TYPE SPECIMEN & STRATEGY : TERMINATOR

RYAN MACEACHERN

BRISTOLUWE

STRATEGY4

GRID6

TYPE11

COLOUR19

IMAGERY22

FURNITURE26

This book is based around James Cameron’s 1984 science fiction thriller “the terminator”

a film based around the tale of the battle of man vs. machine in a war in the year 2029 the

story revolves around a machine being sent back to 1984 to kill the mother of the leader of

the revolution John Connor.

The reason I chose this film for the “book about a film “ brief was because none of the

films on the FBI top 50 films stood out to me, I needed something that would interest

me as I knew that doing a whole book would take a longevity of interest. The terminator

has become a cult classic and stands up to any film made now, it spawned an even more

successful and critically acclaimed sequel however I feel it lacked the vision and gritty

visuals that the original had.

When researching I couldn’t find too much serious research and material based on the

film. I found some material from a BFI book and some analysis of the film but it left me

at a creative dead end, this is when I realised that I had to set the book in reality and use

articles and research to help place the story in its environment of 80’s L.A. What struck me

about the film was its seriousness and how it was so grounded in reality yet was so huge

in its story telling and concept, everyone had an excuse for not believing the protagonists

and dismissed them, which made it more believable.

I split the book into three parts Past, Present & future as this mirrors the themes

challenged in the film and researched political and social issues from the periods as well

as throughout the entire book ill reflect with passages about the making of and creation of

the film.

The past section will present articles and information from the early 80’s up until the date

that Kyle Reese declares the nuclear war begins which is 1997. The present will cover

topics from 2003 which in terminator 3 is the renewed date of the nuclear war up until

the present day 2013, then the future section will focus on articles and topics that aren’t

so much set in the future but discuss the future and events that have consequences that

directly affect the future.

I wanted to create my own headline typography for the book. I wanted a heavy, thick

San-serif font to stand out against the thin page furniture and slim mono-space type

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that reflects the design of the HUD that the terminator uses. Most of the content is

from secondary sources, including newspapers, books, DVD inserts etc. I have put a

bibliography in the back so you can see the source however the “what’s your worst

nightmare” section is primary after I created an online survey where people could

anonymously confess their darkest nightmares.

I tried to use the highest definition images I could get which was easy as I had a blu-ray

file of the film however I found an abundance of concept art and set photography that was

of lower quality. I used a bitmap effect to help with quality issues and give a retro effect to

the book.

The book is aimed at anyone who did not take the terminator film seriously, although it

was an exaggerated tale, I believe there is something sinister about the idea of artificial

intelligence gaining independence and from the material inside it shows an interesting

pattern in real life events mirroring events in the film.

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GRID

GRIDSection 1/5

Page Size Width 164mm

Height 230mm

Spread size

Width 328 mm

Height 230mm

I had a really hard time choosing my grid, so I decided to go

for something very visual and relevant to the book. Every page

contains the outline of a terminator-esque figure.

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Page Size Width 164mm

Height 230mm

Spread size

Width 328 mm

Height 230mm

12pt baseline

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TYPE

TYPESection 2 /5

Equidicon dicto potem publiss inaturnum

densupimus erra publice rvirmaion derce tam

inatquam nertum manum puloctum aute, consultus

et volia amdicip tertis At viterum nium ad

mante quos faceri trum res aline die res

nendefe coerriam. Gra norum ne fachus. elus.

Maris, ne ad cone confiri pos, Casta, praciam,

Pat. Voliu conte ocaequis, nocci publicae

coeribus; nius cularte rorimaionsus in tanum,

te, condaciis. Tum habutus, ma, ocavoludere

ocules tum dem. Nam adem avocci inatum cut L.

Locte intia publis haessim overceperem patam

tem, me ca re essenatum seniu missilisque tes

et avehebunum aricus, quam nos tastin tam nos

hosus, nemo ut vir prites ex nestrac toratemus

lin alari facre, qui consulto vit, nem it;

Cupionsul vivid Catum inves, aceperi busque

tum igna, Cupientia re, ut reisulem det pri

ercernit, quis ret ad co es bonsuss ideesilica

BODY TYPE Letter Gothic std 7pt

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

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TITLE HEADLINE

TITLEGlitch

Upper-case 44pt

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

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CONTENTS TITLEGlitch

Upper-case 144pt

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

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CHAPTER TITLESGlitch

Upper-case 144pt

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0

15

SPREAD QUOTEGlitch

Upper-case 144pt

C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=100

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LETTER GOTHIC STDI wanted to choose a mono-space type because originally my design was going to be very

glitchy and disjointed taking components from crashed computers and malfunctions so

the type would be like the type found in a terminal window or code, however I changed

my mind but felt it necessary to keep the mono-space type so it would keep that computer

connection.

GLITCHGlitch is my own creation, I used fontstruct to make the basic structure then edited the

font file using fontographer I wanted a block sans-serif for use with titles and quotes. I

used the font on large titles and headlines as well as quotes because of its boldness and it

contrasts nicely with Letter Gothic.

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COLOUR

COLOURSection 3/5

COLOUR 1C=0 M=0 Y=0 K=0

This colour is used for text in the Past and

future sections because the film features a

lot of dark and ominous colour tones

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COLOUR 2C=0 M=79 Y=97 K=0

This colour is used throughout the entire

book and is the only colour other than

black and white to appear in the book I

chose this colour as red is notorious in

the terminator films as it forms the colour

of the endo-skeletons eye so decided

it would be the perfect colour to tie the

book in with the film. I also use this colour

to break up sections of the book a red

background signals the text is about the

creation and process of the film, these

sections pop up periodically through out

the book and don’t adhere to the strict

past, present and future layout.

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IMAGERY

IMAGERYSection 4/5

IMAGESPattern dither bitmap 170 pixels/inch

This effect is a bitmap effect which uses a grid of pixels to create the gradients in the image much like how a

bitmap would use denser and denser pattern of dots. I found it a challenge to keep all pictures at a constant

resolution as it all depended on the start resolution of the image, for example my bench mark was 170 pixels/

inch however images that were extremely large e.g. over 1000 x 1000 pixels I would have to bring down to 60-80

pixels/inch so the effect was noticeable.

Pattern Dither Half-tone screen24

RED DOTI have used a red dot on several images and nearly all the spreads throughout the book to bring all the pages

together and give it a fluid feel because most of the content is disjointed and separate I felt it was necessary to

help improve the flow of the content with the design.

The dot comes from the iris of the terminator which is usually surrounded by black or is seen lighting darkness.

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FURNITURE

Section 5/5

FURNITURE0.5 stroke line

The page furniture helps structure and place things on the page it settles and unifies the content, I chose to

include lines after looking at the terminators HUD and changed colour to reflect the three colour schemes of the

book

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