Designing a book cover

It is the Golden Jubilee (50th anniversary) of my high school. My secondary school has published a Golden Jubilee Anthology and I have helped the school to design the book cover.

The theme of the anthology is 流金歲月(The Golden Age). Below are different versions of the cover.

When we look at an image or a picture and zoom in it, we would discover it is composed of numerous amount of dots. It is these numerous dots array coherently to create an image or a picture. Similarly, our memories are composed of numerous bits and pieces.

I try to use a number of circles that contain images of school facilities and environment to symbolize those dots, bits and pieces. As it is these facilities and the environment work together to create the golden age of my secondary school.

Turn left......or right?

This is funny.

ummmm...... Can any one tell me should I turn left or right so as to reach the MTR station?

In fact,  the sign pointing to the right is for car-users.

And the one pointing to the left is for pedestrians.

It seems that these signs are not clear enough. Misunderstanding may easily be occurred if pedestrians or car users don't know how to distinguish the differences of the two signs.

First impression

I read newspaper everyday and use to pay attention to those advertisements too.

The advertisement above is abstracted from METRO NEWS.  When I took a glance over it, the first impression it gave me was - ahha..this is an DC ad.   But after I read through those tiny words, I realized it was Emirates selling its African airline. :-O

ummmm... I think this is not an good ad as it didn't gave me any idea of airline service until I have studied the whole ad.  The message it sent to me is unclear.  What's more, Emirates' logo is located in the left bottom corner and it is so small that people may not so sensitive enough to know its existence.

In my opinion, for newspaper adv, the first impression it creates for audience is no doubt important.  Not everyone would have time or interest to study the whole ad so as to figure out what products are promoting to them. First impression, thus, helps to briefly introduce the products to audience and let them to have a preview for what's going on. Besides, it may also help to grab audience's interest to study the whole ad.

What is design, actually?

From the previous DGC lessons, I have learnt that everything around us could be design. From road signs, logos, cations, notices, posters, handrails, bus routes maps...... are all about designs, as long as they try to convey meanings or communicate with audiences.

Yet, if a reader or user misunderstood or misuse something, it is the designers' fault rather than the reader or user's fault. It is the fault of the designer as he/she failed to communicate with the reader or user and direct the reader or user to do something.

On the other hand, I also learnt something about media forms and media forms are composed of different dimension. With different media forms, we can create a large pool of designs.