This was worthwhile I thought; I really enjoyed experimenting with these layouts!
The following layouts I designed this week:a. ) two, even columns
b. ) two, uneven columns
c. ) BYO (my choice and somewhat abstract)
Who's my targeted audience for this magazine?
My audience for this magazine concentrates towards undergraduate college students and young entrepreneurs, aged between 21-36! My primary initiative for the magazine is to educate young adults regarding our environment and to help them structure innovative solutions, whether if it's through writing or art, to make the world a happier and healthier atmosphere!
What's my primary goal regarding these designs?
The goal of this exercise was to explore 'unique' and clear ways of conveying information through a featured article I'm likely to apply to my final project! Like the previous exercise last week, exploring distinctive methods of structuring the information is key, but also to construct an 'aesthetic' foundation for the Final design!
Which of the spreads did I specifically enjoy working with most?
Well, for someone humble about his efforts, I must admit that illustrating for the first spread was an enjoyable experience as it required me to really think outside the box! The illustration I designed depicts an apple (a healthy perishable), mirroring a human that's struggling to seek food! This is a serious matter, so I really wanted the 'darkness' of the illustration to build concern among readers, especially to those who think that 'several of them did it to themselves for some costly mistake'! Readers must know that life is rough, but at the same time, to make a difference for the victims of hunger - to do good karma in other words!
For the rest of the layouts, I enjoyed working through all of them. Each provided several, creative challenges, such as placing an image that composes asymmetry throughout the second layout! Despite the amount of time consumed on each layout and my areas of development, including hyphenating, I personally think that I'm growing confidence on what I'm working with for the Publication Design course!
**Keep in mind that I'll be eventually posting a draft of one of my layouts from Exercise 1!
Matt - You write a great brief and intro for your work, keep it up! I see insightful self-evaluation based on a really solid understanding of audience and content. I especially enjoy the clever use of small icons that represent publication date, writer/photographer, and even the title of the magazine, that I start to see in Grid B and C.
ReplyDeleteBelow are some questions that I have about your aesthetic follow-thru:
Grid A - As much fun as you had here creating the apple image I think this approach is, in light of Halloween, something that only a very young audience would be drawn too. The vector cartoon face, and feathered edge of the apple don't seem to add up to a solid stylistic approach - especially coupled with the realistic photo in upper right (which on first glance might also be used for an article about dieting). So these issues add up to an image content problem. What are your photos saying, and does it align with the text content?
The color palette, with its black background and orange type echoing the colors we see in upper right image, is striking. Although it "looks" like Halloween, it is also successful in it's own right.
But something to keep in mind is that white body copy needs to be a bit larger, or bolder, than normal to stand up to this "flooded" background approach. (We say "flooded" because the pressman must allow more ink to flow onto the page to get an even tone of black... and this can compromise the integrity of small white body copy). So a good designer compensates for this possibly eventuality.
Grid B - The 3 column format seems to work well for you here. This is a pretty straightforward layout and I'm drawn to the use of a strong image that bleeds across the gutter unifying the pages. However, does this photo help us understand the content on the page? The image itself shows us a happy, contented child gazing lovingly up at the camera. Hmmm... is this, in fact, a visual that compliments the text? I question that.
Grid C - The image is very appropriate, in fact really clever as we see what the child sees as an empty (empty, as in no food) spoon is held up to his face. I can't imaging a better image for this article. Really strong. I also notice that the position of the photo seems to bleed a bit onto the right page, again a clever way to unify the pages. Would you consider doing the same with the title of the article?
I encourage you to continue to work with this grid, and create a structure that actually allows for 3 full, but uneven, columns... 2 outside even columns and 1 thinner one that runs down along the magazine gutter). This thinner column can be used for photo bleeds across the gutter (as I see here), captions, pullouts, call outs, etc. I guess I'm suggesting that you make this casual photo bleed a more permanent part of the structure... and widen it a bit further to be of more help to you in the future.
As I said at the top of this post, I enjoy the icons even if I don't completely understand all of them (what is the V for?) Maybe here you have a bit too much of a good thing? Do you need all of them?
Hope this helps - nice work Matt.
Matt
ReplyDeleteI really like what you've done with grid B. I think the placement, as well as the subject, of the image is well thought out. I do agree with Coni though that a happy child may not be suited for this text.
Putting the first paragraph in bold helps create an entry into the text. My only issue, which may just be an illusion, is that it looks like it is in a larger column than the two next to it? Also, the blue color in the pull quote is a strong color. It may be nice to introduce this elsewhere in the design.