Me and my research team were given approval to dive deep into steam power through the years 1750 to 1850. Immediately, I knew that steam had to dominate my spread in some way, which is accomplished with the ‘trails’ of steam present on the spread.

Objects related to steam are depicted as black silhouettes, with the iron bridges, steam engine wheel, the steam whistles and the steam boat. They were placed in regards to the body text, to ensure there was enough space for the text. The decision to depict these objects as silhouettes was also to prevent too much attention being drawn away from the text.

Although it does look generally appealing in my opinion, I do not think very highly about this spread. I’ve come across many challenges regarding the design and execution of the final result.

A spread is supposed to reflect the style of the period, and it is a bit difficult (for me) to see any resemblances. The heading on the top left, does reflect it to a degree, being a serif font, but I’m not entirely confident that it is appropriate for the time period.

The body text prioritized placement and space, somehow I did not think of writing the body text in a typeface relevant to the time period. Looking back at the spread now, utilizing relevant typeface might make the spread more eye-catching.

The execution could have been better, the black silhouettes were blocked in using ‘Micron’ brush pens, some inked parts were smudged since the ‘Copic’ markers used to colour the background only dried seconds after being applied.

Though it was not a problem in my yearbook spread, some pencil lines were extremely hard to erase in this spread, thus one could notice some ghost lines after their first glance.

Considering what I’ve covered in this rationale, I feel that I should give myself a 7/10. Though it is appealing in my opinion, I believe I could have improved a bit with the design of the spread, as well as being more careful with some aspects of its execution.