Looking More at Page Make Up—Part II: Evolution of a Page Spread

Above: The final spread I completed at the recent Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival. This handmade journal has lightweight Gutenberg for its pages (hence the buckling). The sketches were made with a Staedtler Pigment Liner and colored with Daniel Smith watercolors in my small travel palette, using a Niji waterbrush. Click on this image to view an enlargement.

I placed the above image in my write-up about the Shepherd's Harvest Sheep and Wool Festival on Urban Sketchers—Twin Cities, where you can also see wonderful sketches from Karen Engelbretson and Suzanne Hughes.

I'm posting it here today because I wanted to talk about the page layout thoughts behind the creation of this page spread. A reader asked about how I make such decisions and I thought this spread had some interesting "issues" or "turning points."

1. I turned the page to a blank spread and started to sketch a lovely shorn Alpaca. Then I spent a moment suggesting the curliness of its head, and neck, with light washes of watercolor.

2. After I did the head and neck I wrote in the date and time at the bottom in the negative space made by the curve of the neck and chin. I think that's pleasing.

It really is about what you think is pleasing and you won't know until you try a bunch of things, often making an error—or rather, creating something you don't care for, which will then push you in a different direction when faced with a similar decision in the future. The sooner you start making a lot of decisions like this the sooner you'll find decisions that suit you. (Remember Malcolm Gladwell and the 10,000 hours?)

3. Often I might stop right there. I could see myself going on to another animal and starting another page. However, I wasn't quite happy over the fact that my scale had been off when I started the sketch (I tend to start with the eye of an animal and work out from there—that ensures that I get what matters to me most if the animal moves), I had hoped to include the interesting dip where the neck meets the back. So I did a quick "thumbnail" sketch at the middle right. This necessitates a williness to give up the negative space on the other side of the first sketch.

4. I made a decision to STOP the body of the alpaca at the gutter instead of carrying on to the next page, because I knew I was getting cold and that was making me tired and I doubted I would fill up the next page with more animal sketches. I decided to leave the next page for notes about my day.

Alternately I could have continued on to the recto page with that thumbnail, additional thumbnails, and writing, and then ended the page at the 1/3 or 1/2 way mark, using it for another entry. These are the types of approaches you can consider.

5. On the verso page I made notes about the animal, its shape, the colors I was observing. I also made a comment about how I couldn't get any information about the feet. I don't know why I make comments like the last. A sort of self-directed quibbling to some—but to me I think those comments reinforce in my mind what I have to focus on the NEXT time I sketch such an animal. They create a sort of bookmark—remember to watch for this, catch this, note this. The act of writing these notes down helps "burn" them into my mind for later. I don't look back and re-read them. Time and practice have shown this to be a useful device.

6. Finally I noted down some overhead dialog that I found amazing and humorous. I kept it beneath the thumbnail sketch and my other comment because it creates borderless "sidebar" that includes the thumbnail down to the bottom of the text. I like that sense of orderliness.

7. Next, I went walking about the festival with Suzanne, after we both decided we were through sketching for the day. Then we went in different directions to our cars. As I sat in my car I decided I would take a couple moments to write some thoughts down in ONE column at the left of the recto page. I dated and timed that column and started to work. I had in my mind that I would use the other two thirds of the page for another journal entry altogether—perhaps separated with a decorative rule or painted strip down the page. Or perhaps by painting that portion of the page. (See an example of a page divided into a special column by the use of paint in an earlier post.)

8. However, when I reached the end of the column I still had things to write about and I decided that if I made two half columns to the right I could finish what I wanted to say, AND make myself draw that landscape I'd been putting off all day—in the top half of the two columns.

9. I  started to sketch my landscape, realizing as I did so that I was also leaving a bit of space for a caption, because of how I was visually cropping my landscape.

10. I finished my sketch. I painted it. And then I wrote my caption, keeping my writing smaller than the rest of the text on the page so that it would visually read as a caption and not part of the other columns. The fact that it crosses the other two columns also helps distinguish it from the regular text flow.

11. I packed up and went home.

From this you can gather that while I don't start with a preconceived notion as to how I'll use a page or spread, I really am wedded to the "grid" in page make up. You can search the web for all sorts of sites that present information on using grids for design of page layouts. I can't direct you to any because my attachment to the grid came before my use of the internet—and many of the sites my search brought up are commercial sites. (Not having tried them I can't recommend them.)

My interest in grids was fueled (nurtured?) by Josef Müller-Brockmann's book, "Grid Systems in Graphic Design: A visual communication manual for graphic designers, typographers and three dimensional designers." I can heartily recommend that book as it remains one of my favorites on the topic. "The Grid" by Allen Hurlburt is an introduction to the topic—less intense.

Even before I reached adulthood and became a graphic designer, my journals were arranged in such a way as to "mimic" the layouts I absorbed from other books and magazines. We all have ways we like to see information arranged—I was destined to adhere to the grid. The generation of grunge designers who left the grid weren't. I enjoy much of their work, and I've even been called upon to do "off-grid" work. But it is no surprise to me that my preferences come through almost daily in that one book I pick up and design to please only myself.

However you decide to layout your journal pages here's the key—you must live with the willingness to let go of a particularly lovely bit of negative space (as mentioned in point 3). You must be willing to accept less than happy results—sometimes chaos and clutter results. You must enjoy working without a net (no pre-penciling in of stuff)—because that's the fun. And you must enjoy experimenting. Isn't that what keeping a visual journal is all about? Well for me it is.

Comments

[karen]

I think my post was lost in a mis-stroke on my keyboard. If you got it, good, but if not, well, let me just say this is a great post and I can add this book as another worthy resource, Making and Breaking the Grid by Timothy Samara.

[karen]

Well, this is probably my favorite post in a long time. Composition and the grid. Yum, Yum!

First of all, only an experienced document designer like yourself would create this two page spread in her journal with such ease and confidence.

Start with the way you have instinctively created movement across the spread. The shorn alpaca on the left, skipping over some subordinate but important information for later, while drawn to the powerful color illustration on the right. Then around and back to the columns of text, finished off by the caption that describes the day. Bravo!

The fact that you did it on the fly and can deftly describe your process, is testament to your ability as an artist, designer, and teacher, and your experience as a visual journal artist.

Thanks for this post. I hope everyone studies it. It's just the best instruction you can get.

[Roz Stendahl]

Karen, well I hate it when that keystroke thingy happens, but I did get two posts. And thank you. Samara sounds familiar. I wonder if he has written other books. I will check it out!

And thank you for your kind comments. Of COURSE YOU would love this post—Grid indeed! I have to laugh. (We grid people have to stick together!)

I take so much for granted when I'm working (as I know you do). Hey we have to get something for those 10,000 and counting hours right?

Wait 'til you see the whole book. You'll either laugh or cry. I finished it today.

[Linda]

Roz, I just wrote in the layout comments for the second one on layouts. You're helping me so much with these articles like in this one you wrote that you start a drawing with the eye. Because I dont have any art classes or any one to help and your trying to learn on your own these little things like this help me so. Thank you for taking the time and doing this because it helps me on my art path and really wanting to learn.
In hopes you have more things like this on journaling it really is a blessing.
Have a great day Roz,
Linda

[Roz Stendahl]

Linda, I'm glad you're finding this type of post useful! I know Karen and I would like nothing better than to turn someone new on to grids!