A Book Is A Book Is A Book...Isn't It?

My MA studies are going rather well at the moment (I think so at least), and the pinnacle of my achievements so far is this book right here. At the moment it isn't printed as some images will be added and I need to figure out my printers current love for making everything go wonky. There are also some issues with alignment in a few places but I'll get my guides up and have that sorted in no time, just wish I'd seen them before I uploaded this draft.


So, 'What Is A Book' I'm still not entirely sure, but I'd be peaking early if I'd already figured that out.

Would like to say thanks to everyone who helped out by asking a questionnaire or having an interview with myself.

Will upload the newer, image laden (I say laden, there will be five images) one when I get a chance.

It's all drawing to a close

So then, about 3 weeks left of the year till we need to hand all our work in. Shit, that's not long at all.....Good thing that I have nearly finished my journal, not so good that I have several other loose ends to tie up. 


Today I need to mock up my 'A Guide To' book again, get paper and ink to print my journal on, fine tune some work for TQ Magazine and then  think I can start getting things to their final stages...It's going to be blind panic, but that's always fun to look back on.

243 pages of Teachers Quarterly Magazine

In an effort to show how I have developed and integrated my cover, contents, and 2 spreads for TQ magazine I have created a hefty PDF for you to browse over. Look at it here if you fancy a browse.


The aforementioned 243 pages show various stages of development (but by no means is this the only work I have done on the subject) for my completely made up magazine TQ, or Teachers Quarterly to give it it's full name.


I'm quite happy with most of the work and think I'm almost there but also realise that I'm far from finished and can't wait to see the issues that printing throws at me.


To be honest I'm pretty excited about my next project and want to get this done so I can start getting crazy with my next brief. Currently spending most of my spare time envisaging various layouts and odd pull out/pop up/spinning/folding options.


Also got a few ideas going round the old noggin for my journal layout and presentation.


Decisions, decisions


here's a funny little vid from Nike to watch after you've exhausted your eyes looking at my development work





Enjoy and have a good easter

PANIC, MAGAZINES!

Been a while since my last update, to be honest I'm not entirely sure when it was but anything more than 2 days is a year in blog time. Blog time is closely linked to dog years I think.


Since then I have had a radical overhaul (read slight redesign) of my magazine spreads. Am in the process of getting 30 or so different variations mocked up for the cover and spreads, have got the cover and 1 set of spreads ready, just need to do a contents and another set of spreads.


Also have in the last few hours turned my Animals Of Farthing Wood themed Panic project into something a lot nicer to look at, look at it here of course it's still not finished, my colours are way out of line. Need to make the reds redder, greens greener and blues, yes you guessed it bluer. Other than that not much to do except play about with paper stocks and get it printed ready to be handed in on Friday.


On a different yet slightly related note I left my gallant steed (bent and rusty bicycle) in my house for about a day and a half and upon my return I realised it was covered in tiny spiders so not entirely sure how much I want to campaign for protection of the animals anymore if they're just going to start messing my stuff up.

What's happening

Well I've not been the most productive of people recently, doing lots of stuff with TQ magazine for the most part and after printing out 125 pages of development and a 12 page 'best of' version I decided that amongst other things it was the wrong size and the type was too large so am back to square 1. An amended version will be up soon - I'm literally working on fixing it up as I type this, and they say that men can't multi-task.

Also had a chat with the people from The Phil Thomas Foundation which was nice. They help people involved with Graphic Design get work placements and financial help. I had a little chat about my portfolio after and James (creative director at Realise Agency ) seemed to like what I was doing, which is nice.

Not a whole lot more to say than that so I'll stop now. Bye

TQ Magazine

I have to say a massive thanks to Arran Murphy for giving me a hand during my recent slump. I wasn't happy with a lot of the spreads I had created recently, but think that the latest version is a step in the right direction. Have a look for yourself here, some of the colours are still off and so on but its getting there

Also got some more prints to do for a variety of projects, they should be finished by this eve so another post soon to show them off.

Morag Myerscough from studio Myerscough came in to uni yesterday to give us a talk, that's also going to be a seperate, fuller post at a later date. She has made an incredible career for herself and was a very interesting woman. Incredibly jealous of her various houses with studios and galleries built in.....

Screen printing and magazines

In an effort to get some screen printing under my belt and actually complete a brief after a period of non-productivity I volunteered my services to make some t-shirts for my friend Liz who is standing for VP Education officer. She provided me a woefully undersized picture ( about 6cm by 4cm.....) and some words, I made the image into a halftone, the words into some Helvetica bold and the an hour or so later i had 3 T-shirts.

Thanks to Alex Hoggarth for the help and the picture.

Other than the T-shirts I have been continuing my work with TQ magazine, still not finished, in fact it looks like precious little has been done. In fact I have been working away but it seems after my initial efforts it's getting harder to make things fir and look nice. Need some inspiration to come my way soon.

Till then here is a look at a second version of my TQ - 'best of'. Enjoy 

TQ Magazine

This may seem like a lot of words and not many pictures (in fact there are none at all) but please stick with it, click the links and leave some feedback if you have the time.


At the start of this term I had a chat with my tutor Sue Platt about what to do for my personal projects and we decided that after my work on Silence and The Access Project more work involving layout would be a good choice for me. So a bit more chatting, some input from the rest of my tutor group and a few minutes later and it was decided that i should try and re-design some existing magazines which lack a graphic design angle, turning them into magazines which are both exciting to look at and informative to read. They type of magazines suggested were Teaching and Medical supplements, magazines with something to say, but struggle to get the point across due to poor design.

After a bit of research and further chatting (never has a brief needed so much chatting before) with some teachers that I know it seemed that rather than re-design magazines which have limited space and funding and surprisingly poor content, I should create a new magazine which aims at a slightly younger demographic. Basically a magazine about teachers, not teaching.

So after yet more chats, asking my Sister and her teacher friends to write me some articles I have come up with my new Magazine. Teachers Quarterly (TQ) will be a magazine written by its readership about their experiences, loosley based around four seperate events in the teaching calendar. 

Aimed at young and new teachers the purpose of the magazine is to show what teachers in different parts of the country are experiencing, what they look forward to and dread, the good points and bad points of being a teacher, opportunities etc rather than the wealth of other magazines available which focus on teaching practices exclusively.


So here is a first draft, some of the stories are waiting for their words and images and the cover is in the very early stages of design but there are 7 double page spreads and a contents page to have a look at whilst I get round to doing the rest.