OUGD 503 - Responsive: Collaboration

After the session we decided that this would be the best time to try and interview a 'Big Issue' vendor; we want to get a more personal feel for the company as opposed to taking all of our information from their website. We also wanted to buy the most recent issue so that when we are making mock-ups and experimenting with layouts, we already have relevant information ready. We found a vendor and spoke to him, and he gave us this information:

H: How long have you been selling 'The Big Issue'?
V: Just about a year now.

H: What are the benefits of selling 'The Big Issue', how has it helped you?
V: It's a big solid support network there, I mean I've just finished a basic DIY course for a company called Latch; they buy up derelict houses, do them up and then put homeless people in them once they've finished. So I volunteered for four months of the 12 month program and got onto that through 'The Big Issue'. It's just a massive support group there to help you get back onto your feet. They even help with just the simple things like getting back into the work set of mind, getting up every morning to get out and do something; it gives you a bit of self respect as well.

This information is very useful to us, as we plan on using it to create the grid for the typography. Instead of just choosing words that we feel represent 'The Big Issue' we can now create the pattern from the information from an actual vendor, thus having a much more personal and honest feel to it. From what he told us, we have picked out these words in particular that we feel will help us to create our typography grid:

• Support
• Network
• Self respect
• Self belief
• Motivation
• Unity
• Protection
• Security
• Housing
• Network

These words are all very representative of what 'The Big Issue' means to those who it affects the most: the vendors. From these words, we are going to look further into the meanings of shapes and create the grid from the shapes that best represent the words above. We have also thought about the name of the typeface, considering naming it after the vendor that we spoke to. From the photograph above we noticed that his name wasn't on the card, but was replaced by a vendor number. From this, we have thought about perhaps naming our typeface something along the lines of 'Vendor No. 30'.

We also bought a recent copy of the magazine and photographed a range of different pages in order to get a further understanding of how the magazine currently looks and feels: