The first of the three had a number of specifications: It had to be square, must only utilise 2 spot colours (+1 for coloured stock if chosen), and must be a folding design. The brief also specified the purpose – A typographic exhibition named “Letters for the Twenty-First Century”. I was given free reign to choose whichever type designer from the twentieth century I wanted, and for the exhibition to be hosted at any London-based gallery. There was also a requirement in regards to the sponsors of the aforementioned fictional exhibition – Tate + Lyle and Linotype.

For the type designer, I chose Morris Fuller Benton. Aside from being the most prolific type designer of all time, he also designed (or re-cut) some of my favourite typefaces during his career, including the Empire, Bodoni and Garamond families. I figured the sheer volume of typefaces could provide for an interesting element in some manner.

I chose a simple flat cyan theme, lowering the opacity in each folding quadrant to emphasise some hierarchy as well as providing a pleasant visual aesthetic. The yellow type was chosen as a contrasting colour to the cyan, while not being as definitive and attention grabbing as the white type when used as display text. However, I found the opposite effect when it came to body text, so utilised it along with emboldening to emphasise important aspects of the information. I carried that theme throughout the leaflet, which I feel worked especially well on the venue details.

The design centred around a long, long list of typefaces designed and re-cut by Benton, which descended from a large title featuring layers of “Benton” set in a plethora of his typefaces. The list continued onto the reverse, adding some continuity to the piece. The reverse featured some of Benton’s typefaces, wherein each chunk was specifically set in the typeface being written about. The list also ended with “Benton” in multiple fonts, symbolising that his life’s work began and ended with type.

When folded correctly, the headline, the title of the exhibition and the start of the list would be visible, and the reverse would have a small excerpt of his biography.

The second leaflet had a more creative and slightly more difficult brief. I was tasked with choosing a company in the UK Fortune 100 list and creating a leaflet focussing on a fictional new product. However, the leaflet had to be designed with the intention of guerilla marketing in mind. Guerilla marketing relies on interaction and engagement to draw attention from it’s audience, so designing anything capable of doing that requires some wit or humour.

As for the company, I chose GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical company, partially because of my history with medication and partially because it afforded some entertaining product possibilities, such as “Viagra 2.0: Got the ‘blues’? Take the blues.” Hah. Anyway…

The product I conjured up was an Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder suppressant as I had noticed my frustration at getting caplet-style pills to stay still while trying to photograph them for use as imagery. This made me think “If I’m getting annoyed at this, imagine how someone with a serious OCD would feel right now”. After experimenting a considerable amount, I scrapped my ideas and went for a very simple image – A perfect pattern of pills upon pharmacy paper, beset by a single rogue, out-of-place one. I figured that it would catch the eye of anyone with even a mild OCD, and annoy them enough to pick up the leaflet or at least pay attention. The added bonus would be that non-OCD afflicted people would likely not notice, meaning this piece of graphic design was incredibly direct.

I made the reverse suitably simple as well, simply apologising for the frustration caused and explaining the new product, what it does and where to get it.