Fine Art Yearbook: Client Meeting 01

Today the team (Tim, Ed, Vickie and I) met up with the Fine Art Committee and Sheila Gaffney (Course Leader) to discuss the initial ideas, concepts and boundaries that are in place (or at least beginning to take place) in regards to taking the course yearbook forward over the coming weeks. We also had a tour of the studios to see the work that was being produced. That in itself was pretty useful.

More valuable in my opinion though were the ideas put forward in relation to stock preferences and typefaces that they had already began to identify as appropriate and so on.

To culminate, the points to take away from the meeting were:

01. The stock choice is an important feature for them. If possible, they would love to have a coloured paper if it doesn't interfere too much with the way images will print. Also the paper will have to fall in line with what gets decided for the college as a whole so that's a further consideration. Inspiration here was the Creamier publication by Phaidon.

02. They are keen to have a text-driven cover, but are open to a simple /subtle image behind the type if it is needed. Again the Creamier publication was inspiration - this time the casing it comes in. From this, a use of spot-varnish was also held in high regard. Budget will ultimately decide if this is viable.

03. A publication for the turner prize made use of a slightly customized san-serif typeface for headings. If this is possible, they would like to try and utilize this also. The typeface looked quite a lot like Quicksand. We will need to clarify this later to get a feeling for the exact type choice they are into.

04. One aspect that they were glad for was the fact that they would each get a double spread this year as opposed to a single page. They felt that last year's yearbook was a bit cramped in terms of the presentation of work.

05. The use of Courier for the info (turner prize publication) was also admired. It separated the image and contact info from the body-copy. I personally think that using a separate typeface for titles, body-copy and navigation text is actually a really good idea.

06. The cover really needs to transcend into other deliverables such as a poster and banner etc. I agree

07. With the prospect of the inside paper being universal across all the yearbooks, then the cover really needs to define the course and make the book stand out amongst the rest. Hopefully a subtle print-finish such as the spot varnish can make this happen with the available budget.

08. Last year's concept (together we are bound by the sea) was derived from the exhibition name Archipelago. The group are having a meeting tomorrow to finalize the name of this years exhibition or provide us with a concept that we can work with. This has to be done immediately so we can move things forward with pace.

All-in-all a very productive meeting with lots of ideas buzzing about. I am very satisfied that stock and typeface choices are being considered by both parties already.