printing. Also, “How can we help you?” should sit with the following paragraph shouldn’t it? Pay attention to the way you have chunked this type. Does this column of text seem to come too close to the yellow square along the right side? It appears like you need a wider gutter between your columns in this area in your grid structure. The text column could certainly be more narrow because you have space at bottom for more lines.
Inside right: the heading here seems inconsistent with “About Us”. Why isn’t it the same size? It probably should be, because it currently is leaving a larger amount of neg space (black in this case) than the other heading… and looks wrong. Can you rewrite the heading, so it sits on just that 1 line? “What We Offer” or “What We Do”…
There is awkward trapped neg space on this panel, above and beside the smaller photos at bottom. I think it is because your type is sitting in a too-wide grid (just like the facing page was). Correct this grid and you’ll have more options for your photos to fit into the composition without crashing into the type and possibly be larger than they are being used now.
Back panel: Same issue here as your business card – “Visionary Prints” needs to be either set apart from its address or emphasized. Since you have plenty of room on this panel, what about adding the logo and not feeling restricted to putting everything into that blue area?
I'm liking the look of this brochure so far! I really like how you have the colored bars criss-crossing. However, I think a really cool effect you could test out with them is if you had a gradient effect on some of them like the ones that go towards the photo. For the gray area of the cover, I would feather that top part so it fades into the white area maybe? Just an idea.
I like the overall look of the pocket folder, but I agree with Opheia that it seems to be separate from the brochure due to the different color scheme. I would change the pocket folder colors to the ones of your brochure.
Elizabeth – making good progress here. Your logo is bold enough to call attention to itself in your identity projects, and yet it holds some lovely detail (in the small colored triangle). The brochure is eye catching with some really nice areas of balance and color. Some thoughts:
ReplyDeleteBusiness card backside – it appears that all the type here is overly dark and bold, and doesn’t match what I see on the letterhead. I suggest you use the lighter weight font but find a way to emphasize the person’s name. That is where a contrast in style needs to happen, in my opinion. Have you tried all caps? Also – and I failed to mention this last time – the name of the company isn’t seen here in its branded font, which seems inconsistent. Once a brand is set, a font change in something as important as the company name really shouldn’t happen. Not sure what the answer is. I had suggested you use the logo icon, bleeding off the right side of the card – which could actually mean you wouldn’t need to use the company name at all on this side. Keep thinking about your typographic treatment here, it is important.
Brochure: I think I am seeing a 1 fold design, is that right? So there are 4 panels. The expectations were of a multi-fold design (which means more than 1 fold) but I have no problem shifting that, as long as you have a good reason for it. Does it fit in an unusually creative or successful way into your pocket folder? Make sure to consider this marketing project as a whole, where all the pieces are designed to fit together well.
Cover: The lower gray area could use a quote of some sort, maybe a testimonial from a satisfied customer… or something that allows this area to add to the message content.
Inside left: This is particularly nice, with colors that interweave around each other and seem to stitch this composition together. Nicely clever “A” in About reminds us of your logo. Please carefully read the text and substitute Visionary Prints for Boston Business Printing. Also, “How can we help you?” should sit with the following paragraph shouldn’t it? Pay attention to the way you have chunked this type. Does this column of text seem to come too close to the yellow square along the right side? It appears like you need a wider gutter between your columns in this area in your grid structure. The text column could certainly be more narrow because you have space at bottom for more lines.
Inside right: the heading here seems inconsistent with “About Us”. Why isn’t it the same size? It probably should be, because it currently is leaving a larger amount of neg space (black in this case) than the other heading… and looks wrong. Can you rewrite the heading, so it sits on just that 1 line? “What We Offer” or “What We Do”…
There is awkward trapped neg space on this panel, above and beside the smaller photos at bottom. I think it is because your type is sitting in a too-wide grid (just like the facing page was). Correct this grid and you’ll have more options for your photos to fit into the composition without crashing into the type and possibly be larger than they are being used now.
Back panel: Same issue here as your business card – “Visionary Prints” needs to be either set apart from its address or emphasized. Since you have plenty of room on this panel, what about adding the logo and not feeling restricted to putting everything into that blue area?
This is going to be very successful!
Thank you for your posting, you did a great job.
ReplyDeleteI very like your pocket folder color theme, but it seems different from the brochure color. Do you consider about united the color theme?
I was thinking about it but I'm not really sure how to uniting them. I'm still trying to figure it out
DeleteElizabeth
ReplyDeleteI'm liking the look of this brochure so far! I really like how you have the colored bars criss-crossing. However, I think a really cool effect you could test out with them is if you had a gradient effect on some of them like the ones that go towards the photo. For the gray area of the cover, I would feather that top part so it fades into the white area maybe? Just an idea.
I like the overall look of the pocket folder, but I agree with Opheia that it seems to be separate from the brochure due to the different color scheme. I would change the pocket folder colors to the ones of your brochure.
Really good so far!
love the grid idea, also how your are incorporating them with the CMYK.
ReplyDelete