Specifically, we were to plan for a 5" x 7" note pad with 50 sheets per pad and a chip board backing. Designs were to be black ink only, with or without bleeds, and, as I mentioned, include a QR Code. I chose to go ahead and plan a 1/8" bleed and 1/4" margins, just in case.
The first steps of the designing process were already set for me. The purpose of the notepad was to promote my blog and urge my target audience, potential employers, to use the QR code, or URL, to navigate to the blog.
So, I began work on some rough thumbnails. I struggled to come up with designs that captured my skills, partly because I don't have too many yet. I've only taken two classes for my Commercial Graphics major so far, and I'm not to sure what kind of job I'll be looking for in the future. Also, I didn't want to come up with any designs that were too busy, because it is a notepad after all, and there needs to be plenty of room for writing. Scans of my thumbnails are below.
After drawing up my thumbnails, I spent some time looking them over and marking some off the list of possibilities. I narrowed it down to either the one with the black, jagged header (second page, fourth down) or the "KMK" logo with arrows (first page, second down). I liked the jagged header design because it was bold and clean. When drawing that design, I tried to play off of the squares within QR codes to create the bottom of the header. As for the "KMK" design, because my first and last names both start with K's, I've always been playing around with different drawings of them. I added some simple arrows that followed the lines of the K's on either side of the image which would get progressively thinner and lighter as they moved towards the edge of the page.
I ended up choosing the second option, because I felt it was more specific to me. I drew up a larger, rough sketch of the design, which can be seen below.
This design has a 1/8" bleed and 1/4" margins. The QR code will be brought in from PhotoShop, while the arrows and logo will be created in Illustrator. The sizes and placement of the arrows are very general at this point and will likely change once I get the components onto the layout. I plan to have them run off of the left-hand size of the page. Also, I may decide to make the components on the top of the page a big smaller, just to ensure there's plenty of room for writing on the page. I don't have a specific font chosen at this stage, but I will probably choose a clean, sans serif font for the contact information at the bottom.
As far as pricing goes, I emailed several companies to get quotes. I received three responses. First was Pronto Print out of Salina, KS. Pronto Print has said that for 100 notepads, the cost would be $1.55 per pad with a production time of 3 days, and that they would require a PDF file with the design 2 up on an 8.5" x 11" sheet. Second was Antioch Printing in Kansas City, Missouri. Their cost would be $148.60 for the 100 notepads, which comes out to $1.486 per pad, so they're a bit cheaper than Pronto Print. Finally, I received a quote from Pittcraft Printing Inc. from here in Pittsburg. The quote from them said that the total cost would be $175.00 ($1.75 per pad) with a production time of 5 business days, and they would require either a PDF file or a packaged design file. Even though Pittcraft's quote was higher than the others, I would most likely choose to order from them, so that I could support local business and keep the money here in the community.
Update: Here is a screen grab of my final PDF file for this project. After quite a bit of tweaking on my own part and taking some suggestions from others during our On-Screen Critique, I came up with a piece that I'm really pleased with. I'd like to point out that I toned everything down opacity wise after the On-Screen Critique. I had intended only to make the arrows a bit lighter so the KMK popped more. But, after I did that, I decided to make it a dark gray instead of black and to lighten up the contact information, as it seemed a little too bold.
Master Image List Elements: The QR code fulfills the Grayscale Raster requirement, while the rest of the images will vectors created by myself in Illustrator.
Copyright statement: The only piece of my layout that I will not be making myself is the QR code, which I will likely be generating at Kaywa. Kaywa's site says that QR codes can be used for non-commercial use only.
Sources:
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