Initial Ideas

I want the book to consist of a minimalist and simplistic style as I feel the nature of the book is to encourage the audience to explore and embrace the surroundings and culture themselves, therefore this is what the focus should be kept on. The content itself is a record of the authors travels around Vietnam, therefore I want to visually represent the images as polaroid pictures. This is something when I think about travel and recording visually that comes to mind. This is something that has also recently become more popular, and could be added to the book as an interactive element in some ways.

Layout Ideas:

Within my initial idea development, I began sketching out types of layouts that could be used within the book. When considering travelling and photography the first thing that came to mind was polaroid images. I want to think about the placement of the images, and which way would be best to visually convey the link to polaroid’s. the first experimentation keeps the focus on the image itself, this format would also keep the information separate, although I want to include an element of interactivity within the book and I would need to consider how to do this in a layout such as this one, as it only provides space for the content already in the book. The white space around the image placement would be to a ratio to give the atheistic of a polaroid.

This experiment allows for more images to be placed on the page, this would keep the book shorter, making it more transportable and handy for a pocket size. The image of the right-hand side is a large cantered image, this is to not fully bleed the page and in keep with the minimalistic and simple style. I did not make the image full bleed as it would almost make the image seem more important than those on the left-hand side of the book. This is something I want to avoid as all of the information either text or image should be as equal in all of the book, not making somewhere or something more important to go see or do than something else.

In this final experiment, I used the actual proportions of a polaroid mini image, this gives the direct visual links from the image to the polaroid’s. This sizing also allows for the text to be placed below the image, which gives a more traditional guide book feel to the atheistic, something which have previously highlighted as wanting to include. The polaroid shape itself will also have some sort of differentiation to the stock to further highlight it against the other images as being a polaroid. The full bleed image on the other side would give some balance to the spread as there is so much that will be happening on the left hand side.

Divider Ideas

The first experimentation shows a full bleed image, which is covered with some of the content I have been given. This works well as a divider for the different sections as it has deep contrast between the white space and minimalistic style that I would like to achieve throughout the book. This would also allow me to select the images that showcase the beauty and the importance of embracing the surroundings while travelling.  

 This experimentation is based around a purely typographic treatment. This would be made up of some of the instructional guides that I have been given in the content itself. This would highlight this section of the book and also have no images which would give the actual meaning behind the text a greater impact, making the instructions more significant in comparison to how they would be perceived overlaying the image, as seen above.

My final layout experimentation shows a mix of the previous two, the design showcases the images in the full bleed style that could be seen above, the information is overlayed on the image as large as possible and in white to give the best contrasts against the background. This typographic treatment works well as it keeps the focus almost on the text and informs the audience that to achieve what the statement is saying they can go to the places that the image is presenting.