The Scientific Study of UFOs

Book, Poster

November 2019

The Goal:

Given documents of plain text, images, tables and diagrams, create a well-designed and appropriately paced book.
Use information systematically and cohesively in order for the reader to understand what is being presented to them. Using the figures from the book, place 8-12 of them onto an informational poster with multiple levels of hierarchy.

Challenges:

Challenges to the research mostly came with validating the information as fact, because most of the information was based on witness accounts, and anything in this subject is widely unknown. Coming up with a system was difficult at first. This project taught her how to do that, along with how to manage time more efficiently on a prolonged project and break it into smaller tasks. It also definitely tested her patience and ability to work under pressure with a tight deadline.

The Solution:

The Scientific Study of UFOs was a book as well as a poster, designed to work cohesively together.
The book is perfect for lovers of aliens who want to know the history and data of past sightings. This determination came from studying the text, and researching the intended audience. Maddie was able to create many levels of hierarchy with weights and sizes using two contrasting typefaces, Adobe Caslon Pro and Brandon Grotesque. She redesigned the diagrams and tables to make them more readable and easier to understand. Incorporating images, tables and diagrams every two to four pages, there is a system in place to pace the book. When first creating a system, Maddie began with laying out each type of page. From there, she could easily flow in the text and change the styles as necessary for the entire document using master pages, providing small manual edits as necessary. She wanted to differentiate the style of the Case Studies from the rest of the text, so she used a different paper, in a lighter green than used for the cover, and a different grid system. The poster was an accumulation of the diagrams blown up to a larger scale to be eye-catching and readable, while providing data to the viewer.

Role: 

Designer, Editor

Deliverables:

Book and poster.
She learned a lot about her process and herself. That was the largest impact that it had because she was able to take a step back when finished and be proud of her work, even if she still sees flaws or things she would change now.