GRAPHIC DESIGN III – EDITORIAL DESIGN

AIM OF THE COURSE

GDIII - Editorial Design is a marvellous venue for creative exploration. It is the study of communication of ideas and information through symbols, images, illustration and typography in a simulated professional environment. This course prepares students for the design challenges in designing and producing professional-looking desktop publishing projects including newsletters, reports, books, & magazines. Students learn how to work from client briefs to create multi-page publications with effective typography, images, illustrations, and layouts, and prepare them for printing. A core focus emphasis is working with Page composition, negative space, grids, type & graphical elements.

Learning Outcomes

As a result of successfully completing this course, students will be able to:

• Explore typographical solutions for headline and body text as well as how to use illustration and photography to complement editorial spreads
• Learn the strategies behind cover design
• Learn how to take ideas and concepts and translate them to the printed page.
• Photo Editing—making desires clear to a photographer; creating a shot-list; talking to a photo house; finding free images; coming up with conceptual shoots for a story.
• Typeface—how to manipulate letters to create a hybrid of information and illustration; what a designer must do to keep a story readable
• Working with editors—resisting the urge to dismiss the desires of the wordsmiths, and to come up with solutions that have as high a word count as possible without sacrificing a solid layout
• The layout itself—building on knowledge to constantly develop as a designer; how to toe the line between boring mediocrity and too-crazy layouts; how to be quiet, but effective the basic elements of a layout that goes past “hmm, nice” to “wow, that’s really great!”
• Conceptualize and plan a book proposal for the senior project
• Carry out background research to clearly specify the project

Learning experience:

• Class lectures over the pertinent information and procedures
• Reviewing and discussing professional examples of various publication types
• Lab tutorials and exercises
• Class follow-along demonstrations
• Research the design process on specific projects
• Projects