Lasalle DCE Reader

Lasalle DCE Reader is a collection of essays on design and photography written by Alice Twemlow, Herbert Bayer, James Estrin, Ritupriya Basu, and Danah Abdulla.  This is a publication design project that was briefed to create layout, composition, and book form. Requirement to design a cover and lay out the provided content across a minimum of 52 pages with consideration of page size, grid system development, typefaces, and establish rules of hierarchy to effectively guide readers through the publication.

Each essay is written in a different format and length. I wanted to explore different layouts systems for each composition but a fixed grid system throughout. 

“What is Graphic Design For?” by Alice Twemlow is in the form of a short essay, it has a formal informative tone and is continuous without breaking into sub-topics. I think that it would work well to retain a continuous layout but to also include breathing space in the spread to not be overwhelmed by text.

“On Typography” by Herbert Bayer questions novelty in typography and it’s practice in design. A particular part that was interesting to me was a discussion on how sentences follow each other horizontally in continuous form and paragraphs are made to ease perception. It doesn’t have to be the only method to facilitate a reading experience. Following this, I wanted to incorporate some emphasis of flowing vertically in the layout. I used a smaller number of columns to create an expression of hanging down.

“Alex Webb: Rendering a Complex World, in Color and Black-and-White” by James Estrin is in the form of an interview, the text often breaks in converse. I wanted to have some visual interest between going back and forth 
of questions and answers while also retaining the formal tone of the essay.  

“Satyajid Ray Made the Best Posters You’ve Never Seen” by Ritupriya includes a variety of images and quotes which encouraged an exploration of a dynamic layout. 

“Designerly Ways of Knowing a Working Inventory of Things a Designer Should Know” by Danah Abdulla is in the form of an essay-list with 240 items, which I approached with an orderly listed layout