OUGD404 - Design Principles - Modernist Typesetting vs. Post-modern

Today we were introduced to typesetting for editorial design. I already had quite a basic knowledge of various ways of laying out text in relation to editorial design but the session was very useful. We discussed quite briefly modernist and post-modernist design conventions/characteristics in editorial layouts.

We were then given a poem by Lewis Carol to edit and format into layouts which resembled and drew influence from modernists and post-modernist. This activity was very challenging for a number of reasons, time constrains being the biggest limitation.

The poem was named 'A Mouses's Tale', a short but interesting poem that features in Carroll's 'Adventures of Alice in Wonderland'

Here are the designs that myself and my group of four came up with in the time allocated:

Modernist:

Postmodernist

I found today's design principles lesson really useful in terms of getting to grips with the basics of what can go wrong when typesetting and aligning. Typesetting is a laborious art form and takes a long time to perfect. There are various ways of going about tyoe setting, but it generally falls into the two categories of modern and post-modern. 

We were taught about widows, orphans and rivers within text. I didn't have much knowledge of these, so the session was beneficial in terms of terminology understanding, I now know the different ways to prevent these happening or how to remove them, to make sure my typesetting in the future is more efficient and aesthetically pleasing. We learnt about the importance of having even rags in paragraphs as well.

I enjoy how justified text looks, however I learnt that rivers are most common when using this text alignment. To prevent this, using the usual left alignment is suggested. Left alignment however can sometimes leave an uneven right hand side to the text, called the 'rag'.

 Simon told us how when designing, we should also design the text, although time consuming, we should re arrange and use shift and the enter button to adjust the appearance and create an overall more aesthetically pleasing appearance.