Structure, System, Form
Communication Design Mini, Fall 2020
For this project, we (Francis, Catherine, Proud, and I) analyzed and presented on the grid structure and brand identity of the business publication Fast Company.
9/1/2020–9/2/2020
Initial Research
In class today, we learned about grids, a series of columns and rows that organize graphic and text content. For this project, we’ll be analyzing the grid of Fast Company, a magazine I recognized but was not very familiar with. Initially, I didn’t know what to expect from a business publication; Normally I’d expect something of that variety to be visually stale, and not something we as designers could really sink our teeth into.
I did some initial research, along with my group, and found that I was quite wrong. Fast Company makes the most of their content, and showcases it beautifully, with lots of visually interesting elements. Being remote, I focused on web content during my research, and I was impressed by their use of animation and video mediums.
We started looking into the major building blocks of their publication. Some important notes we gathered:
- As compared to their competitors, the audience of the publication is built of some of the youngest readers (a median age of 43), one of the highest household incomes ($181k), and one of the most even gender splits (55% male / 45% female).
- They use the typefaces Grifo, Centra №1, and A2 Beckett.
- Fast Company’s current design centers around 3 major keywords: “playful,” “progressive”, and “gender-neutral.”
I also began to inspect the grid structure of an article:
This article is based on a simple 3 column grid.
9/3/2020–9/7/2020
Rough Presentation
We’ve been working on rough draft slides to plan out the flow of our presentation. In class, it was stressed that we should have a narrative flow as if we're telling a story, so we’re trying to approach the project in that way from the beginning.
We spent a lot of time trying to make out layout make the most sense it possibly could. We decided to showcase web and print separately, and to break down the presentation into 4 different sections: Preface, Style, Macro, and Micro. I was to work on slides 3, 9, and 11.
We worked in Figma to start thumbnailing our presentation layout as well.
We decided to use a 12 column grid within our own presentation layout, so we could organize our content.
We also were able to speak with Jaclyn about our presentation on Monday, and get some feedback before the dry-run on Tuesday. She did this exact project, with Fast Company as her subject, just a couple of years ago, so she’s an excellent source for feedback. She helped us edit our presentation a bit before class. Most specifically for me, she emphasized the need not to stress over the columns in our grid — it’s not always perfect, especially for the web format, since it adapts to multiple viewing platforms.
Jaclyn also helped stress the fact that this shouldn’t feel like a research paper, but rather a narrative. It would help engage viewers and drive the movement of the presentation. We also had a very loose script, and it’s now time to start tightening that up a bit.
9/8/2020–9/9/2020
Dry-run & Finishing up the Final Draft
In class, we once again presented to Jaclyn, along with our peers in the National Geographic group.
All in all, our presentation went very well! Positive responses all around. Our graphic choices weren’t overpowering and our script was in a good place.
Major Takeaways:
- It worked really well when we brought our narrative back to our keywords & it would be beneficial to continue doing so and emphasize the gender-neutral qualities even more.
- Tighten up the timing; we ran a bit long, about 9 minutes or so.
- Clean up our slides a bit before the final presentation.
I worked to add moving GIFS on my slides about animation, in order to showcase the moving elements. I also tightened up my script a bit, and cleaned up the design of my slides.
On Wednesday, we were able to set up a meeting with Vicki, so she could look over our presentation once before the final. I was actually driving from Cincinnati, OH to Norris Lake, TN to visit some friends as this meeting was happening, and by the time I was all settled in, I was only able to catch about half of the conversation. Once again, the response was quite positive, so that was good to hear.
Major Takeaways:
- Our green and white color choices remind her of Benneton, a clothing company. It’s a pretty generational thing, and I doubt anyone our age would have the same reaction, but definitely something important to note.
- We should be sure to break up the slides a bit more, don’t spend too long just staring at one. (For example, add another after the animation slides talking about video, and add another after the company ethos slide talking about the audience).
- It’s interesting that we mention that we came it this thinking it would be visually boring since it was a business publication — that’s important.
We addressed some of the concerns, and I added new visuals for the video as well as the audience. We spend that night making some practice runs through the script and making sure the presentation was 7 minutes.
9/10/2020
Final Presentation!
The presentation went super well!
General Feedback:
- The green was an interesting choice, and for some other adults it also brought up the idea of Benneton! It still worked though, and help differentiate our work from that of Fast Company.
- We had very clear communication, though sometimes the pacing was a bit fast.
- It was really helpful when we referred back to our keywords, as it helped tie everything up.
If I reflect, personally, I think we had a very strong end product. Our team worked excellently together, and everyone was very dedicated to our group’s success. It’s a fantastic start to the semester!
