Studio Brief 3 - Primary Research

Today I went into the Village Book shop to gather some primary research on the collection of books, zines and small publications. The Village book shop is a well known book shop, which houses contemporary style publications and books covering a whole range of subject matters. The shop is were I would love to see my book placed in as it reaches out to the same target market as I'll be designing for.

The main outcome I wanted to collect from this visit is to see if there were any publications with around 52 pages that weren't using any expensive binding methods. Other then that I wanted to see the style in which the publication uses to connect and design for their target market.

Finding this would give me a lot of confidence in achieving a cheaper binding method with a 52+ page publication. Overall  wanted to get an overall understanding of the different kinds of production methods from the variety of books in the shop, from the stock choice, colour, paper weight and binding methods.

A varnish finish to the cover of Umbra. A varnish finish conveys a sophisticated and professional aesthetic. Therefore the book expresses a clean and contemporary style. The sophisticated style of the book is made more strong by the black colour of the book along with the perfect bound bind. The market for this book would be audiences who have more money to spend on high quality finished books.

The look and feel of this zine was one of a cheap finish. The stock was a thin stock weight. The colour of the whole zine was in black and white and this will reduce the cost dramatically. Overall the cheap feel of the zine was reflected in the low price. The zine is fit for purpose and is very cost efficient, litho printing could be used in relation to the colour to produce a high quantity of zines for low cost in bulk printing. Most people who makes zines don't have a lot of budget and would rather get their content out their rather then make money off their production. Therefore, I can take this method of a cheaply made product in order to sell as many as I can without going over budget.

In side a photography book. As you can see the image takes up the majority of the page, instantly making the overall aesthetics visually stunning. Anyone looking at this page would feel instantly connected to the image, almost like you are apart of the photo.  Having a big visual would keep the user interested in the book and to fill up the page without it look to empty. The white border gives a needed contrast from the photograph. This in theory should convey a professional and modern appearance.

Sleeve to go around the small booklet. Commercially cost wise would be an issue if you wanted to put a sleeve on all of your publications. However if you have the budget then the sleeve would be a great way to protect your book and add a modern feel. It also conveys a classic feel. The sleeve could be used for many purposes like having different images on each one to make each book unique or you could put the information on the sleeve to allow for an attractive image to be featured on the front.

Another cheaply made zine. Cheap but visually stunning. The visuals through the zine makes you forget about the cheap feel of the booklet. Again going for the white border. Modern and stylish look. The white border could also been produced to make the production method cheaper and a lot quicker. This is because some printers can print and also staple bind the book for you. Printers like the Xerox Phaser range. They all cost around 2-3 thousand so at a commercial scale this printing method would be reasonable but low budget it may not be.