mark <████████████████████ >
To: Josh Schwebel <privatejosh@gmail.com>, Lauren Wetmore <████████████████████████████████ >
Cc: Farah Khan <█████████████████████ >
Hi Josh and Lauren,
Thanks for the meeting yesterday. We’re thrilled that you’re thrilled! (And I’m stoked you’re working with Jess!)
Please find below our meeting notes from April 25, along with next steps and a link to the recording. As always, please let us know if you have any further questions.
Josh, we’ll get back to you soon about your archiving/redacting question!
All the best + talk soon,
mark
Next Steps:
Farah to finish design (date range search, inside of email body) + reach out via email for approval
If Josh, Lauren have any thoughts other than “cool”, we’ll set a review meeting
Once that’s approved, H9 will do mobile views, email Josh and Lauren for approval
Once designs go into development, we can start on the book (August)
Last group of essays to go for copy edit in July
Max can start building the website in the fall when we’re working on the book
H9 to check in with Max/Alex about next steps for when Josh can start redacting (Josh is free for the next little while - may/june/july)
Printing budget: 10k // 400 copies
End of August: meet in person with Josh to look at paper (Lauren is happy to sign off without seeing the paper in person)
Agenda:
Design draft review
Book/content updates
Art direction for website: APPROVED
Inspo Discussion:
Farah: One of our big inspirations in our last conversation was Ines Cox.
Inspo reactions: Lauren gives two thumbs up!
Josh: Yes, the inbox aesthetic makes a lot of sense. Same with lazer print/photocopy aesthetic.
Lauren: I agree with what you’re saying, Josh. When long amounts of text become unreadable because of the design, I think this is a separate question for the website vs. the book. But I think because we’re working with a fairly simple palette and design, we should be good.
Farah: Yes, Louis and I are completely in agreement with you.
Drafts Discussion:
Lauren: Love it!
Josh: It’s beautiful!
Lauren: I really like it. It’s super simple. The simplicity of it highlights the repetitiveness of the information.
Josh: It recalls a lot of conceptual minimal work.
Lauren: I like this aspect of the fade to the right (when email subjects are too long, agrees with the sharper fade line that Louis suggested)
Josh: So we can change the terms in “To” and “From”? And is each line a thread?
Farah: Yes to both.
Farah: We’re also going to have to decide how you want to order them.
Josh: I would like it to start with the earliest down to the latest
Farah: When you open a conversation, they can all be open, or you click to open, etc…?
Josh: Yes, I’d like them all open. As easy as possible to read the conversation and scroll through.
Josh: There’s interwoven threads in some cases.
Farah: All the emails could be opened. But we could also potentially make it so that the user, maybe they want to read #1 and #4 emails together, they could minimize #2 and #3.
Josh: I think this is great. It does everything it needs to do. There’s references to the visual choices you’ve made that make sense, but it’s also not unnecessary or too much.
Lauren: How are images and logos being treated within the threads?
Farah: In the printouts you had shared, there are gallery logos. Those don’t show up to the recipient, only the sender.
Josh: But with the emails with HTML and newsletters?
Farah: That will be very simple. If there’s an HTML one, the first 3 lines (to, from, dates, etc) remain how they are. Just below that, it will retain the formatting/colours/images of the original.
Josh: Can we experiment with having the HTML emails be black-and-white as well?
Farah: yes!
Farah: (Re: not showing HTML emails in this presentation) The reason that I didn’t go much further is because I wanted to try this first and show you. Next step is to flesh out the emails. We’ll try colour HTML, black-and-white HTML, logos, etc…
Josh: Do you know how this will look as a book?
Farah: Not yet. That will be something Louis and I have to figure out. We obviously don’t want to obscure any of the text. But we think it would be good to design the book so it looks like a book. And then we’ll find ways to bring the emails in so that they look like pop-ups or screenshots, etc…
Josh: I really love the idea. When I showed you the screenshots the last time we met, from the funding bodies, I love the idea of them appearing as pop-ups.
Josh: The example you’re showing with pop-ups, I love how this looks, but I don’t like the covering/obscuring of text.
Farah: How do you feel about overlapping on a big section title?
Josh: I’d need to see that in practice.
Josh: (in reference to a specific ref) I do love the idea of scanned spiral binding.
Lauren: It’s very “zine.”
Ref on bottom-right/text on larger title: Josh says this is a bit busy
Both Lauren and Josh really like the homepage text treatment of our design mock-up
Lauren: I wonder what font the Canada Council uses. (Arial for body, a Gotham-like, friendly font for logo)
Lauren shared a link to a festival that uses a similar technique
Lauren: There’s a formal echo
Josh: I think I like the Arial more than the other.
Farah: Me too.
Lauren (in chat): From the Canada Council: “Logo typeface - Our logo uses the Gibson typeface. It is a humanist sans serif typeface that is clean crisp and provides excellent legibility. It was designed by Canadian type designer Rod McDonald to honour John Gibson (1928-2011), one of the original founders of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada (GDC). Canada Type donates all the revenues from its sale to the GDC to be allocate to a variety of programs that improve the creative arts and elevate design education in Canada. Corporate typeface: It is recommended Arial be used for everyday use. House font: Gotham Narrow is the official house font for corporate material designed by Creative Services.”
We took a stroll on Lauren’s font journey
Book Discussion
Lauren: We have 5 texts in their final forms (copy edited and everything). Then there’s another 3–4 texts in various stages of drafting. Hoping to get those to Jessica some time in July.
Lauren: Do you want to start working in a staggered way? Or do you want to wait?
Farah: Let’s wait. You never know how pieces will affect one another.
Farah: To produce the book, I’d really like the web design to be finished.
Budget: Josh has 10K. Farah thinks this is fine.