Industrial Ecology

Document Design

DOCUMENT DESIGN: INDUSTRIAL ECOLOGY

BRIEF

Design and produce a formal report on industrial ecology for a brand, addressing two competing audiences.

This project was completed as part of Interaction Design Studio I coursework in Carnegie Mellon University's Masters program in Human-Computer Interaction.

From four provided company options, I chose the New York City Department of Environmental Protection as my client. The Department of Construction and the Sewage & Waste Department were specified as audiences.

SKILLS

Typography, color palettes, grid & layout design, communication through type and images, addressing multiple audiences

TOOLS

Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign

DESIGN CONSTRAINTS

16 pages including front and back cover
Page dimensions: 8" x 10" (Spread: 16" x 10")
Grid system of 2 or 3 columns
Typeface choice: Century Schoolbook, Garamond, Palatino, Gil Sans, Helvetica Neue, and/or Optima
Three color palette plus black and white
Raw body text was provided and should be treated as lorem ipsum; I composed the title, callouts, image captions, headers, sub-headers, and the executive summary.

PROCESS

LAYOUT GRID

I began the project by exploring grid options for the report content, and began with a three-column grid, with a narrower outer column on each page for non-body text content (images, callouts). I decided to move forward with a simpler second layout. In the third iteration gutters between the two body columns were added, along with a row on top reserved for headers and images. In the fourth layout, the middle rows spanning across the body text were removed, allowing for more creativity and flexibility.

First grid

Second grid

Third grid

Fourth grid

The final two-column grid included “sacred white space” that remained unfilled throughout the report, a second row where only headers and sub-headers appeared, and a larger row for body text and images.

Final grid

Cover design & Title

My first cover attempt included a colorful image spread across both covers.The official NYC DEP logo was also featured prominently. I struggled with making the title text legible against this background, however.

In the second iteration I increased the transparency of the background image and changed the text color to black in an effort to make the title more legible. I also edited the title of the report to make it more specific to the client and the two audiences.

First back & front cover

Second back & front cover

I ultimately created a very different final cover, using a simpler design and applying the neutral in my color palette to the background. I featured the Statue of Liberty’s torch, a nod to one of the New York City's most iconic images.

Final back & front cover

Interior SpreadS

In the first iteration of interior spreads, the first page of the report body began in an unconventional way, with text crossing both of the page's columns followed by a full-bleed image. The second interior spread also included a large image. I found that the flow of the opening felt disjointed and the point of entry in the second spread was not immediately clear.

In the next iteration, I shrunk the NYC DEP logo, making it less of a focus while still indicating that the report was custom-made for the client. The second interior spread featured a more straightforward point of entry with a header and sub-header. I also simplified the body text by removing some of the colored text and changing it back to black.

Interior 1: First Iteration

Interior 2: First Iteration

Interior 1: Second Iteration

Interior 2: Second Iteration

In the final iteration, I began the first page of the interior using the two column grid and chose a brighter blue for the sub-headers and callouts to show greater contrast with the black text. I also changed the header typeface to Garamond, shrunk the caption text, and wrote more descriptive headers, sub-headers, and image captions. I wrote headers, callouts, and image captions relevant to the first audience, the sewage and waste department, in the first half of the report, and those relevant to the second audience, the construction department, in the second half of the report. I began and ended the report with images of the New York City skyline, uniting both audiences.