Context of Practice - Study Task 2

Context of Practice - Study Task 2

I am required to write a short, constructive criticism of the LCA 2013/14 prospectus. I should pay attention to the use of type, aesthetic style, stock, layout and the intended audience of the publication. I will offer suggestions for possible improvements to accompany any criticisms.

Below are images of sections of the prospectus that I feel have positive points and negative points. 

The front cover makes a good first impression through nice looking gold foiling on the custom typeface created for the college itself. What the agency lacked though was only completing sufficient letters for the header only not the full A-Z. Not what you want when a big price tag is attached to the whole prospectus and only half a job is completed. The colored hexagons that frame up the centre aligned header is meant to represent the colleges mosaic emblem but it barely achieves this. It would work much better without the shapes and just a clean centre centre justified header would produce a better outcome. The gold works well on the neutral stock. In terms of stock i like the uncoated matte stock used it has a nice robust feel too it that contrasts nice with the simple layout. If they aligned everything correctly that is. 

I like the color scheme used throughout up until the glossy red trimmed off pages break off this consistency and add a bold element to the neutral pastel color scheme and this doesn't work in my opinion. The linear shapes used on the opening page distracts the folio of text in the contents.

Below is the element that I feel ruins layout system. Centre justified type contrasting against left aligned type folio/body text doesn't work in my opinion. The contrast of sans serif type along with script italic style causes a clash too and the cream frame again clashes with the simple layout that shouldn't have distracting elements within it. 

The above and bellow pages are another blunder to the consistency. A clean simple layout is interrupted with random placed stock images look too much like there floating about the page rather than well structured within a grid system which i feel would work much better with the simple layout that should have been maintained throughout. Instead different text sizes have been used and rotational orientations. The stock images used on this page doesn't work either the paint tube stock looks like a standard stock exchange photo and isn't well considered in terms of working with its surrounding elements and supporting subject information.   

I like the last back page the simple centre justified small point size text works well and i like the pastel blue used on the headers. 

The aspects I did like was the way the front cover layout tied in with the rear page in terms of the layout with the linear lines framing up the centre aligned typeface. This was a nice way to keep a consistent flow if they kept to this type of consistency and didn't clash centre aligned with left aligned type folios.

Points i would take to develop into my practice in my own personal style are the final page the centre justified type body with its leading central lines providing an axis to support it within the page. The use of neutral pastel colors and the use of using a color to highlight a header or subhead.

I liked the stock choice and the color scheme used minus the bold glossy pages. I feel the neutral color scheme worked well although it did feel a little corporate. Instead a more playful layout that breaks the grid a little more in an abstract way may have emulated an art school a little better.