OUGD505 - Studio Brief 1: An Introduction To Air Jordan (1)

After deciding on the subject that I was going to do: An Introduction To Air Jordan, I did a quick brainstorm on the possible directions in which I could take for my research as the subject is still pretty large even though it's narrowed down.

While working on the exact content I was going to use I moved onto the designing side of the publication. After doing the research into publications and initial research into Nike & Air Jordan, I had a pretty clear idea into what I wanted to design.
I did a few quick sketches of a couple of different ideas that I had for the layout and overall aesthetic for the content. After doing the research into colour and into Air Jordan, it is clear that their main colours are red, black and white in the original versions of the sneakers, which are then variated in colours for re-released versions/other versions. Because of this I wanted to keep the colour scheme of the whole publication in red, black and white.

After sketching out these few ideas that I had, I quickly experimented with the idea of the images potentially being halftone and monotone in either red or black and white.
I took an image of an Air Jordan sneakers:

I then did two versions of a halftone image, one in black and white and one in colour.

I think these both worked well and could potentially be the route I go down. I'm not sure about halftone effect but I will have to see how it fits into the publication pages.

I then started working on some sort of logo for the publication. Air Jordan has two already, the basketball and the wings, and the jump man. The first one isn't really used much apart from in the Retro Range of sneakers (rereleased version of the original range), on the sneakers and on the packaging. The jump man is used throughout every range of the Jordan brand so is much more recognisable in general so I wanted to use this.
In terms of using it, it would be on the front cover, and as it has no text with it, it's only going to be recognisable if someone knows what it is, so I wanted to add 'Air Jordan' to it in some way to make a logo for this brief.
I researched into Nike's typeface use and it came up that for their 'Just Do It' posters/advertisements, they use Futura Bold Condensed Caps. To keep in with this branding, I wanted to use this typeface through the publication as the headings. I am undecided on the body text typeface yet, but I think I will use a variation of Futura.
I started with the first idea that I had for the logo. As the jump mans legs are quite equal in the height and how far apart they are, so I wanted to put the text underneath it.

By warping the text I think this has worked very well and is exactly what I wanted to do. I'm not completely sure about the 'air' placement or size but at the minute it is working ok. I then tried it in a couple of colour combinations.

I think it definitely works better all in one colour and do like the red on the black or the black on white.

I then started on the second idea I had, replacing the 'O' in Jordan with the basketball in the jump man.

I do like how this looks so tried it in a few colour variations.

I then tried it where the text was slanted like the way it is in the Nike logo itself.

I think it works ok, but I'm not sure about this overall design. It counts on the jumpman being large and the text being quite small. I'd rather have the text at a reasonable size to the logo.

I made the third idea that I had which was more along those kind of lines, where the jumpman was smaller, putting it as a full stop after the text.

It works ok, but I'm not sure it is what I'm looking for. I definitely think my initial idea works the best because it fits together much better than the other two ideas.
I then tried it with the Nike elephant print as this could potentially be a route I take. I could potentially foil or spot varnish the print onto the design.

I think it looks ok but I would have to experiment in the print processes to know truly how it works. For the minute though I do like it as a solid colour, and will stick with that until I have something that is stronger in design.

I then started on laying out the page designs for the inside of the publication. I have decided on the publication being at 260x300mm. I started with a standard grid of 8x10 so the grid was pretty much squares.

I then tried out two different colour schemes of the same idea, the first in monochrome with the red lines across and the second with a red image.

My initial thoughts are that with the red title, the monochrome image definitely better and I like the way the title lays over the image. I don't like the way the red lines are at all, and I think the columns are too wide. I do think that with the monochrome image it makes the page a bit too plan so would like to use the red image to add a bit of colour. I don't think the text would work well in red so need to have colour somewhere otherwise it'll be quite a bland publication, which isn't what Nike is about or how I like to design.
I wanted to put the columns into threes, so changed the grid so it would suit this. It is now 9x12.

