OUGD504 - Exisiting Travel Guides

Research into Travel Guides

 

- From initial browsing of available travel guides it was found that many of the standard travel guide series have a similar layout for the whole range, with bright colour schemes which change to reflect each individual place.

- Many of the traditional travel guides also used idealised full bleed photographic images of the place as a way of visually enticing people, however this leads many of the books having the same generic tourist hotspots for their cover, making them no different from one another.

- The vibrancy of the images or elements on the covers are effective in drawing the eye

 Eyewitness Travel Guides 

- Features fold out flaps with maps of the city, showing it as a whole and in the context of the UAE. The maps also expand areas closer to show greater detail, providing landmarks and streets. Having the flap allows for a functional scaled map to be placed within the book without the need for the rest of the book to be bigger. 

- Format of the book is quite tall and thin making it easy to fit into the hand and carry about, providing a functional guide for travelling with.

- The content is separated into themed Top 10s with each Top 10 across a double spread. This places all the key places within one space making it easy to find out some destinations to head to. However for some of the double spreads it can feel a little too full because of the variety of information and images put within the space.

- The cover and pull out map are covered in laminate which creates a weather proofing for the book making it durable for travelling

 CITIX60 City Guides 

- Content is solely recommendations from 60 creatives within the area allowing you to explore local hotspots rather than just the tourist places

- Each cover has an illustrated map by a different designer creating a more personal feeling to that particular edition as well as making everyone of them different. 

- The first few pages include illustrations to represent the top ten things that make a place special however the illustrations stop from then on. This is at odds with the rest of the design of the book as it is purely photographic like a conventional travel guide.

- Alongside each place there is a quote / snippet of information from the creative that chose the place creating the feeling of a personal tour guide.    

Lost in City Guides 

- The Lost In City guides use purely typographical covers which repeat the name of the place in large letters, creating a sense that the book is shouting out to you to come and visit. The typography is also different for each place creating individual covers that portray different effects about the destinations.

- Full bleed images with minimal text allow for an immersive viewpoint of the place

- The use of coloured backgrounds within the book separate content and show when a new article is beginning

- Content of the book focuses much more on the people within the place and the atmosphere and creative culture of the city rather than on places to go.

- The layout of the guides combine both structured grid systems and more experimental layouts creating a fun and lively feel to the book whilst reflecting the creative atmosphere that the written content looks into for each place. 

Wall Paper* City Guides

- Range of guidebooks that use bright colours on the cover as a way of determining the place it is about, almost reflects a physical colour swatch / pantone sheet colour  

- Aimed at the design conscious with its minimal and bold design

- Images within, are well shot and are architectural and idealistic in feel which promotes the 'lifestyle' of the place. 

- The use of a two column grid system for the text across all pages creates consistency as well as working with a mixture of full bleed and smaller images. 

- Balance between a double page spread in terms of image / content ratio 

- Balance within a double page spread is created through grid / layout symmetry, full bleed images and combining elements to complement the scale of the content on the other spread.