LCA - Prospectus - 2013-14

The printed prospectus was seemingly produced without and editorial team. The whole publication itself does not appear or present itself as a prospectus for a ‘college of art’. It has a very commercial and industrial feel to it, presenting itself as more of a business than a ‘college of art’. It does not effectively emulate the very strong creative nature of the college.

Focusing on the actual layout of the publication it has very few positive attributes. The first page is boring and bland – it does not draw you in and it does not make you want to read. What it in fact makes you want to do, is flick through till you find the pictures and then read what is being said about them. Whilst doing that, some other flaws arise. Once you have found a picture, you take a closer look and realise it is a weirdly cropped image, showing the back of someone’s head or half of a piece of work. Whilst slightly confused, you look towards the text for some information on what this photo is, however the text nearest the photo is completely unrelated to the image. On top of all this, the layout of the pages that contain photos and text are all over the place and seemingly random. There is no alignment or organisation on the page making it hard to read and understand.

Another slightly smaller problem with the prospectus is the way the text and information has been presented. The typefaces themselves are very bland and when used in large paragraphs appear very dense and indigestible. Each title and subtitle is just an enlarged upper-case version of the typeface. None of these elements make it very easy to read and understand, meaning that it does not communicate well to the prospective student.

Navigation is another problem with the prospectus. The contents pages have no title and are quite easy to pass over if attention is not paid. Similarly with each individual section, there is no obvious title and no definitive difference between one part and the next. This means they all start to flow into each other, making it hard to use. The random solid black pages with white type do not appear to have any aesthetic quality and jar with the rest of the publication.

Overall, although ultimately solving the problem, it lacks the creativity that you would associate with a ‘college of art’. It feels more like a business catalogue that has been poorly edited, rather than a college prospectus, from a college with a prestigious BA (Hons.) in Graphic Design.