Context Of Practice - Disertation practical element

My practical element for my dissertation was based around a full body tattoo called a body suit. In many cultures particularly japanese culture they hold a significant meaning and can sometime be a right of passage. Considering my essay was based around different styles of tattoos and looking at some of the culture behind them I felt this was quite a natural accompaniment to my essay. I designed the bodysuit from the feet up as a general timeline of styles and how they have developed through the past hundred years or so. I started at the feet with demonstrating an old school style of tattoo design, then to Art Nouveau a style that has only been recently replicated in the form of tattoo design, I put it in this order because it seemed the most natural when the original art style was popular. I then went into a modernist style as this was a similar example as the Art Nouveau. I used a new school style tattoo on the stomach that mover into pointillism, geometric, water colour, tribal and trash polka.

here are some examples of bodysuits I took my inspiration from

I wanted to do it in a timeline style too demonstrate of tattoo design has changed over time and how its influenced have been taken from different areas of graphic disciplines.

OUGD 602 - Thailand Guide, layout

Ive been doing this brief for a while now and its been progressing quite naturally. Ive not been particularly happy with what I have produced so I have tried to go back to it and develop what I have already done. I have started by changing the format from a concertina pull out guide to more of a travel log style guide. I think this way will make it easier to use and also make the overall project more useful. I have also been looking at layout designs from books and examples which I feel has really improved my practice. Ive been looking at a book called making and breaking the grid. Its been useful in showing me creative layouts that still conform to a grid thats consistent across a range. I have been particularly interested in the layouts that deconstruct the grid and use a very unconventional method. This is what I have been doing in my most recent version of the guide.

Some of the ideas I have gained from these examples have been good to progress my work. Some of the techniques used in them have made me think about the finishing and other techniques I can use on my guide, I have thought about using overlays of colour on the images like the book I have shown.

These are the first two versions of the guide, I feel the second one works better that the first example but I still wasn't happy with the way it looked. Because I was designing for a publication that was going to be concertina there wasn't much space on each individual page so playing around with layout designs was limited.

These are some examples of pages I felt started to work well. I already had all the information and the images so it was just a case of mocking up some layout designs are going from there.

This is the newer version, there is still more work to be done on it but I am much happier with it now, I have tried to put more of a focus on hierarchy and using negative space. I still need some more images but I feel this direction is working well. I want to use a bit of colour in this document but not too much as I feel this will detract from the overall aesthetic of the guide. I have said before I wanted to screen print it but now I feel as I have changed the style I should explore different options for printing, Im leaning more towards digital print now on a nice to stick to finish it. I have also thought about binding and I feel string bound is probably the most appropriate in this case because it gives it a more asian feel.