Leeds Bike Week Guide

The bike week guide has been the main focus of this brief. Laying out the copy was my focus, I am not sure what it is quite that I want to achieve with my practice in layout and typography, but I do know what I am becoming bored of seeing standard layout. Columns, the grid as a rule, not a guide. I think a lot of work now is so commercial that the idea of 'play' has been somewhat lost.

Jo Gilmore's work was refreshing to see. His work was playful and experimental, not so much that it was un-readable or awkward to navigate through, but using unconventional grids and combining that with elements of extreme detail and precision as well as some lovely finishing.

For my layout I wanted to explore freedom and space, something that I feel when I ride a bike. However this was always going to be restricted to an extent my the commercial nature of the work. The grid was a 6 column, perhaps not the best choice looking back, 8 col or even 12 would have been more suitable in terms of being able to play with space and pt size. People have mentioned to me that my layout is quite freeform, if I want to do something I feel I have the right to do it as a designer, as long as it can be read and aids the movement across a spread; this is something that probably won't change in my practice, no matter ow many times 'professionals' tell me it might be done a better way.

I love the grid and hate it, I think after a few more briefs focusing on layout me and the grid might live together quite nicely, but at the moment I am having a mental dilemma every time I look at one. Where? What? How big or small, is this the right typeface? These are all natural questions of course, but I hope that in the future they won't make me sweat so much.

I felt it was necessary to have more copy in the publication. It is not paramount to the communication of information with the audience, but it did give me a chance to use copy to frame the page more. After talking with Fred one day in the studio he put my mind at ease by saying don't let the content distract away from what you want to achieve. So cutting out, or adding more copy to any page at anytime felt justified as from the beginning I knew this was a practice in experimental layout.

The icons of bikes and objects added a familiar and human touch to all the type and block colour. I do not consider myself an image maker, although I am a little sad about that, as I used to be prior to the course. I hoped they would not distract away from the simplicity of the publication. I think they did.

I felt as though some of the body copy was looking too square and controlled, not what I had imagined for the idea of freedom and space. So I had a play about with moving the paragraphs and 3 elements of type around the page. Rotating, scaling and positioning were my thoughts.

I chose to have the quotes written in a block serif typeface (Rockwell) to make it clear that this was not the words of me or the client but another source. I think it adds a nice bit of character throughout the publication.

Firstly I had to get rid of the LAB colour swatch that I had selected. How badly I wish this ink existed, but oh well. This isn't the first layout I did, but it is the starting point of a dialogue between - me, the work and feedback - so this is where I shall start.

I was thinking bold and brave, being experimental from page to page. I want the readers of this to be involved with it, not in a tactile sense, but I wanted them to turn it sideways from time to time as if they were holding up a map, which is what this project is partly about of course.