Pantone: Improvement Process

The feedback on the book was positive, but with some changes it could be improved a lot. The evaluation states that applying a grid would make it work better and it would visually be more consistent. Originally I had not felt confident to use a grid as I didn't understand how to apply it to my design work. The research into grid and layouts has helped and I can now apply it to the design of this book. Design Principles had enabled me to use a modular grid within the book of the development work after the initial hand in. 

I started the development process by applying a grid to some of the original page designs. Figure 1 shows how the colour swatch could be presented next to the image of the street that I am basing it on. Using a modular grid with a large number of rows and columns enables me to be able to arrange the content in a variety of ways. For the colour swatch it works well as I am bale to show a large number of combinations. To improve, the modular grid would look better if it was squared rather than rectangular. Figure 2 shows how the colour swatch could be presented in a different way using the same modular grid system. 

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The developments then lead onto the decision to make the booklet squared, based on the most popular way to present the Pantone colour swatches. Figure 3 shows the square logo of Pantone. This would be the basis of the booklet design, making it more relevant to the reason behind it. The inside pages would have a rectangular section for the content so that it looked similar to figure 4. The sketches (fig. 5) show how the front cover and inside pages would be presented. The information would fit into the right section of the page and then the title would be along the left hand-side. In terms of binding the booklet together, the most suitable one would be Japanese stab stitch binding as it would treat each page a separately, giving the impression that they are a pile of colour swatches like the Pantone system that the content is based on. 

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The page is 13.5cm by 14cm, making it appear square, but with a slight difference so that it could be stab stitched and still maintain the slight square feel for the page with contents on. Figure 6 shows the first two pages of the booklet, the designs have stayed similar to the first attempt at making this booklet, but applied to the modular grid the booklet now has a sense of consistency. Figure 7 shows the colour swatch, the page that most reflects the shape of the page as the colour swatches each take up one square of the modular grid. In order to group all of the Klein Blue pages as a section in the booklet, I chose one element that was the same on each of the pages. The 3by2 blue rectangle was used on each page close to the type to show that it was part of the section on Klein Blue. Figure 9 shows the final design as pages on Indesign, ready to print. 

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Fig. 9