OUGD504 - Brief 03 - Primary Research - Village Bookshop

Today I decided to take a trip down to one of Leeds best independent book shops, Village, located in the Corn Exchange. This shop is filled with beautifully designed artists books, photo books and cultural magazines. It is literally a gold mine full of contemporary editorial graphic design. 

I looked through the zine section and photo book section in the most depth in order to get inspiration that was relevant to this current brief that I am undertaking. I already have a pretty good idea about how I want my publication to look aesthetic wise. I want it to be monochromatic and full of contrast, but add splashes of subtle colour through foiling and spot varnishing (ornate print finishes). I went to Village specifically looking for interesting print finishes, great use of stock and effective binding methods. I was not disappointed with what I found. 

I saw some really creative publications filled with great uses of typography. I was drawn to this book by its cover design, which is quite an impressive skill to have in terms of successful cover design. This particular publication was filled solely with photography, and collages. It had a very strong aesthetic that caught my eye. I also really appreciated the stock use, the quality of the print and its user friendly size.

This beautiful monochrome publication caught my eye for a number of reasons. Firstly, the cover features a elegant print finish that is known as spot varnishing. When it catches the light the typography/artwork is revealed. This print finishing technique adds a certain level of intrigue to the design and it is something that I want to consider using in my design. The second thing that drew in my attention was its size and formatting. It's very tall and thin in appearance, and the formatting of the content was rather unusual but delightful. This is an entirely monochromatic publication and I looked at it for that exact reason.

This was another interesting find. A larger purely monochromatic publication filled entirely with abstract prints and other works of art. What I like about this is that it is unapologetically minimal in terms of copy/content. The ages are completely filled with the art which I think is significant, I could consider doing a similar thing with my design. 

This book is unusual in size. It is really tall and thin and also quite heavy thanks to the stock choice. I really liked how the formatting and size of the actual publication is reflective of the content inside, it is completely content/context aware.