Just finished the full layout of my magazine. Had to shorten it the 4 pages, but I'm pleased with the results. I'm very much looking forward to the feedback so that I can make the changes necessary to make this magazine great. Some of the photos (like the cover image and the spread for the feature) need editing. The cover is now giving me issues so suggestions for solutions would be great. I still need to add the issue date, running footers and the folios.
Ruby - it's great to see this come together, some thoughts:
ReplyDeleteCover: I wonder if the theme title and subheading might sit better on the cover if it were lower, below the small out-of-focus plant in the image? The readability would be improved for sure. Yes - you need to add a date to the masthead.
Content: A quick look at this shows me that I could easily get confused with what article is on what page for the Departments. You introduced the page # above the listing in the Features section, and I think you need to continue that approach in the Department section as well. The infograph should be listed as its name, no need to say "infograph". It could simply sit as a second item under the page #.
Spread 4/5 - The headings for these separate pages are next to each other, near the gutter. Visually confusing... we might tend to read them together. I suggest you pull "Live Green" to left and sit above the body copy that sits in the circular green shape. That nice logo would need to be recolored, but could easily work well in white.
I wonder if "Prince's Speech" should really be "The Prince's Speech" and run on 1 line only. The staggered body copy columns need to sit at a consistent amount of space below the angled line... and feel free to combine paragraphs to avoid short lines at the top of the columns (even just 1 1/2 lines of type tends to read as an orphan in this design).
6/7 - The Department head should be all white to be more readable and consistent with other Department heads. I wonder if the background color on page 7 should be slightly different than on page 6, so we don't think this is all one big article? The colors I see in the photo's sky on page 7 would be a nice addition to the spread in my opinion. Do you need to make a contrast in type color for the caption? White or black might do - remember, "less is more" with details like this for your complicated layout.
8/9 - done, nice
10/11 - red ribbon contains large amount of neg space in its middle. Why not move up the bottom block of type a bit, give us a more interesting path with the dotted line up to it (it will jog like we've seen you do before), and you can shorten the ribbon.. no need to cover up the nice photo as much. "Infograph" should not be hyphenated.
12 - Include the website up with the body copy. Remember, this is a national magazine - so this ad should probably be asking the reader to visit a website for more information about the local MindBody Yoga Studios where they will find contact information and hours for each location. This can't be about 1 studio in 1 city.
Nice work - almost there!
Ruby i really like the look of your magazine i do agree with coni the is to much of negative space on the ribbon, but i do like how the doti line are straight, if you going to pull it up a bit try cutting some text from the paragraph on top.
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