ivygus

ivygus

ivygus

CLASS:

ART 1230: TYPOGRAPHY AND LAYOUT

PROFESSOR:

VIRAG WHITE

SEMESTER:

SPRING 2025

ART 1230: Typography and Layout

Postcard Design

Front of the postcard


  • Include the following headline type: Sizzle! Dazzle! Wow!

  • Create and use a photo marker indication

Back of the postcard


  • Headline: _______________ International Fashion Show at Stromfeld

  • Body text:

    • (First place three lines of fake body text.)

    • Saturday, ________________ at 3:00 PM.

    • (Then place 7 lines of fake body text.)

  • Informational Text

  • Return Address

  • Include the supplied logo

For this project I was pretty excited to make the marker indication because I'd recently gotten some great Procreate marker brushes and knew it would be a lot of fun. From the beginning I knew I wanted to make something a little less "high fashion" and more casual. I started by finding a number of photos on Unsplash and spent a lot of time sketching them, and then moved on to some solid thumbnails once I got an idea of the shapes I was going to be working with. I also spent a ton of time deciding on fonts, which is very typical of me because I'm a big type geek.

I am ridiculously picky and a huge perfectionist when it comes to a lot of design things, and I don't think I was able to perfect this in the way I wanted to, so I would change a lot about the process if given the chance. That being said, I do think I benefited from working with these particular measurements, which I had never done before, and I still had a lot of fun.



Final Project: Newsletter

Required Layout Elements


  • Design a front-page masthead with the current semester/year

  • Write three major story headlines

  • Write three subheads under at least one of your stories

  • Filler text may be used for the body text but not the headlines and subheads

  • Write and include at least one each of the following layout elements: byline, photo credit, jump line, caption

  • Write and include headers and/or footers on at least one of the inside spread

  • Use page numbers on the inside spread

  • Create a mailer with an address and postage area on the lower half of the back page

Required Visual Elements


  • Marker comp or digitally create at least one original illustration.

  • Any illustrations used must be original. Do not copy someone else's existing illustration.

    • Create an illustration according to your skill level. Use a chart, diagram, or hand-written typography if unsure about your drawing skills.

  • In addition to the illustration(s), marker comp includes at least one “stock” photo. Any other photos used are optional but must be original.

  • All visual elements must be converted into one of the project spot colors. (Watch the video tutorial on how to convert scanned art and photos into one-color spot color.)


Throughout this semester I became really interested in two things: interesting magazine spreads and old jazz record covers. I spent a lot of time browsing the greatest website in the world, Fonts in Use, and finding a whole boatload of inspiration. I really loved abstract shapes and pushing the limits with grids, so I focused on that the most. The things I had in mind for a grid initially didn't quite fit the parameters for this project (I wanted to do a very abstract grid, but in my mind that had a lot more simple requirements content-wise, so I knew I wouldn't be able to do it for the whole newsletter. In the end that's why I decided to add a second spread, to play with that idea more. Would love a chance in the future to experiment with that again.