SB2: Second Meet up w/ Collaborators

Today me and Jocel met up with Olivia and Nusheen in order to show what we have done so far for the publication. As yesterday, I created the content for the Pisces publication, I talked about this in the meet up and shared my intentions and why I've decided to do what I did. I mentioned my confusion with reading some of the terminologies and how I've interpreted them in my own content e.g. Horoscope summaries. Everyone, agreed with my opinion and Olivia said how "yeah that's good, because when someone reads their horoscope, they only kinda want to know what'll happen to them and only some people will know the terms anyways and it won't affect their understanding that much". I though this was quite reassuring as I worried about it quite a bit. I also asked her if my interpretations of the signs were correct as I'm still in the process of understanding them a bit deeper. She said, "yeah I think they're good, the summarises are really well written as I think people will understand them when they read it". 

Furthermore, I also shared my very initial designs for the typeface as I've decided to create a custom typeface that will be used for the cover and other significant pages of the publication. Because it was really rough, I tried to tell them ideas that I had in my head instead of it looking, quite "modern, sleek, smooth and futuristic, which refers back to the fantasy ethereal aspect of Pisces". (I told Jocel my idea prior to the meeting, and she said it was a good choice). Olivia and Nusheen also liked it, and said that I should continue more with it.

Olivia also showed me the designs that she made. I really liked what she has started and they were very similar to what I had in mind. She said how she'd "(I've) looked at the Pinterest board inspiration and thought or doing these designs, (I've) tried to incorporate the fantasy feel by choosing some bluey colours and do loads of overlaps" (a-d). Continuing on, I thought that I could use the collages as somewhat grid when putting on the context, therefore I suggested to continue with the "clean cutting techniques and overlaps" (a). There were designs that she didn't particularly like as she thought they were a bit "messy" (c) on the other hand, I really liked them as in my head I thought they'd work well as single illustration/collage pages on the publication. I encouraged her to keep doing these, and add more of what she intends as I think her illustrations will compliment well with the publication overall.  In addition, there were also some suggestions I said such as introducing other type of media to the collages e.g. paint "or mark making to maybe create interesting textures", continue with the bluey aesthetic (a-b), I think they work really well and bring out the aesthetic more". I also said I'd try to incorporate "gradients (b) within your collages or the publication to compliment your collages". Trying more geometric shapes and rough textures on pictures, "in order to compliment the layout of the text when I compose the publication layout" 

a)b)

c)d)

I also think that Jocel and Nusheen's publication is going really well, especially as Jocel has nearly got a full set of type that she's presented I feel that their publication has a stronger visual concept that they can go with and it was easier for them to come up with layout and composition designs. I really like Jocel's type and I think she's considered Nusheen's illustrations into creating it and how it can be created

Olivia have been really enthusiastic and said how it's "quite easy for me to do collages, as I just do them, like I do one and just go from there. I also have a lot of collage material, like from pictures that I've took from trips, so I'd definitely do them". I was really happy when she mentioned this and was glad that she was very happy to do more and felt that we were on the same page about the look and mood of the publication. 

Thoughts & Reflection:

I thought this meeting gave use quite substantial content to work with and we shared ideas and opinions very well for us to continue working on the publications with the same minds and hopefully meet again with more content, in order to start fully refining the publication and start thinking of printing and thinking of content in order to promote it as well for more people in the uni to know about it. We will all continue to communicate through emails and share designs and ideas throguh our shared google drive.