Brief: Design a typographic book entitled “10 Things You Should Know About...” with the subject being one of your choosing (I chose the Battle of Bannockburn).
Requirements: Minimum 5 double page spreads, cover design, promotional poster, and a promotional item. Type only—no illustrated elements or photographs allowed.
Target Market: Teens and older.
Solution: My design solution helps the reader to understand the events that determined the outcome of this seemingly unbalanced battle. 20’000 English soldiers marched to Scotland to meet an army of 8’000 Scots—a ratio of 5:2. A seven-column grid illustrates these odds by assigning five columns to the English army and two to the Scots. As the reader journeys through the pages, they observe the tide of battle turning in favour of the outnumbered Scots. Attacks, betrayals, and tricks begin to wipe out the English forces until the Scots victory arrives on the final spread: a breath of relief, a silent battlefield, with the renowned Declaration of Arbroath set on the left like a memorial plaque.
A promo poster sets out the odds of battle in the book’s visual style, while the promotional whisky glasses symbolise the drowning of soldiers that turned the battle around.
I arrived at this concept later on in my process than usual, but the depth of what could be communicated through it got me excited. Achieving visual balance in the spreads proved challenging, as did setting the red and yellow text on the right hand pages, but I am delighted with the outcome.
