OUGD405 - Studio Brief 2 - Information Design - Final Resolutions & Evaluation

Throughout this brief, I have given myself the opportunity to experiment with completely new ways of working. I found myself concentrating more on the manual choices and techniques rather than the digital design. It has given me lots of new knowledge on folding methods, stock, binding, embossing and printing methods which I have found extremely beneficial in developing my manual skills. I feel that using the Albion Letter Press was most time consuming however, my skills with letter pressing have become faster and more concise allowing me to be quicker with this process in future briefs. I would have quite liked to attempt some printing with the letter press to give the leaflet a more hand crafted aesthetic however, it would have taken me far too long to set all of the block text in the letter press machine. If the leaflet was to be commercially printed, I would spend the time to set all of the block text in order to manualy mass produce the leaflet. I have also broadened my understanding of stock weights and by experimenting with folding techniques, I have realised that around 300gsm is the maximum desired weight for folding. Any larger and the paper can start to crack and loose some of its visual appeal. Due to the final paper being 350gsm, I had to print the design on a ink jet printer instead of a laser printer. This has resulted in the double sided print to not be as precise as I intended however, it is not too noticeable on my final prints.
If i were to attempt the final resolutions again I would have used a thinner weight paper as the fold has become quite difficult when using 350gsm. I printed two final outcomes in order to try to solve this problem by applying two rubber bands to my design. However, this does not work as well as intended and the bands would also relate more with the colour scheme if they were grey. I feel that the final printed letters are very successful as they fit in with the grungy aesthetic which I was striving towards however, the images are not as clear as intended. The pills for example, are not too clear and could be mistaken as something else.