I then started to variate the designs to see what worked and what didn't work.

My initial thoughts on these first two is that the three columns make it much more readable, and the black heading against the red image works a lot better.

With this success in mind, I variated the design and tried to work around the ideas that I had.

At this point I have decided that the red lines just aren't working at all so I shouldn't use them at all. At the minute I'm not entirely pleased with how the layouts are turning out. I think they are quite boring and standard, which isn't what I want at all. I want the layouts to be interesting to look at as well as interesting to design.

I started off by trying the idea of the pages being in red and the text being in white.

However I decided immediately that this wasn't what I wanted at all and it didn't look good at all, so I decided on getting rid of this and trying to make the design a lot more contemporary and visually interesting.

I decided on putting the images back to monochrome because I had the idea of having large pieces of red text overlaying and contrasting the images. I also changed the width of the columns so they were a bit larger.

I think that this works much better. It looks much more contemporary and is even in the colours used, however I do think the image looks a bit washed out, so tried it the other way round with the text in black overlaying a red image.

I think this works well so started variating a few other small design choices to see what worked best.

I added a bit of a footer to the pages to see how this could work.

I'm not keen on the red bars at all so have decided that these aren't necessary and the text at the bottom isn't necessarily needed. I decided that the first attempt at this looks pretty decent in terms of layout and structure so will be sticking with this. I like the way some of the body copy covers the image as well as the larger piece of text. At the minute I'm not sure about the other box being in red, but I think that this will be a change to make when I've got the content sorted and have decided on layouts.

Chosen Initial Layout

I then moved onto working on some kind of front cover page with the logo I had created. At the minute the idea is that the content pages will be white stock, so I want a contrasting stock to. My initial idea is to have red stock with the logo printed on the front in black.
I did a few variations of this.

At the minute I do like the second one because it is simple but has the information necessary. What I'm unsure of is if I need to have 'research booklet' and the swoosh on it so it is clear that it corresponds to Nike.

After having the initial page layout sorted, I then went about creating some more layouts in the same aesthetics. To do this I decided on drawing them out instead of doing it digitally. I found it much more free than sitting on InDesign to try do this part. I printed out two A4 sheets with the grid on four times and used these on my lightbox to create the layouts.

I drew out eight double page spreads and sixteen single page spreads.

I am happy that there is quite a diverse selection that I have created. I tried to make them all different as much as possible, with a different amount of images or text on each. I found it quite hard to fit all the elements I had onto the single page spreads so doing these did take quite a while to do. These will be for parts of research which have less text clearly because it was hard to fit it all on while keeping the heading and text boxes at the same size.
I then took these into InDesign and mocked them up, with coloured boxes as to where the images would be. At the minute I have put the red text boxes on for the boxes which don't cover the images, but like I previously said, this will depend on the content in the end.
Double page spreads:

My initial thoughts on the double page spreads are that there is a good variation of them, but a couple do look a little too spaced out and with not enough on a page to fit with the others. However I think I won't be able to fully decide this until the content is in and the final layouts are chosen. I have eight here, and probably won't use all eight because that would be all sixteen pages.

Single page spreads:

At the minute I am happy with each individual page. As they're all individual sheets it does give me the option to mix and match them around. As spreads I do think they work well, but this will entirely depend on which ones I decide on using in the publication.

At this point I reviewed over everything I have and I think I have quite a solid base and starting point to this publication. In terms of design I am happy with everything I have done and think that I am designing something that would fit in with the content and is quite contemporary. I am fully expecting changes will need to be made when the content is put in, but for the minute these are good wireframes that I'm working to.
What I need to do now is decide on the sixteen pages of content and which page designs would best suit the content. I also need to collect a wide range of images of a good quality that relate to the subject areas.
I also want to experiment more with the elephant print design as this is something that I think could potentially add an interesting element to the publication, whether it's just printed or is a special print process like foiling or spot varnish.