Let’s try this again…

One of my favorite stories to tell about design school goes as follows… Professor Jason Snape, an illustrator by trade, had an interesting idea after speaking to one of the librarians at GSU. He asked about all the books that had never been checked out by a student. Lo and behold there were hundreds! He then had the librarian print out a list of about fifty of them. One groggy Tuesday morning I walked into his perfectly messy classroom to find an old bowler hat sitting on the center table with a bunch of folded up pieces of paper and instructions to grab one. I pulled out Bacterial Fish Pathogens: Disease in Farmed and Wild Fish by B. & D, A. Austin. No guess as to why there wasn’t a waitlist on this piece of literary genius.

He explains to the class that we will be taking a field trip to the library where we are to search its empty corners and long isles for our chosen book. Titles ranged from historical fiction to bulky textbooks and varied in shapes and sizes. Once my book was in hand, the next step was to find two more, similar in shape, size and title. The project objective was to learn how to measure and create a custom template using the specs from each book to design and print book sleeves for a series set. Given my book was about moldy dead fish — I was pumped.

Now, years later I look back on these designs in horror. I see what baby designer Ally was going for… but boy did I miss the mark. So I did what I have craved so dearly from my days in the classroom, a good old-fashioned crit. I tore apart my original designs and proceeded to do a complete re-design. This was more of a passion project of mine and a chance to re-live some of my favorite project ideas. Hope you cringe as hard as I did :)