Thursday, 11 October 2012

Prospectus evaluation OUGD401 study task 2

Prospectus Evaluation


In our seminar we had a look at the most recent prospectus that has been made for Leeds College of Art.  We got into small groups of four and had a flick through the booklet we had some guidelines to follow when sharing our opinions...

  • The choice and organisation of fonts and over aesthetic
  • The purpose and the meaning of the publication
  • The target/audience
  • The social or political contents
  • Does the design solution ultimately solve the problem set


This is what we come up with...

  • Front layout is badly designed and looks like a powerpoint
  • Bad layout of text
  • Poor use of images
  • Overwhelming use of text
  • Subheading type works well
  • The paper is fairly good quality however the expensive finish with the text doesn't work
  • Needs to be a better balance of image and type
  • Doesn't say Leeds College of Art on the front, making it hard to actually know what the prospectus is for
  • The logo is on the back but isn't central so it looks like it has been rushed
  • The sudden change of black paper with white text half way through doesn't work
  • The change of paper throughout is unnecessary
  • Should be more image based
  • Not visual enough for an arts college
  • Text placed over some images is hard to read as it is in the same colour
  • Images are randomly 



Write a short constructive criticism of the LCA prospectus.

Identify at least 5 features that you think are either successful or unsuccessful...

I think firstly the cover , i found it didn't really make sense and it the word 'the' was removed from the sentence it would of been better. Although I'm a big fan of large type on a plain background it would make me pick it up and want to know what was inside. Maybe if the colours were monochrome it would of worked better. The colours selected for the front of the prospectus were dark blue and dark pinky red. They were not complimentary colours.
Whilst flicking through the prospectus i found it very strange how often the black and white paper was changed , it was white for so many pages then all of sudden they would put a black page in maybe if there was repetition but it was all mixed up.

I think for a university that specialises in art degrees the prospectus was not visual enough for people to know exactly what it was when first looking at it. when you turn to the first page and theres an image of our principle opposite a very plain page with a body of plain text it looks more like a booklet for a claims advice. Its not very warm or welcoming.
The way the images had been placed throughout the prospectus wasn't very professional for me it looked like it had been created on powerpoint presentation. None of the images had flow or structure and were simply there on some pages to fill up space. Some of the photography used in the prospectus didn't really for fill its purpose when you couldn't really see what it was trying to show. Some people in our group discussion said they thought the prospectus was terrible , i think some parts of the prospectus were strong i loved where it featured the small headings and little bodies of text on the pages and where some photography bled over a double spreads. I think i much preferred last years prospectus.



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