End of Module Evaluation

This module had proved to be the most difficult module to date, though that was always going to be the case. I have learnt both positive and negative things about myself, and my design practice, throughout the duration of the module. It has been an eye opening experience, and though at times it may have been overwhelming, I think I leave the course with a clearer idea as to what my design future entails.
A positive taken from this module is the discovery that I am fully capable of producing high quality, visually engaging design using a range of different illustration techniques. Though illustration has always been part of my previous modules, it has never been the sole focus. With this module I took it upon myself to work with a range of illustrative approaches as a creative challenge. I consider myself to have succeeded in several areas, and confirmed to others and myself that I am a visually driven designer. If people where to see me as an illustrator, I would have no problem with that.

Collaborative briefs, such as the DFGA yearbook and the fashion branding, have shown me that I am not a natural leader. I have struggled when it comes to organising people and setting personal deadlines. I always knew it wasn’t in my nature to take charge of situations, and this module has reaffirmed that theory in my mind. However, this is not to say that I am incapable of expressing my opinions when necessary. During DFGA meetings I presented my design work with conviction and clarity, something which I feel aided Mike in choosing my page layouts to develop further. I also made it clear to my fashion student certain ideas she had envisioned in her mind simply would not work for her branding, and instead we came to creative compromises. I have most definitely learnt the hard way that working with a client is a challenge, both mentally and creatively. It’s not something I wish to do again any time soon.

If I where to do the module again there are certain things I would do differently. I may say this at the end of every module, but I should have blogged more. At points I was completely on top of my blog posts, each one with appropriate imagery and thorough supporting analysis. Yet there where also moments when I let it build up, almost to the point where it was difficult to get back on track. This is something I regret now. I would also have picked my briefs a lot earlier, and exploit to their full potential rather than waiting for each to develop at it’s own pace leaving me with few options due to time constraints. Time management has been a big issue for me. Unable to work on more than one brief at a time I should have been organised and assigned weeklong deadlines, and stuck to them. But I just didn’t.

I come out of this final module with a skewed outlook as to what the future holds. At times I have felt graphic design is the only career path I can take. At others it has felt like I have no place within the industry. It would be hard for me to evaluate my time during this module without sounding negative, perhaps even cynical. With additional personal issues to deal with, graphic design should have taken precedence; it should have been an outlet for me. But it wasn’t. It became something I avoided because I couldn’t handle the fact I wasn’t achieving the level of professionalism I assumed I would so late on the course. More than anything I have come to the conclusion that making ‘pretty pictures’ isn’t enough, yet it seems this is all I am capable of. I’m not entirely sure what the future holds for me, but if it involves some sort of illustration then I would be more than happy.

Evaluation: DFGA Yearbook

When I originally agreed to work in a group, we where proposing ideas for the Graphic Design yearbook. It was something that excited me as I was interested in expanding my editorial skills whilst increasing my abilities to delegate responsibilities and compromise on design decisions. I was pleased with what our group, consisting of myself, Naomi, Rob and Steph, submitted. However we then found that we did not get the BAGD yearbook and where instead assigned the DFGA one. I was initially apprehensive as I didn't even know fully what this course entailed. I was even more deterred when Steph said she no longer wanted to be part of the group, and there was a moment when I considered leaving as well. However Maya then joined the group and we arranged our first meeting with Mike, which personally opened my eyes to what this brief was all about. And I'm glad I decided to stay part of the group.

It quickly dawned on me that this brief would not be about me doing what I usually do. I wouldnt be able to just sit in a little bubble and draw all the random stuff that pops into my head. Most importantly this had nothing to do with 'pop culture' the driving force behind pretty much every one of my other briefs.

Instead this brief would be about teamwork. It would be about working as a group, trying to resolve our problems in a way that satisfied each member, making sure not one of us felt left out, or as if our creative input was being ignored. This took a while for me to get my head around but once I did I felt much more involved in the brief.

In regards to my contribution to the brief I feel I was perhaps the most design driven. I certainly didn't take on the 'leader' of the group role. It wouldn't have made any sense for me to do this, as it's not my personality to organise other people and set meetings and basically do all the 'official' stuff. However, just because I was not the project manager does not mean I didn't have an important role.

I was pleased when my double page spread layouts where chosen for the final publication. In regards to the final outcome I'll admit that I was slightly disappointed with the quality of the resolution. I think there was a lot more potential for experimental designs and a more playful layout, however this is the main problem when working with a client. There where moments when I wholeheartedly disagreed with what Mike said he wanted, and it took everything in me to design around his specifications.

