Hello,
For this week, the primary initiative for the Publication Design class was to explore vast, aesthetic possibilities for the cover of our final project! Before working on this exercise, I felt hesitant because for someone with a passion for branding, I wanted to build an identity for the magazine I'm designing for, but through building all of the letter forms on Illustrator! Instead, I was encouraged from the instructor to experiment with typefaces and to make small, creative adjustments on them to build the logo for the final project!
Overall, this has been my favorite exercise because well…it's the cover, meaning that aesthetics REALLY matter! With that in mind, I jotted some illustrative inspiration from such magazines, especially WIRED!
Here's a brief description for each:
1. POLYGONS - I was astonished, based on some illustrations I saw for some small, indie magazines, of this style, so I thought this would be fun to experiment with! The point of this cover is actually that the polygons resemble the future, and they build a bitten apple! If you notice, I used a different title for this magazine as I was considering changing the magazine's name to Fresco (fresh in Italian) to connect deeply to my audience! To me, it has to do with my target audience to provide a 'fresh perspective' on food and culture!
2. GREEN POWER - For this, I wanted the cover to feel like something that's home grown or home made! To give it an organic essence, I applied a logotype (Lust Script), that reminded me of a handwritten sign, and a fist covered in grass that resembles a revolution in agriculture - what the article is about! The symbol was based on political movements such as Occupy Wall Street! I did this to grab the reader's attention on such issues like the Monsanto incidents.
3. "HEALTHY' PAC-MAN - Favorite one to work with personally! It's illustrating PAC MAN who's fleeing away from a ghost, which resembles an infamous fast-food restaurant, known for its artificial ingredients and animal abuse! As you can see, the yellow monster is also going after one of the healthiest foods to eat, which is discussed in the article, broccoli! For this design, I decided to use a 'more decorative' typeface for this cover even though it will use something 'less-decorative' throughout the magazine! You'll also notice the composition is very pixellated and shiny for a nostalgic appearance (as if it's 1980)!
Matt - what a wonderful variety of approaches, and shows that you have done some great thinking about this cover. I see 2 cover designs that could go forward, and a 3rd that could/should be considered for an inside feature article rather than a cover.
ReplyDeleteHere are some thoughts:
Cover 1 - Polygons for the apple remind me, a bit, of fabric art - pieces sewn together to create a wonderful puffy, 3-D effect. The masthead has a different type of 3-D effect... and I'm not convinced they both work together. Maybe the masthead should be more straightforward and not even try to compete with the big red apple for attention?
I also wonder about the name change. "Fresco" is often associated with cooking and eating in a specific way... which works for this particular themed issue... but not next month's issue (it could be something quite different). So - why not use "Habitat Magazine" for this masthead? No reason why it wouldn't work. Your challenge will be to think about the typography of the masthead and create a typographic design that is in contrast to the apple, yet works with it. Try a straight forward type solution.
Cover 2 - This is very strong, and powerful, and all the elements seem to be working pretty well with each other. The green textured fist is quite wonderful... but should probably be sitting behind the masthead and not on top of it, or not covering quite as much of it. I might question the art nouveau aspect of the masthead that we mostly see in the "H". I wonder if you can deconstruct that "H" a bit to eliminate the overly curvy swashes and have it appear to be a more contemporary letterform. After all, the content isn't old news... it about the future. The successful aspect of this font that I think you should retain for sure is the boldness of the letters and the dot over the "i".
The taglines that here (and in cover 1) seem to be suggesting that this cover is serving also as a Table of Contents because of the page numbers. I guess this is OK, but I wonder what you'll do in the Table of Content then... what is the plan? To repeat the page #s will redundant... so think this through.
You have switched the theme to "The Next Green Revolution" from "The Future of Food" (which you have listed as an article). I have no problem with this as long as we see this change reflected inside as well in the feature article heading and other places where you want the theme title to sit.
I really like this cover design, and with some changes think it could be very memorable, and reflective of the audience (young 20-ish adults, right?) as well as the content of the articles.
Cover 3 - probably isn't on target for the cover, but could easily and cleverly be used as an approach for the feature article "How Our Eating Habits will Change." Using these icons (maybe more crisply than we see here...after all, you don't really want them to evoke the old poor screen resolutions of the 80's do you?) to accompany that article might be a very interesting approach.
Great beginnings Matt!