While my degree comes to an end and most of my university call are one on one tutorial call with my tutors, I decide to book in a call with my tutor David to get some feedback on dissertation design as this would be the first time someone seeing it. Having someone else opinion that’s not my own eye or my peers emily view it would be really beneficial to help develop the design a bit more before uploading and making the work into mockup to use in my portfolio.
when i first went into the call i really felt that my design were okay nothing crazy bu having David gave me the condiecnt boost on my work by giving me feedback but there wasn’t loads only small pointers and these would all help me improve my design, Starting at the start of my design I showed my cover of my dissertation and explained if it wasn’t covid times i would of used plastic wrap and extca paper to make flip pages but due to covid and not having as much access stuff i designed this outcome on indesign design.The feedback I had on my cover was to add in my brighter pink colour in the background as the design right now can be a bit washed out while it looks good graphically the colour doesn’t make the design pop, and to change the white add on page to less opacity as it doesn’t really look like my idea.
By using David advice it really benefit my design overall as it helped the writing in the back stand out and helps identity the dissertation a bit more without people having to go into the design and read this could really help tell people straight away if they want to read it or no, the font choice really works for the title as it stands out over the background.
Spread one feedback- `Spread one was one of the spreads that didn’t really much changes the feedback i was adviced was to look at the rivers /rags on the paragraphs as it could look too messy or in david words ” someone after drinking too many pints” this really made me laugh at my design and not see it as critical changes while I used this feedback i was also advised to check my spacing, and adding highlight the start of my paragraph on the left page to highlight the main starting point as it would really show my understanding of graphics and typography design, while taking this on board I went on to make all my paragraphs in all my spreads the same so the design flow and doesnt look out of place.
Spread two – this spread feedback advice was to look more at why have I made the right paragraphs pink and not the others, I only did this for my own sake to see if it helps develop the design and personally i think the pink text works that well in a block just looks too harsh on the eyes and hard to read but work as pull out quotes if they are bigger than a size 12. David’s advice was to look at the white text and change the colour as it really hard to read on the background my experiment was to try out grey and when i did this the colour just didn’t suit the design that much so the pink ended up working and helped stand out as pull out quotes of interesting parts of the dissertation .
Spread three- when sowing my design of spread three I showed david two different colours that Ii explored on the background i only did this as my work is often very pastel and I don’t push myself and for once Ii did but I was unsure what looked right so I used tutorial call for a designer advice ( i personally think the coral/nude works better the pink is too distracting)
David advise on this was listen to my designer self and use the colour that i thought worked the best and that was the nude the best advice he gave me was to remove the title page due to my design of the receipt it wasn’t really need it just extca type that didn’t have a purpose by removing the type and making the recpt a main focus on the design i feel it really helps balance out the spread layout and it also helps takes the focus on the right side more back to the left design that seen as the more fun and creative side to me, to add this design i could always use my cover idea of using type in the background and fading it into the background could work but it could be seen as a messy design if i push to the design too much in the wrong direction.
Spread 4 – the last spread awka the favorite design of mine, this spread didn’t have a lot of improvement to as the design was one of the strongest design from all of the spreads so far, the feedback advice that given was that Ii could add in some weight on to the typeface on the right side of the spread ot highlight another key message in my design over the quote design so far. The second advice was double checking for extra spacing and i could try and make a pull quote on the left side of the spread to split up the text a bit more and to balance of the spread, i took both of theses on board and use it as a way to develop the design more.
By having the call with David i feel a lot more happier with my dissertation design I can see by having a 10 minute call has really helped me develop the editorial outcome a lot and it’s ready to be placed in mock up so I’m very thankful for david’s support in today’s call
Georgia Smith 