If this brief has taught me anything it's the importance of curbing my personal design preferences and listening to what the client wants instead. Even though this may not always be the right direction to go in, it's important to remain tactful and try to combine both approaches to come up with a design that suits both. I think this was achieved with out yearbook. Though if I had the option of doing it again... I'm not sure I would.

Final Presentation Boards

Final Film Section

When it came to dividing up the responsibility of working towards our final yearbook layout, we figured it best to give each one of the three sections to three of the people in the group. Naomi was given animation (red), Maya was given game (blue) and I took on the film (green) part of the course. We had agreed upon a final spread layout that had all the information on the left hand page and large scale pictures taking up space on the right side page. I think the layout itself is fairly basic so it means there is a lot of room for variety, and the work itself becomes the main focus. That was our main intention, we did not want to detract from the work being produced on the course with an overbearing layout, and with the bold colours being used this could have easily happened. I think it's best that the colour is kept to a mimimum, therefore it's clear each section has been assigned a colour, but it's not the first thing you notice.

In terms of the film section I was faced with a few problems that meant the design did not flow as easily as I had wanted it to. The main issue was the images we were provided. Though I realise the course is very digital and getting real world shots is difficult, some of the screen captures are a little disappointing and don't pack the visual punch I had imagined. I also had issue with a coouple of the students statements. We specifically asked for roughly 30 words from each person describing their method and what their intentions for the future are. However, from a few students we where simply given 5 - 10 words, and when set against a very negative background the words look slightly lost.

The final pages are below. I was working to the deadline of Lorenzo's that required a completed PDF for an early printed draft. Therefore there are still a few things that require altering, but these can be dealt with at a later date.

Final Filler Pages

I have to admit that I have felt a little lackluster in terms of the yearbook brief, and had put it on the backburner. So in order to regain some of my momentum, and feel as though as I was making a more concerted effort towards the final publication I offered to design the 'filler pages' we required. We where provided a few different blurbs and several images. I knew it wouldn't take that much effort to arrange the text in some sort of coherent manner, and place the large scale images on single page or double page spreads so I started to design.

Due to the three sections of the book taking up the red, green and blue from the colour wheel, the 'filler pages' would be predominantly yellow, with white and black obviously. I think working with the yellow actually spurred me on to create some interesting designs because quite frankly I like it a lot better than the green I had been assigned with the film section. I used Helvetica for the body copy as a continuation of design from the rest of the book.

In terms of success I think the pages could be adjusted slightly to produce a more professional finish, but with only a short amount of time to design them I simply went with what I thought looked best for the time being. I like the quotes Mike provided us with for each of the chapters, and think that they work really well with the corresponding images.

All that is left to do is slot the below spreads into place in between the chapters from the yearbook. At this moment in time I'm not sure what our page count is, that is something I will have to discuss with Naomi, and if any more filler pages are required I will produce them.

Title Page

As we had all been working on the designs for the double page spreads or the cover, it seems we forgot that the publication would require a series of pages for the necessary information; such as the title page, variations of which can be found below. We knew that the main colours would be yellow, black and white. So I took it upon myself to produce a few spreads that I thought best displayed the names of the students from the course and there place within the book.

I think Naomi or Maya may also be working on a few ideas for the introductory pages, but I thought I would also give it a go as I had a clear vision in my head of what I want them to look like. The flip book below shows how I had envisioned the layout of the first pages. Obviously all the designs are up for editing, but if Mike likes what I have proposed then I would have no trouble applying these to other filler pages.

Studio Photography

We recently booked a morning session in the photography studio for the sole purpose of taking everyones portrait. After a lot of back and forth from the studio to the DFGA studio, and Mike sending out reminders and emails to his students we were able to get every single member of the graduating years into the chair for a photo. Whether or not they liked it is another question. The flipbook below shows the portraits in alphabetical order.

Front Cover Designs

We all took it upon ourselves to approach the front and back cover designs in a personal way. We had been told by Mike that he liked the shapes used and this was something that we should explore further, so we all did. At first I didn't really know where to start. I knew I had a certain number of students and I should probably use an individual shape to represent each one. I also knew each discipline had been assigned either red, green or blue, so I thought each one of the shapes I use could be the right colour. Once I had decided this would be the direction I would be headed I then had to come up with a non-cluttered, visually appealing pattern.

I thought about making it somewhat abstract and placing the shapes in no particular order, just place them haphazardly across the page. I also knew that I wanted yellow to be a big part of the front cover design as it is probably the most engaging colour, and we should make the most of it. I played around with transparency a bit as well, the results of which can be seen below.

