It is really important to me that I stretch my own limits when I make content for a new workshop. I hope that if I get excited and passionate about my content, then people attending will do the same.

This time I chose to do something a bit different. I chose to typeset each of the five parts of The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot. My self-set challenges were:

• To base each layout on a different typographical or layout principle
• To use the same structural XHTML markup for every part
• Not to use images
• To design all but the grid in the browser, not Fireworks or Photoshop

I will write a detailed article about my The Waste Land layouts after next week's workshop, but in the meantime here are screen-captures of each of them.

The Burial of the Dead

The Burial of the Dead

A layout based an archetypal classical double-page spread.

A Game of Chess

A Game of Chess

Layout created from a Fibonacci squares based grid.

The Fire Sermon

The Fire Sermon

A newspaper inspired approach where the column width was based on the measure and the number of columns was dictated by the measure and the layout width.

Death by Water

Death by Water

A simple, striking, elastic layout based on the measure.

What the Thunder Said

What the Thunder Said

An unusual combination of two grids with perspective and scale, inspired by an architectural photograph.

O O O O that Shakespeherian Rag

I found working with poetry as subject matter fascinating and if you need an injection of inspiration in your design work, step away from your client work and spend a few hours typesetting a piece of verse.