Brochure Assignment

description / requirements / design script / saving

Description

The American Museum of Natural History in New York wants to supplement its anthropological collections with a series of new informational brochures. The Museum has commissioned your design team to develop a set of prototypes devoted to single South or Central American culture.

Working in a group, research and then design a set of brochures for the museum introducing visitors to several aspects of a particular South or Central American culture (e.g., Aztec, Maya, Inca). The set of brochures can focus on a general museum audience or on a particular age group.

Each brochures in the set should focus on a different aspect of the culture: e.g., clothing, religion, art, food, agriculture, architecture, weapons & warfare, etc.

While the content and some of design features will differ between the brochures in a set, all of the brochures need to share common features (esp. supra-textual features) that identify them as belonging to the same set. Creating a strong group identity is essential to the success of the design. At the same time, you'll need to distinguish the brochures both textually and visually. Thus each brochure in the set might use a different dominant color but the same font and layout. Or the color scheme might be the same for all the brochures but each will use a strongly contrasting image on the front cover.

Brochures should combine images with text and divide content under different headings.

The textual content should be based on at least three sources.

(Note: The sources should be high-quality sources. Someone's online journal about visiting the Yucatan or a Wikipedia article are not high-quality sources, although they might help you to find high-quality sources.)

Once each designer has their sources and ideas, the groups need to determine a consistent design and organization to be followed by all the brochures in the set. Your objective here is to establish a "supra-textual" identity for your series of brochures, a strong family resemblance based on the repetition of major textual, spatial, informational, and graphic features.

For example, a type of information common to all the brochures in the set should be in the same place for each brochure in the set.

In general, think about what your user will want/need in the brochure. Think about what absolutely needs to be there, what definitely doesn't, and what might not be expected but certainly appreciated.

Remember: In contrast to more purely promotional genres like the flyer, the tri-fold brochure tends to store and transmit information with a relatively long shelf life.

The final draft of the brochure is due at the start of the week-five class, Feb. 18. Turn in a color printed copy. Save an electronic copy as a PDF in a "brochure" folder in your "projects" folder on Eden (see below).

Brochure Requirements

Follow basic CRAP and Gestalt principles.
Limit the number of typefaces you use. Don't use Courier, Arial, or a font-size over 10-pt for body text.
For headings or titles, use a font that contrasts (at least via bolding) with your body text font.
Limiting your color range to black and white is acceptable, but using an additional color or two wouldn't be frowned on. However: Unless you have a good reason to do so, don't use more than two additional colors.
The brochures of each group should share an identical overall design (e.g., fonts & margins, general panel layout), as well as back & front panel design (e.g., same main title and layout, with space for separate subtitle and introductory matter). Variation within that design (e.g., distinguishing each brochure in the series with a different main color) should follow a clear logic.
There should be NO surface errors: spelling, grammar, etc.

Design Script

In the design script you explain your design decisions. E.g., why you selected this image for the cover, these colors for the background or border, this font for the title or the body of the text, this information on the front cover, the back cover, etc.

For this early assignment, I'm more interested in seeing your decisions about why you chose to present the particular information you did and why you decided to place the information where you did. So focus on these content and placement decisions rather than strictly on form and appearance decisions (although don't leave all of these out).

In three labeled sections, your design script should:

Provide a stylesheet (see Lipton) and explain your common design decisions for the entire brochure set (this part can be written together and be the same for all members of the group);
Explain your own design decisions for your own brochure (how and where your brochure varies from others in the set); and
Provide a complete bibliography in MLA style.

Sections 1 and 2 should each refer to and cite more than three times each from at least THREE of the readings in support of your explanations. Use parenthetical in-text citation in MLA style (author's name followed by page number) for each reference.

The bibliography should include information on your main source, the two or more supplementary sources, and any images not of your own creation.

Your design script should be in standard memo format.

It should be 1-2 single-spaced pages long. Write in full sentences, either in paragraphs or in a numbered list. Skip a line between paragraphs or list items. Use a 12-pt serif font (e.g., Times New Roman) and one-inch margins on all sides.

For documenting book and article source information in MLA style, use Diana Hacker's site on MLA style (or the MLA Handbook, if you have a copy).

For documenting website information in MLA style, use Hacker again or this online guide to electronic documentation.

Turn in a printed copy of your design script with the final draft of your brochure. Save an electronic copy of your design script to your "brochure" folder on Eden (see below).

Saving

Create a folder called "brochure" on your local desktop (on your computer). Keep your brochure-related files in this folder. Periodically copy this folder to the "projects" folder in your Eden account.

~ Jonathan Bass