After separating the shapes into definitive categories and also have two different sizes, representing the two graduating years, I realised that some sort of pattern could be created. I also realised that using yellow as the predominant colour was not working, as it clashed far too much with the RGB and instead I thought using black would be a better choice. However I did not want to get rid of it completely, so I made sure to feature it in small amounts with the rest of the shapes.

Admittedly I got a bit carried away with the whole 'retro' approach. As per usual. But I was really please with the designs below. Having started with absolutely no clue as to what I could create that would be both informative and aesthetically pleasing I was surprised to very quickly something I think fills both requirements.

The design that I feel most pleased with can be seen below. There are certain aspects that I think work really well, and even if Mike is not a fan of the whole pattern, there are aspects of it that he can't deny works. For example I managed to come up with a successful and visually pleasing way of 'wrapping' the pattern from the front cover round the back side. This was something I was worried about, and thought there would be too much on the front and very little, if nothing at all, on the reverse. At the end of the day we are producing a publication from beginnning to end, and we can not simply skimp on efforts for the very last page.

I also think how I increased the size of the shape and made it white to contain the name of the course works nicely. We have been told that the name of the course has to appear on the front cover, therefore I thought it necessary to place it somewhere where it doesn't seem too out of place. I will take my designs to the next meeting with Mike and get his opinions. However I am aware that Maya and Rob have been working on designs as well, and he well may choose to go with one of their approaches.

Meeting No. 4

Yesterday we had our fourth meeting with Mike, to which I took along all the previous design work I had been experimenting with. I was pleased with the feedback he gave us a group, but more specifically was happy that Mike liked the propositions I made, and decided to use my 'negative space' approach. I was a little disappointed that he didn't like some of designs that I personally think worked best, but by providing him with a lot of options he was bound to prefer some over other. Maya was once again in charge of taking notes, those of which can be found below.


CONSIDERATIONS

• Consider ways of categorising data as there probably isn't that much information to categorise (discipline, colours, gender, etc.)
• Even if there isn't enough data to visualise, Mike likes the visual stimulus/aesthetics of the examples of information graphics that I found, so we could still try and create something abstract in a similar style.
• The information is clear and there is a nice use of colour in the examples of information graphics that Rob and I found.
• Mike likes the shape that Robyn has created in her layout as to where the student information can go.
• Avoid the information overlapping any of the images.
• The images should have some space around them.
• The student information should be on the left-hand page.
• For continuity, the information should be on the same place on the left-hand page, at least within each discipline.
• The colour used on each DPS should represent which discipline the student is in. The information can be on the left or right of the left-hand page, but not centred. Mike is happy with the layouts that Robyn has been working on. He likes the use of negative space.
• We should not have any pages where almost the whole page is black because of the background colour and use of negative space.
• No QR codes, just web addresses.
• Don't worry about any of the blogs being on restricted access at the moment.
• Mike will let us know which discipline each student is in tomorrow.
• We have booked the photography studio for 9.30am-12pm on Monday 27th February. Mike will email all of the students to let them know that they must attend.
• Simple, black and white portraits that won't detract from the students' work.
• Statements from the students - maximum 30words. The statements might get cut down if they go over this.
• The student list is final now.
• It is 'Will Farrell' rather than William Wyn Farrell.
• The students will just be split into disciplines, rather than by years and then subdivided into disciplines.
• Information about each year still needs to feature somewhere.
• Mike will give us the photographs for the extra double page spreads.
• Start mapping out the extra spreads so that we know what's going where and what extra information we need.
• On the students' individual DPS, there will be 2-3 images of their work, plus the student's photo.
• There are unlikely to be any portrait images of any of the students' work.
• The corner shapes, colours and type from the layout can be brought through into the infographics for the cover
• Colours - RGB/variations of RGB for the 3 disciplines, and then yellow for the filler pages.
• Rich hues of colour rather than bright.
• Experiment with a deep grey. Would this work well when printed though?
• Orangey-yellow on black.
• Colours must work well against black and white.
• We will add some colour swatches to Dropbox to get some feedback.

Page Layout Experiments

In preparation for our meeting with Mike I thought I would put together some basic page layouts. I think it was important for me to get down on screen all the things I had been imagining. For a few days I had been visualizing what I thought was the best way to place the text and imagery within the double page spreads, so when it came to opening inDesign I knew exactly what I wanted to communicate.

