Always on the Move

2016Archive

Oct 19

2016 – 2018

A childhood friend of mine – the super talented Henry Hwu – reached out to me for help branding his image in print. His minimalist photo book, ultra-clean letterpress cards, and his symmetrical monogram logo all shared the same art direction. Our main focus for these projects were to craft something one of a kind, but without clutter. We didn’t want his book to resemble anything from those online photo album producers. The business card should feel like a keepsake, and his monogram needs to be memorable, but recognizable at the puny size of an Instagram avatar. Minimalist design is never easy, but here you’ll find my best attempt.

The single spread I’m most satisfied with is the social media AMA page. Two pages, completely blocked out with text, surrounded by page after page of beautiful imagery. To me, this wall of text has the same effect as an illustration within a novel, something to make you slow down and process with a different part of your brain. We included this interview as an ‘easter egg’ for Henry’s followers. Each of the questions included were hand-picked from hundreds of submissions because they stood out for their thoughtfulness, and served as a great opportunity to share advice to any readers who are currently pursuing a career in photography.

We spent a lot of time discussing our cover layout. What information should we include? How large should the title be, and how do we set this book apart from the other magazines on our coffee table? Well, what we landed on was a blind debossed title bleeding off the edge of the page. Pairing that with a beautiful foiled monogram I designed for Henry a few years ago. We ended up with something incredibly minimal, yet thoughtfully different and I love the way this cover changes in different lighting, and especially how the letters catch your eye when laid flat on the table.
You can see a few of our proposed cover options below before determining that a stripped back layout was just what we needed.
The spine is meant to work in a system. We’ve all seen it before when a book series or dvd collection has an inconsistent layout, and I want no part of that. Whether we have yearly books developed with a different colour theme, or a new title in mind, each and every spine will have the same layout, and the numbering will reflect the volume. This one is our first edition, the white one.
My biggest challenge with this project was creating a photo book that appeals to more than just photography fans. Henry’s stunning photography, and adventurous attitude has gathered him a massive social media following. Sharing photos of iconic hip-hop artists and incredibly scenic locations around the world, his fans follow his aesthetic, and his story. These reasons are why I urged him to give them something special to read in the book. With some patience, Henry sat down and wrote out his behind the scenes commentary from some his favourite images, and through this process, decided to include a large section to the popular rapper Logic where he discusses his relationship to the artist, and the growing friendship over the years. We decided to set the Logic spreads with all black pages, and a fold-out page in the middle of the story.
Throughout the rough layout process, I knew that the easy way to showcase great imagery is to show them in full bleed. But this to me didn’t do the project justice. Instead, with Henry’s help, we carefully selected imagery to pair with some dynamic layouts, partial bleeds, minimal captions, and colour harmonies. We wanted to be especially thoughtful of the architectural imagery for their distinct leading lines as I knew our eye would need to flow through the pages smoothly.
Wherever we show headings, I’ve included what I referred to as an anchor point for our eyes. A colour swatch just peeking into the margins to help guide you across the page. Where it felt unobtrusive, I also included the title of the book “always on the move” into the gutters and margins of a few pages.
With Henry’s business cards, we had two things he wanted me to focus on: Keep it clean, and make them feel substantial. After reviewing a few options together, we ended up with a letterpress card which was a new venture for me. I reached out to the very kind and knowledgable team at District Dogs Designs for help. Based locally in North Van, it was a great opportunity for me to visit a print shop and see the intricacies of print and how to design thoughtfully for this application. Jarin and Catherine showed us many paper options but we ended up with a Reich Savoy Ultra Bright which is a very high quality substrate with a very distinct texture for debossing our text.
I’ve always tried to keep away from center justified text and layouts for that matter where possible. But this project nearly demanded it with our logo. You can see here how we explored some asymmetrical designs, and where I tried to leverage the natural leading lines of our monogram into the lines of copy. With luck, we were able to determine the final design after only one round of feedback, and the revised document was sent off for print.
Henry Hwu’s logo design was a great exploration on what a logo should represent. A few of the themes we touched on were architecture, symmetry, and illustration. We tried simple, we tried complex, we tried hand-drawn, and we finished with a blend of all three.
Our final monogram is reversible and balanced, it can represent growth or upward momentum, and I feel it shares some references of architecture with it’s sharp lines and bridge-like structure. But most of all, our logo design was created for scaling way down onto a social media avatar (specifically Instagram).
As shown below, our monogram is instantly recognizable at even a puny resolution, but still feels strong when printed large on top of Henry’s photographs. This logo always appears in black and white and we’ve never wanted to try and pair any particular colour swatch to the design. The reason we went monochrome was that Henry’s images are so rich in colour, that our logo needs to be more of a neutral party to his photographs so that we do not distract from photos.