OUTRO

JOURNAL NOTES

THEME

2020 was a defining year for everyone, including our team here at RyeTAGA. The year was characterized by its unpredictable events, significant changes, and constant challenges, but it was a year that also promoted reflection, growth, and overcoming adversity. The conjuncture of instability, technology, and individual ability to adapt and overcome hardships sparked innovation and creativity for everyone and will leave a permanent mark in our team’s history. When brainstorming ideas for this year’s RyeTAGA journal, we knew the essential aspect was to have the design reflect upon current events. That is just one of the extraordinary things about design; we are able to identify what period in history the design was created, and how it is a reflection of the social and political events that have occured.
 
While brainstorming ideas for this year’s theme, our Creative Director seeked to pick something that reflected current events. The first concept that was put together was inspired by the postal system and how dependent the world had become on it in 2020. We became increasingly aware of the process of shipping and fulfilling orders, a direct response to the rapid growth of the e-commerce market during COVID-19. We were fascinated with the postal system’s ability and efficiency. Furthermore, along with the rise of e-commerce was the emergence of attention to packaging, and highlighting its importance more than ever before, especially in shipping. Expanding on these ideas, we considered the theme of e-commerce and technology, which exhibits the impact that COVID-19 had on all of our lives in both professional and personal settings. We realized that technology gave us more support in 2020 than packaging, and without it many businesses would not have survived. It became critical to society, and we were certain that we had to incorporate this into the design of the journal. All of these concepts that COVID-19 and the year of 2020 brought forth to us coincided well with the nature of the journal being digital this year.

PROCESS

Working with the new format, we stumbled across many unpredictable obstacles that challenged us to think creatively to adapt to the new medium and its limitations. Our first challenge was determining the presentation format of the journal. We wanted to choose a format that not only performed a seamless user experience across different screens and devices, but also allowed for working collaboratively virtually. However, our biggest priority for the journal was accessibility. Acknowledging that everyone has their requirements and personal preferences when it comes to reading digitally, we wanted to make sure this year’s journal would be customizable in order to accommodate all reader’s personal needs and devices. With the help of Dr. Richard Adams, we determined that the best digital publishing software we could use is Pressbooks. Ryerson University first introduced Pressbooks in 2017, providing an open publishing infrastructure to the students and faculty across our university. One of the biggest advantages Pressbooks offers is the diverse options to customize the design of the online book, as well as its viewing formats for the reader. Pressbooks provides authors with the opportunity to design for web viewing, digital publications (i.e., ePub, interactive PDF), and for print (i.e., PDF). We confirmed that the online book could easily be exported as a PDF for print by designing for letter-sized paper, which is what is most convenient and accessible in many spaces. Furthermore, we also ensured that the publication could be accessed as an ePub, which allows readers to adjust various settings to their own viewing preferences.
 
The second major challenge that this new format presented us with was familiarizing ourselves with Pressbook’s coding language, HTML/CSS. Coding was something that many of us were not familiar with, so given the strict time constraints, we had to learn along the way. After having completed the journal, however, we feel as though we have learned a lot about what is required to create books for digital publication.
 
Regardless of the theme and output format, the perpetual goal of any RyeTAGA journal is to ensure that it is accessible to as many people as possible. Like always, for the 2020-21 journal, accessibility remained at the forefront of any design ideas–especially because it was a digital platform. Specific features that enhance accessibility on digital mediums include making sure that the content is reflowable, that the web pages run smoothly on different devices and browsers, keeping media under 2 MB for web optimization, and incorporating alternative text to media. All of these factors went into consideration when designing this year’s journal to ensure that readers have the best reading experience regardless of their reading format.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Although there is a stronger consumer preference of printed copies when reading, it was a great learning experience for everyone on our team to learn more about the process of creating ePublications, especially as they emerge in relation to the print industry.
 
Ryerson University’s School of Graphic Communications Management has a wide variety of courses available to students to provide them with a diverse portfolio of skills that are directly applicable to the future of the graphic communications industry. One such example is the eBook Production and Publishing course, taught by Dr. Adams, which also helped provide insight on techniques that were applicable to this year’s journal. As a group of individuals who knew nothing about designing for web and coding with HTML, this experience provided us with the opportunity to familiarize ourselves with various publishing methods and learn the basics of HTML/CSS, which is something that we thoroughly enjoyed learning about and are excited to learn more about through other courses such as Web and Cross Media.
 
It was also great to learn about the resources available to us from Ryerson University and be able to utilize those tools. As the market continues to grow for self-published eBooks and move to a more online platform, it was rewarding to gain hands-on experience with softwares that can publish eBooks. Overall, this experience has provided us with the foundation of new skills to further the relationship between print, technology, and design. It has made us more fascinated with the processes behind creating digital publications, and the intersection of digital media and print and how they work in unison to complement each other. We are excited to continue by the opportunity to expand on these technical skills, and look forward to the future of the graphic communications industry.