I wanted to focus on the three colours (RGB) and use interesting shapes to hold certain body copy. I had initially wanted the information on the left side of the spread, with large scale imagery on the right. But after playing around with different compositions I realised that there where several ways which worked both visually and comprehensively.

Below is the flip book of spread ideas that I will take to our next meeting with Mike. Hopefully he will be pleased with the direction I have decided to head in, and he will like at least one of the spread layouts. I am aware that others members of the group will be bringing along there ideas so I am prepared to come to a creative compromise. Nevertheless I am please with the ideas I have created, and the efforts I have made towards the brief thus far.

Yearbook Development

I decided to put together a few very early ideas of what I have imagined for the page layouts within the yearbook. The flip book below shows a very early imagining of the direction I think the yearbook is headed. I am obviously open to a lot of input and think if we work together well on this then we will be able to create a comprehensive book that flows easily from one page to the next with ease.

Meeting No. 3

Today was out third meeting with Mike. The meetings are beginnning to blend into one for me, and though we seem to be getting somewhere design wise we are constantly being confronted with the same issues and not getting any real answers. Nevertheless, the notes below are the items that Maya noted down due to their importance.

CONSIDERATIONS
The student list has been updated as one student has left.
There are two 2nd year students who are a bit unsure as to whether they will continue at the moment, but those pages will just be extra double page spreads/filler images otherwise.
We need to arrange a photo shoot for the student portraits. We need to book a photography studio, preferably for a Monday, and give Mike a few days notice so that he can let all of the students know.
We intend for the student photographs to be simple, black and white portraits as we want the focus to be on the photos of the students' work.
The students will be split into disciplines - Film, games and animation. None of the students cross over these boundaries. There can be an introductory page or double page spread to each section. A specific colour can be assigned to each discipline. Mike will let us know what discipline each student falls into.
Mike likes the idea of visualising data and the kind of style that I had been working with, but without the soft edges.
Mike likes the bold type that Robyn has used.
Colour scheme can be based on RGB as it is a predominantly screen-based course.
Mike is also keen on the overlapping and mixing of colours, as long as effective colours are created.
As DFGA is a predominantly screen-based course, they won't be able to meet some of the print specifications that Lorenzo specified in his email. Mike will ensure that all of the images are as big and clear as possible though.
Mike already has plenty of photographs of the studios, etc., that can be used as filler images. There are a few photographers on DFGA if we need to have any more photos taken though.

Pattern Generation

After our meeting with Mike I was inspired to go away and generate a few ideas for the front cover. I knew I wanted to work with shapes, and came up with the idea of using a series of different vectors shapes that differ in only a small amount. The screen grab below shows how I started with a simple square, then rounded each corner in a series of steps to eventually be left with a circle. I think it's a nice approach as it shows progress and perhaps the journey from the beginning of the course to now. In terms of colour I'm not sure what to use. I know Mike wants gender neutral colours, so I thought this might mean using both pink and blue, typically feminine and masculine colours respectively, and combining them with something such as yellow.

I took the idea of shapes a step further next and started to combine them in interesting and intangible compositions.

The next step in this progression was to take the shapes and colours, include transparency, and of course the name of the course to create some sort of composition that communicates the digital aspect whilst remaining colourful and memorable. There are certain parts of the design below that I think work better than others, and with a little tweaking I think I could be really onto something. I'm not entirely sure I like the typeface any more, I think it looks a little disjointed and almost stencil like. This is something that needs altering.

I took the basic approach shown above and tried to come up with something a lot more self contained and less complicated. If this is something that could possibly feature on the front of the publication then it needs to be attractive and not too overwhelming. So I placed the four letters in order, equally spaced, and expanded them vertically with a range of colours and shapes. I also placed black behind the whole thing as Mike said he was a fan of this.

I purposely designed the composition so it appeared as if there was a bounding box around the letters. This is something that I hope is not too obvious at first inspection, but subconsciously aids the reader in viewing the letters.

