As I try and determine the structure,pace, and grids of my book, I am getting a bit overwhemled becuase of how many options there are for directions I could go and my brain is telling my that I have to find the “best” and “most perfect” system. however, thinking like this often paralyzes me, so I just decided instead to chose a grid to work with and see where it takes me when I first start designing. I went with a 6 column grid because I knew I wanted to incorporate some sort of modular graphic depiction of different bread options, and if necessary I could change the grid if I start building out and it is not working.
(first attempt at this modular grid using the 6 columns to illustrate bread type)
This 6 column grid is also extremely flexible with all types of text and there are many options for setting longer text within a 6 column grid.
As I also started setting my longer text for a first draft, I realized that there was not much happening in regards to mindful type design and type setting. visually & image based, I had developed a strong hold on my book, but the longer set text and other typographic elements were simply placed into the grid, without much other thought.
kristen suggested i recreate a type spread that existed in another magazine, and after doing this with my book content, it help sort of jumpstart my brain to start to think about the text as its own visual element, not just text.
for example, this page about toasting initially began as a very simple page structure, with the text much too widely set and a boring layout.
I started thinking about interesting ways to make this layout more interesting and dynamic, espically since when I think about toasting , i visualize the action of the toast popping out of the toaster. so, I went with this idea of popping out toast, and designed the paragraphs/bits of text to be almost popping from the toaster
i also started to develop my bigger spread/visual pages in a more mindful order in association with the more text heavy pages so that the book could be paced better.