Magazine - Refinement

In terms of the front cover, this was the driving point for the structure of the inside so it was important to really consider what I was trying to say with the layout. The idea of the front cover being based around hierarchy rather than the ideas of gender associations. The developments show the process of figuring out the best layout for the front cover. 

The artwork for the magazine was built up by using a small feature of each of the projects inside which meant that it was inclusive of all of the designers rather than the more traditional option of using only one piece on the front cover. The colour used is a pale blue/purple which is fairly gender neutral as it takes the masculine blue but presents it in a feminine way by making it pastel. 

Layout
In response to the previous crit, I started to develop the front cover of the magazine in terms of hierarchy. In figure 1, the text and image area are equal in size and the title is very small in comparison. The image has been placed slightly above the text in order to represent the designs inside communicating in just as a powerful way as the writing to help to explain it further. In figure 2 the title was placed a the bottom as a way of moving the content related things to the top of the hierarchy, but this looked off balance so was not part of the next stages of development. Figures 3 both show the exploration of the title placement and sizing. The names of the projects have been reduced in size so that the visual element is the main focus and in regards to the title, the smaller one seems to be more appropriate for this magazine. The exploration of hiding the title as shown in figure 4 was an attempt to show that the content was the main focus, placing the title in a way that enough of the letters were showing so that the reader could easily see what it says but it wasn't the main focus. Figure 5 shows a development that seems to aesthetically work, harmoniously flow together and also in terms of hierarchy it works well. 

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Design

Once the layout had been pretty much finalised, it was important to see if the artwork would fit with the layout. The idea was that for each edition of the magazine, a similar piece of artwork wold be used as it is based on the idea of taking small elements of each design within the magazine. The layering onto texture of the Charlie Bird photo worked really well to build up a lot of different textures in comparison to the more colourful versions in the initial design stages. Figure 1 shows the title and the caption underneath about the magazine. The typeface used is Univia Pro Black and the caption is written in the light weight. Figures 2 show how the artwork has been added to the initial layout design and it works well. The overall composition flows better with the image not going all the way to the edge and with a white border being left in. The text was then centralised and the image was moved to the left hand side, as shown in figure 3. In response to feedback, this was the best layout for the front cover. Figure 4 shows the ways in which different colours could be used on the front cover and this worked well as a way to test the legibility of when the colour palette is so limited. I like the dark blue or black as the colours of choice for the magazine as they stand out the most against the pale blue - this can be decided upon once more of the magazine design has been established. As a way of keeping the focus on the designs and not the designers, the titling throughout the magazine will be the name of the project and as a way of revealing the artists, the back cover seemed like an appropriate place. The names of the artists are in the same design style as the front cover (figure 5), the same typeface and size so that the artist can easily be matched to the piece of design work. Figure 6 shows the content page of the magazine, the consistency remains and the image has been replaced with a block colour that is still very neutral and responsive to the blue that has been chosen throughout the rest of the design. The page numbers have been added on the left page, but this may need revising when a test print is made because it might look off because the front cover will be a thicker stock than the inside pages. 

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TESTING

One test that I did during the refinement stage of the magazine design was the removal of the white back and replacement of a pale pink (fig.7). The idea was to use a masculine and a feminine colour but in a toned down neutral manner. Upon feedback and on my own judgement, this did not work well with the intended style of the editorial piece. 

fig. 7