Meeting No. 2

On Friday we had our second meeting with Mike. It was helpful in terms of giving us a clearer direction to work in, and he gave his opinion on what design elements he liked, helping us leave the meeting with a more refined idea of what visuals to expand further. We are still currently having issue with the QR codes, something I know Naomi and Maya have been working with, and at this point it may be slightly premature of me to say, but I don't think they will feature heavily in the finished publication. Below are the notes Maya took from the meeting:

CONSIDERATIONS

• Keep QR codes purely functional.
• The QR codes are quite intrusive, but can be in colour.
• Mike is still waiting on student email addresses and web addresses.
• Full list of students.
• Mike will send us links to things that he likes (his personal taste).
• The filler pages will have photos on that can serve as promotional material.
• Log in to the DFGA section of VLE to have a look at the level 5 and 6 blogs.
• Mike likes the hand-crafted books that Naomi made in first year for the Leeds Book Fair. He likes the colours and the way in which the text is hidden within the circular pattern.
• Of the logo option that Rob showed, he doesn't like the hard edges, so the edges need to be softened.
• Mike is quite happy with something along the lines of the layout that Naomi has done.
• However, students won't want a fold down the middle of their work, so make sure images don't go over pages.
• Images are likely to be wide-screen, so there should be at least 1 reasonably sized panel to show off their work.
• Background colour and white out text, especially on pages with concept art.
• He likes the yellow text on the black and white photo for the filler page layout that Naomi proposed.
• Use a dark grey/deep, rich colour (deep blue/grey, almost black) in the background to make the colour palette that Robyn has been experimenting with stand out more.
• The cover can remain relatively abstract or with a typographic treatment.
• Look into and experiment with glitch-y/electronic stuff.
• The style of the cover can then feed into the website.
• Mike will continue to feed stuff into Dropbox.
• Mike has a blog called 'Creative Fuel' of things that he finds interesting.
• Create an initial research folder in the Dropbox folder and email Mike to let him know if we add to it.
• Probably 84 pages for the yearbook.
• Mike will get back to us about the ordering of the students. Perhaps by discipline though.

DFGA Logo Design

In preparation for our meeting with Mike, and especially after what he mentioned in the last meeting, I decided to generate a few ideas in regards to branding the course. I worked with colour and shapes to come up with as many varieties of the same letters as possible. Screen caps from all the development can be seen below. I will take these to the next meeting with Mike and hopefully receive some feedback in regards to if they work or not.

General Yearbook Meeting

Lorenzo arranged a meeting for yesterday which all members from all yearbook teams where asked to attend. I was a little curious as to what information he would provide us with in regards to deadlines we should be setting ourselves and perhaps even starting to bring together our ideas in a cohesive manner. During the meeting the topics found below where mentioned.

DISCUSSED
Yearbook brand guidelines
Copy Fred and Lorenzo into the contact reports too.
At the moment, work with variations based around the shortest name, longest name, smallest image and largest image, etc, so that the layout will be appropriate and work well in all circumstances.
All of the text based content should be received by the end of reading week.
Implement strict deadlines about when information is coming through. If the students haven't submitted it, then they won't be in the yearbook.
Design direction should be taking shape now (typeface, colours, etc.).
Printing will be in multiples of 12 (36/60/84/108 pages).
Blanks can be borrowed for meeting with course leaders to give them a clearer idea of the size of the yearbook and number of pages.
Try and create a rough mock-up/dummy once you know how many pages the yearbook will be. This will help you have an idea of what information goes where and how it all comes together.
The branding, concept and layout, etc., should all be in place in the next 2 weeks.

QR Codes

After our first meeting with Mike he mentioned that he was a fan of QR codes and the way in which they function. He even suggested that it could be something we include with the yearbook, adding an extra sense of interactivity. I know that everyone else from the group is working on designing some sort of twist on the original format, and my contribution can be found below. I was thinking about QR codes in relation the front cover design of the yearbook and got a little carried away. I figured I could incorporate the course title in some pixelated way and also the whole RGB plus yellow colour scheme.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't personally really like the design below, it's almost too kitsch for it's own good. However I do realise that it looks very dated, and far too amateurish for a finalised visual. The colours are far too playful, and the whole thing in general does not communicate the message Mike has clearly laid out for the course. Nevertheless it is my contribution at this moment in time and something I will present next time for some hopefully critical feedback.

Feedback from Meeting No. 1

We had our first meeting with Mike today, and all in all I would have to say it was a success. At this moment in time we have been faced with more questions than answers, but any progress right now is heading in the right direction. Again Maya was assigned note taker, and took down anything that seemed of significance. Bullet pointed noted from the meeting can be found below. The yearbook will be relatively small.

