Front & Back Cover
Inside Pages
Final Outcome
The final outcome for this project is a publication, that tells the stories about Leeds Central Library hauntings. The concept for this brief was to bring to the audience something about the city of Leeds that they may have not know about, and to visually communicate that information in an intriguing and engaging way. The publication format is landscape in two sizes, A5 and A6. The A6 format is intended as a 'Limited Edition' run, as the front cover design is more intricate and impressive, whereas the A5 format is intended as a 'Commercial' run, as the front cover is more basic and easier to produce. The theme throughout the design of the publication is one of ghosts and hauntings, and the design choices aim to support the stories within the publication. The stories are of deaths that were associated to Leeds Central Library in some way, and suggest that now the library is haunted by those souls. The colour scheme throughout the publication is black, white and red. This was chosen to highlight the dark and gruesome content of the stories. A variety of blackletter typefaces are used with the intent of reinforcing the haunting theme. The choice of a stab bound stitch, as well as the use of black letter typefaces, are ancient design techniques, which symbolise how the stories within the publication occurred far in the past. This creates a ghostly and eerie atmosphere for the reader, which further reinforces the haunting theme. The illustrations, distorted typography and photo edits throughout the publication were designed to support and aid the storytelling, as well as to visually engage the reader. The acetate inserts were included to allow audience interaction, and to elevate the readers experience by giving them the opportunity to control the atmosphere and meaning of some of the pages. The front cover design for the A6 'Limited Edition' version of the publication, was inspired by ancient books found in Leeds Central Library. The depth and texture of the front cover design aims to make the publication more eye-catching and intriguing for the audience.
Evaluation
The brief asked to construct and create a narrative about the city of Leeds, and to present that narrative in a way that best represented the unique personality of Leeds. I believe that our final outcome has been successful in meeting the brief aims, because the publication has a very strong narrative and very clear presentation of its theme. The narrative we choose was Leeds Central Library, and the rumours about it being haunted. After a lot of research and development, we had a strong understanding about the origin of those rumours, and were able to both textually and visually communicate those stories in a clear and engaging way. The presentation of our theme I believe was also successful. Every design decision we made we kept in mind the eerie and harrowing atmosphere we wanted to create for our audience, and therefore upheld our haunting theme throughout the publication. On the other hand, our outcome could have been more successful if we had paid more attention to the production of it. We had planned to print the publication in A6, however we made the mistake and printed it in A5 at first. Although we managed to turn this mistake around and differentiate the two sizes into a 'Limited Edition' and a 'Commercial' run of the publication, it is still disappointing that we made such a simple mistake. Also, the front cover design and binding of the 'Limited Edition' copy of our publication was not finished in time and had some imperfections such as dried glue being visible, and the pages not trimming evenly. Nonetheless, the A5 'Commercial' versions of our publications were a lot neater and professional in their production, and the outcome sfor this project, its flaws aside, have been very successful. Overall, what I believe was the strongest feature within our final outcome was that we managed to collect and communicate clearly stories that everyone knew about, but which were never before written down and made so easily accessible. This makes the final outcome not only intriguing for the audience, but also useful for the city of Leeds from a historical and cultural point of view.
Presentation
When presenting out work and final outcomes at the end of the week, we presented both the A6 and A5 versions of our publication, as well as the disposable camera photos we had taken at Leeds Central Library.
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