OUGD603 - Guidebook - Final Book Spreads

In the production of the final book spreads, the information has been separated into different 'zones' or chapters, categorised by their context as to whether they represent town, country, town-country or the people based on the four categories of the Three Magnets diagram which Ebenezer Howard produced to demonstrate his vision for the development of Letchworth Garden City. This was also done in order to represent the zoning system which Ebenezer Howard placed in the final development of the town, separating industrial areas from the residential areas. At the start of each of these chapters, the title has been placed within a green strip, representative of the green belt of land in which the town was built around in creating a town-country, whilst also acting as a practical element to show the start of a new chapter or 'zone'. These have then been paired with imagery which represents that specific zone of the town. A short resources list has also been added to the end of the guidebook, something which adds to the practical element of the guidebook whereby readers can look at this for addresses and contact information for most of the places mentioned within the book so that they are then able to follow up on information they have just read if they so wish.

Within the layouts of the book, these have been designed in order to create a balanced feel, and harmonious and complementary spatial relationships between content throughout the book that represent these harmonious spatial relationships within nature. For instance, for some larger chunks of information, seen on the spread of information about the Arts and Crafts movement, a gridded layout has been developed to format this information into text blocks that utilise the Fibonacci sequence in nature (21 x 34 with the text block 3 units from the inner margin, 5 from the outer and top margins, and 8 from the bottom). However, this does not just apply to written information, this grid has also been used in the placement of some imagery for certain spreads, which allow sufficient negative space throughout the various layouts of the book in order to help information stand out better and enhance legibility, something of importance for a guidebook in clear presentation of information. Other layouts present throughout these final spreads also explore asymmetrical layouts, inspired by another feature found in Arts and Crafts architecture which can be seen around Letchworth Garden City.

A mixture of primary and secondary images have been used in the production of this publication, utilised to showcase the original plans and development of the town in comparison to how it is now, so that this book targets both people who are interested in the history and heritage of the town and those who are interested in using this more practically to plan a visit to the town. The use of film photography for some images also helps to highlight the idea of industry and the era in which the town was developed.

The use of type within this book has been chosen based on those which have close characteristics with typography of the Arts and Crafts movement, utilising 'Goudy Old Style' for the body copy and 'Dyer Arts and Crafts' for the main title fonts.