• This is the first year that DFGA are having a proper yearbook.
• The yearbook will show the students graduating from the foundation course as well as the degree course.
• There are 22 foundation students graduating and 13 BA students.
• The course is changing as of next year so that it is only a BA course, rather than the first 2 years being a foundation course.
• Multidisciplinary course (storyboarding, sequencing, etc.)
• Think of ways of separating the 2 graduating years. There needs to be some kind of division.
• They try to encourage a good mix of students on the course (not just males). For this reason, the colours need to be softer. Avoid gender issues by gender neutral design. The yearbook should celebrate the foundation course, but the main sell is BA (Hons) DFGA. The yearbook should also work as promotional material for the new course, but it shouldn't come across as though the graduating year missed out.
• The focus of the yearbook should be on the students leaving.
• The DFGA website can be skinned to work in coordination with the yearbook concept/style. Focus on DFGA.
• Consider an identity for the course.
• The course focuses on core skills that apply to all of the disciplines. It only focuses down in the 3rd year.
• We can go for anything in terms of the look and feel of the yearbook.
• It could be something abstract (not necessarily representative of the course, but it gets away from stereotypes).
• Storytelling, journeys, trans-media (taking something from one media and developing it to work across others).
• Avoid literal representations and cliches.
• The course started in 1996 and a HND. The foundation course started 5 years ago.
• Don't approach the concept by the number of years that the course has been running as the focus should be on the fact that the course is becoming just a BA (Hons) course.
• Within the year groups, students could be split by pathways/discipline/etc.
• Not bothered about the word 'digital' as we are living in a 'post-digital society'.
• Look into tying the digital elements in with the yearbook with the use of QR codes. This could lead to the students' personal websites or a special Vimeo account could be set up so that Mike can control what gets shown.
• DFGA website: www.DFGA.leeds-art.ac.uk This will not show work from all of the students though.
• Mixture of work on the course - diverse (e.g. sound pieces (how could these be represented?), cinematographers, model makers...). This year's students are even more diverse than usual. This could be something that we could represent.
• Will need a maximum of 500 yearbooks printed. At least 200 of these will be sent out. Consider rack damage.
• Anything in terms of stock (could be recycled).
• Not going to be able to get 300dpi images in most cases. This is something that will need to be considered in terms of the layout as images won't be able to be too big as they will be pixelated. Perhaps photos of the work in context could be used in some cases to get round this.
• Will we be organising photographers?
• Look into colour QR codes.

Meeting No. 1

In preparation for our first meeting with Mike, the DFGA programme leader, we came together as a group and with the help of Lorenzo settled on what will need to be discussed. This being my first collaborative brief with such a high demand for a product of real quality I was slightly apprehensive about the responsibilties we would have to take on, and of course the basic plan of action. It turns out I'm not the only one though, and as a group we have settled on the following topics to discuss.

Before and during the meeting Maya was assigned note taker and the things that where discussed can be seen below.

TOPICS TO DISCUSS
Discuss formats, sizes and pages.
Ask to see yearbook work (or alternative) from previous years.
Any other media considerations?
Any screen/web-based material too?
Sections/Categories?
Any do's/don't's?
How images will be converted from screen to print format successfully
Mood/tone of voice
Is the focus just on the graduating students or like a mini prospectus?
Any processes they are interested in using to explore the relationship between print and screen. QR code for each student to link to online content. Ways of showing digital work.

CONSIDERATIONS
One point of contact
Contact report (agreements, deadlines, etc.)
What's administrative, what's design related, and what overlaps?
What do I need to start designing?
A range of the shortest name, longest name, styles of work, large images, small images, etc.
Negotiating images as FMP won't be finished by the time images are needed for the yearbook.
QR code can link to finished pieces.
Ways of showing digital/screen-based work.
Regular contact with the course leader. 
Most of the meetings will probably take place in the first 4-6weeks.
Create a grid to use.
The layout can still vary, particularly with the use of reversed out sections, the use of white space, etc. 
Gate folds, pull outs, etc.

Yearbook Proposal

Below is the PDF that myself, Rob Green, Naomi Farrar and Steph Bourne have submitted for the Graphic Design yearbook. The proposal itself is fairly simple, with large scale imagery and a singular colour, yellow, being used throughout. There was also another element the brief that involved a dotted pattern, that when connected in one of many different ways, could possibly represent each student in a unique way. I am excited to hear back as to how our proposal has been received and if our bid to ensure the BAGD yearbook is unsuccessful. If not I also wonder if we have been assigned another courses book, and what that will entail both creatively and personally.

In terms of the actual proposal and assigning ourselves roles to take on for the submission, Naomi was given the front cover design, Rob the dotted pattern and I was asked to take on a few basic page spreads. I didn't really know what direction to take so I gathered some large scale imagery and few basic sentences to string together, and proposed a few different varieties of the same concept, with the purple colour featuring heavily and black also playing quite an important role.