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
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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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