Book details..

Book size: 22 x 28 cm
Typeface: Optima



Grid


Applying the grid


Typeface: Optima

yes, i did it!

well i don't know if that was considered half-way or further, but half way through the semster, and definetly more than halfway through my senior project, i decided to change it! Many people thought that was bad news, but really no one has any idea that it's great news for me. True, i chose my concept, worked on it every week and got some great, good and bad results. But one thing was missing, i didn't have the passion and excitement i get while working on any other project. Usually when i start on a project it takes sometime for me to get the feel of it and then suddenly i find myself drowned in it, trying everything possible to make it work to its best, but in this case i felt like i was forced to work on it, i knew what i was producing was not something i would do, i was positive that i was capable of doing something better.

As you see in my last post, i decided to make a calendar and that's because it had something to do with book design, and i really enjoy designing books (as in page layouts). The thought of designing a book stayed in my mind for the whole of last weekend, i felt like i couldn't work since my mind was busy thinking of the book i want to design.

I'm sure everyone knows the times when u sit thinking of something all day and night and suddenly a great idea strikes you. That great idea was changing my whole project to something i've already worked with and felt like it was incomplete. That book was a photography book i designed for Almoutasim last December. Basically, his whole class was gona publish a book with their photography work in it, and each designer had to design the section of his assigned photographer.

I felt like that project was incomplete. Al had to remove a lot of his photographs to be able to stick to the specified number of pages assigned for each students, the cover didn't look good enough for an actual book cover and the book was not printed. Therefore, i decided to go back to Al, take the rest of his photographs and design a book for him. All of this happened the whole of last week. The first draft of the book is already complete. This week i'll be working on a second draft, i will also be receiving more photographs from Al and adding explanatory text under some of the photographs.

dissatisfaction?... stress?

well... where can i start? I've been sitting down half of today doing absolutely NOTHING infront of this screen. Ok, not nothing, I've been thinking, forced to be thinking after being attacked by all sorts of ideas! they were coming to me from everywhere that I decided to grab a paper and write down everything storming in my mind.

what ideas? and why?... lately i've been thinking that I could've chosen something better for my senior project (i know it's kinda late!) i really like the concept i have and im enjoying working on it but the problem is I think i did much stronger projects in the past 4 yrs than this one, and thats stressing me out. I like my posters, its a new thing im working with (new to me) but i can't get rid of the thought of "there are better ways i could show what i learnt in the past 4 yrs, there are things i'm better at than poster designs" i'm confident of my poster design skills, yet i know that i could do a much better job at designing a book for example!

The book design keeps invading my thoughts everytime i try to go back and work on my posters, so i decided to put and end to it :).. i started thinking of how I could use my concept in a BOOK, i did some brainstorming and decided to a calendar would be something very interesting! but ofcourse time is an issue, so now i've decided that if and only IF i get to finish my posters earlier than the submission date, I will be designing a calendar! The posters or the sayings im using are going to be part of the calendar, so probably each month (or two) can be on a page along with a saying!

I'm not going to go further in planning my calendar till i'm done with the posters! So i'm gona be holding on to that thought till then :)

updates..

In the past few weeks i've been looking at more sayings that are applied to our daily lives. In my previous post one of the things i wanted to work on is experimenting with different typefaces, below is an example of one of the ways i try to visualize how the text is going to look like in different typefaces.



one of the things i've been thinking about in the past few weeks is the way I’m sending my message. The main idea or the main result i want my posters to communicate and achieve is getting people to actually read, realize and do what the message is saying or asking. Not necessarily knowing that its an Islamic saying, because 1. They already know these sayings are related to their religion. 2. my goal is not to educate them about Islam (they already know the basics) it’s about getting them to think of the messages and do what they say. They will automatically realize that normal things they could do everyday are religious practices that engages them with their religion.

So what did i do and what am i going to be working on? Last weekend i was working on fixing old posters and creating new ones, some of which i've uploaded here. Today I'll working on the presentation i made on Thursday. I had a lot of feedback from Prof. Krassen, Lewis, Mike and Rob, so i'm going to be busy making all the necessary changes!

oh MY BLOG!

I was just working on my senior when I remembered MY BLOG! I haven't updated you with my senior. Well last week I had a meeting with professors: Mike, Dina and Elizabeth and they gave me enough feedback to keep my going! When I introduced my senior I had a clear idea of what i wanted to communicate and to whom but didn't have the slightest hint that this is what i was going to come up with. I'm very happy with the trials i've been doing, and the great feedback i got. To communicate my messages i decided to use photography with typography, so far its been going better than i expected. After my meetings the main things I'm going to be concentrating on in my posters are:
- experiment with more typefaces
- edit photographs to make messages stronger
- decide on a size for my posters (i'm going to do that at a later stage)

please have a look at the few posters I uploaded and tell me what you think of how clear each of the messages are.

thanks !


make use of your welath, before you become poor


smile, it's kind


actions are by intentions


make the most out of your time before you become busy

starting off

When passing by a store, a bus stop or just stopping by a traffic light your eyes automatically turns to the most eye-catching thing it can find. It could be the sale sign outside a store or a poster of the movie you’ve been waiting weeks for. Some messages you come across in daily life automatically attract you since the message is about something you’re interested in.

In this part of the world, some of the many repetitive messages sent are about Islam; I’m not talking about promoting Islam to non-Muslims. All around the media you can find messages sent to both young and old Muslims reminding them about different Islamic behaviors or the importance of praying everyday, helping the poor, fasting etc. I’m going to emphasize on the young Muslims, people in my generation, we find nothing attractive or eye catching in the ways we receive these messages. Posters with white background and black or gold text with a picture of a hand rising upwards praying to God isn’t going to make a 17 year old stop and read the poster since it already looks like the hundred of other Islamic posters we come across. Getting a plain white envelope with text on it in a mall, isn’t going to make me want to stop and read what it says to give the charity a bigger chance in getting someone’s attention to put some money in that envelope and walk back to help.

For my senior project, I decided to use my graphic design skills to develop more efficient methods to attract people in my generation to think twice when looking at something that relates to their religion. My inspiration came from a new brand of casual wear I found on the internet called StyleIslam. It “communicates Islam in a language young people can understand, without sacrificing our values in the process.”