My goal here was still to communicate to a middle-aged home owner audience, with compelling images that relate to the issue, and colors chosen to provoke despair. I used line and negative space to trap the body copy.
Rich - some good work here! I'll discuss the work in the order in which it appears, rather in alpha order, because I believe Grid A actually sits at the bottom and Grid C at top.
Grid C (top) - you created your own grid here, and you are combining a 2 even column and 2 uneven column grid on this spread. Quite interesting - and with some work this layout has a lot of potential because of it's striking image and black background.
I would think this image would be VERY scary to a homeowner, because these hands do not belong to someone who owns a home... but show us an example of a homeless person begging for food. Anyone who might be worried about loosing their home would consider this their nightmare scenario! So, you have found a very memorable image for your target audience.
Among a number of very successful things here I notice that you have a page balance problem. Too much type on first page, and too little on second. Do you see the "hole" to the right of the hands, across the gutter on the right hand page? It looks like, to me, that you are attempting to keep all your paragraphs together. You don't need to - instead push some lines of type forward away from the hands and onto the next page.
Your last, thin column to the right, should not hold body copy, but instead should hold a pull quote, or some other type of page element (caption?) In fact, you could consider placing a quote at the top of this column AND a caption at the bottom.
Grid B (middle) - Some disjointed sections appear here, and there are 2 large but trapped areas of negative space that pull the design apart. The image of the boy is a good one, but the layout doesn't quite hold together in an aesthetic way. Again... it appears that some body copy is out of order.
Grid A (bottom) - Color palette here is strikingly successful, but it is based on an image that might not be your strongest choice for this article. A bottle of champagne in the refrig? Probably not. You are using the 2 column grid well, although the call out line that connects the heading to the folio is trapping awkward negative space in lower left.
I encourage you to move forward with Grid C (top) because image and grid are working well together.
IMPORTANT: Is your body copy pt size large enough to be easily readable? Print this out ASAP and judge this while you READ it because I believe the type could be out of order or simply missing. Remember, you can cut type - but the article must be readable and make sense.
Hi Richie, great job on all of these layouts. They all are very different and have good things about them...
The first strikes me the most because of the dark background. I like it, its bold but I'm afraid it may be too hard on the eyes for someone to actually want to read the whole thing... maybe changing it to a dark charcoal will give it the same bold effect but just a little less harsh on the eyes. I think your have plenty of room on the second page to space out the all the type... maybe give some more breathing room around the photo and add type on the second page a little more.
For the other two, in my opinion, I think you're working better with the two column grid, the last option.... but comparing it to your first one, it doesn't look as impressive so I agree with Coni that the first is probably the way to go.
In all of them I feel like the page number size is way too large, it looks the same size (or bigger) than the drop cap so you may went to revisit that too!
Rich - some good work here! I'll discuss the work in the order in which it appears, rather in alpha order, because I believe Grid A actually sits at the bottom and Grid C at top.
ReplyDeleteGrid C (top) - you created your own grid here, and you are combining a 2 even column and 2 uneven column grid on this spread. Quite interesting - and with some work this layout has a lot of potential because of it's striking image and black background.
I would think this image would be VERY scary to a homeowner, because these hands do not belong to someone who owns a home... but show us an example of a homeless person begging for food. Anyone who might be worried about loosing their home would consider this their nightmare scenario! So, you have found a very memorable image for your target audience.
Among a number of very successful things here I notice that you have a page balance problem. Too much type on first page, and too little on second. Do you see the "hole" to the right of the hands, across the gutter on the right hand page? It looks like, to me, that you are attempting to keep all your paragraphs together. You don't need to - instead push some lines of type forward away from the hands and onto the next page.
Your last, thin column to the right, should not hold body copy, but instead should hold a pull quote, or some other type of page element (caption?) In fact, you could consider placing a quote at the top of this column AND a caption at the bottom.
Grid B (middle) - Some disjointed sections appear here, and there are 2 large but trapped areas of negative space that pull the design apart. The image of the boy is a good one, but the layout doesn't quite hold together in an aesthetic way. Again... it appears that some body copy is out of order.
Grid A (bottom) - Color palette here is strikingly successful, but it is based on an image that might not be your strongest choice for this article. A bottle of champagne in the refrig? Probably not. You are using the 2 column grid well, although the call out line that connects the heading to the folio is trapping awkward negative space in lower left.
I encourage you to move forward with Grid C (top) because image and grid are working well together.
IMPORTANT: Is your body copy pt size large enough to be easily readable? Print this out ASAP and judge this while you READ it because I believe the type could be out of order or simply missing. Remember, you can cut type - but the article must be readable and make sense.
Hi Richie, great job on all of these layouts. They all are very different and have good things about them...
ReplyDeleteThe first strikes me the most because of the dark background. I like it, its bold but I'm afraid it may be too hard on the eyes for someone to actually want to read the whole thing... maybe changing it to a dark charcoal will give it the same bold effect but just a little less harsh on the eyes. I think your have plenty of room on the second page to space out the all the type... maybe give some more breathing room around the photo and add type on the second page a little more.
For the other two, in my opinion, I think you're working better with the two column grid, the last option.... but comparing it to your first one, it doesn't look as impressive so I agree with Coni that the first is probably the way to go.
In all of them I feel like the page number size is way too large, it looks the same size (or bigger) than the drop cap so you may went to revisit that too!