Theories of everything

When we were first given this brief I was a bit  confused as to what we were supposed to do, as in some instances it seemed as though we were expected to create our own theory and produce a series of illustrations based on that and at other times it seemed as though we were expected to pick an existing theory and explain that.
Despite the initial confusion, the project became clearer in the actual presentation briefing where we were shown an illustrative animation done by the company "Cognitive" explaining Stephen Hawking's theory "Do Black Holes Have No Hair?"

I particularly liked how they used pictures with limited text to explain the words that were being said and how they would sometimes draw "jokey" images associated with some of the words to help the listener understand the theory.

I started my project by researching a number of theories, some more scientific such as the "nature vs. nurture" argument and others more psychological such as those surrounding dreams and why we encounter certain types of dreams.

I then settled on "The Theory of Plate Tectonics" a topic that I was quite familiar with as I studied it for A-level Geography. When learning about this subject we were shown various diagrams and ways of remembering the different components to this theory and I wanted to share my methods of learning through my book as it could be used to help children or other students studying the subject for A-level have a deeper understanding of the topic.

I looked at the work of Marion Deuchars and Paula Scher for their innovative use of imagery and text layout and how the two can work together.

Marion Deuchars

Paula Scher 

These two illustrators/graphics designers merge both text and illustration, intertwining them to make one dynamic image.

Workshops

During these three weeks we also had a number of workshops, including type layout and book binding. I found the book binding workshop very relevant and useful as I am not good with producing animations and therefore chose to do a book for my final outcome for the theory project. In this workshop we explored the different ways books can be made and that you can tailor the size and shape of the book to suit what is inside.

During the workshop I produced a concertina book showing one of my type transformations and printing my crinkled foil scan onto florescent paper for the front cover which I thought was very effective.

The workshops were very informative for the current project and after participating I decided that I would produce a concertina book for my final outcome. During the workshop we also experimented with printing onto different types of paper and I also decided that I would print the final illustrated theory on tracing paper.

I then drew up a series of sketches planning out how the book would be set out and what order the different elements of the theory would appear in.

I then got to work on manually producing illustrations that could be scanned into the computer and printed onto tracing paper to then be made into the final book.

Setting out the illustrations and text on photoshop was a very lengthly process as I had to keep to certain measurements and tidy up some of the illustrations.

The last week of the project was very much dominated by the FMP and the difficult task of coming up with a suitable idea. So it was difficult juggling the two and this meant that I probably spent too long on this project however I thought it was worth it as I was very pleased with the final outcome. 

I planned to print the title on the front cover in white however for some reason this did not work when I printed the pages to then be folded into the concertina. Because of this issue I decided to print it in a dark shade of turquoise/blue and I thought it went well with notion of continents and the sea surrounding them.