Digital Magazine Feature
Overview
This final project focuses on employing design principles including composition, typography, color, and hierarchy to create two spreads and a cover for a feature article intended to appear in a magazine publication. The mood and layout of the article should be informed by the content of the text. A clear, consistent grid system should be followed. I plan to gather a series of photographs and images to support the magazine content. The layout must include the following styles of content: headline, subhead, by-line, body text, pull quotes, folio. My end goal is to create a successful magazine spread that visually supports the content through its layout design.
Grid Exercise: Layout (4/21)
To gain a better understanding of grid systems and how they are applied in magazine layouts, I completed an exercise to uncover the underlying grids for sample magazine spreads. I blocked out various components before tracing out the grid lines they were aligned within.
For these two spreads, the overall size of the grid structure remained the same. In addition, the folio at the bottom was consistent in the corner. However, it was interesting to see the increase in number of columns used on the right page adding variation to the layout.
In these two spreads, there was also a change in the number of columns. However, the grid layout remained consistent for the pages on the same spread. I also noted the slight variation in placement of the smaller elements on the page edges.
Article Content
For my article content, I chose to design the Home Gardening article because I’ve lately been into planting and cooking, especially over quarantine. My first step was to review the given body text and select fitting reference images.
A Newbie-Friendly Guide to Starting a
Vegetable Garden
For when you’re interested in growing your own food, but are feeling
overwhelmed.
Initial Sketches (4/26)
I started by first sketching some initial ideas for how I wanted my layouts to look. I created 3 different variations for the magazine spread, each one using a different grid system to organize components. In my grids, I tried to play around with elements like column number and placement of images.
Digital Iteration 1 (4/28)
After taking into consideration design layouts in sketches, I then moved onto digital iterations. I created two digital iterations of a single sketch. I created different grids for my compositions, focusing on the layout of my typographic elements before worrying about the finer details.
For my first design, I considered a two column spread. I tried to play around with different ways of organizing the text with the images.
For my second design variation, I tried a three column grid for my spreads. I noticed having more columns allowed for a lot of flexibility in my design space. This design gave a lot more room for white space and composition.
Some of the feedback and advice I received on my initial layouts included:
- Sticking with the 3 column layout since it leaves opportunity for unexpected design
- Adding a blank space for the first column for introduction
- Keeping consistent alignment of images at the top of the first spread
- Playing around with hierarchy of components
- On the third page, having an image for each block of text
- Moving all the text in the second spread to the left page and having the last page be a full image
Digital Iteration 2 (5/3)
Iterating on my previous designs, I implemented a lot of the feedback and created two more variation based off of my three column layout. I chose images that helped represent the content, keeping in mind the placement and proportion of the images within the spread. It was especially important for the images to create a cohesive look across the magazine.
For my first layout, I tried to be more adventurous with the placement of images. I liked the idea of having a green onion on the side to pair with the pull quote. For the third page, I placed an image in each column to better communicate each block of text below.
For my second layout variation, I considered a more simplified design. For the cover page, I had an image fill the whole page. In addition, I made the top images on the first spread align with each other and expand to stretch the page. For the last page, I added another pull quote to help conclude the article.
For this set of digital iterations, some of the helpful feedback I received during critique included:
- Fixing the alignment of columns on the second page due to the the starting letter J offset
- Making the pull quotes grey to differentiate them
- Decreasing the font size of the page numbers
- Evening out the margin for the text circle wrap on the fourth page of the second layout
Final Group Critique (5/5)
I incorporated this feedback into my new digital layout to present for our group critique. For this version, I combined different elements I liked from the previous two layout variations such as the cover and first spread from the first layout and the last spread from the second layout.
Group critique gave me great insight into new ways I could improve my design. It was helpful to hear my peers perspectives on my work, and some of the advice I got included:
- Improving the readability of my text columns by increasing the gutter size between columns
- Improving readability for the circular text wrap on the fourth page
- Moving the top and bottom pull quotes towards the margins to better align with the page elements
- Italicizing the quotes to help them stand out
- Making the first spread images more prominent by increasing their height
Final Layout (5/9)
For my final magazine layout, I incorporated the feedback from critique and rearranged some of the components to improve readability. For the fourth page, I decided to move the bowl outside of the text to solve the issue of text wrapping. To balance out the composition, I added a soil pot image in the corner as well. In the end, this was my final design:
Reflection
In summary, this project was a great opportunity for me to understand some of the ins and outs of magazine layout. Even though I worked with inDesign for prior projects, I discovered there were many more features that I had never even used. I didn’t realize how complex magazine layout could be. There’s so many components to consider, and I learned to work with different elements like columns, gutters, and folios.
Learning about the grid system was especially useful. It was helpful to have an underlying structure behind my spreads to improve consistency and organization. Although it seemed restrictive at first, having the columns as a guide helped push me to more creative within the given grid space. I also realized the importance of familiarizing myself with the content before designing around it. Details within the content helped inform my design decisions such as for the pull quotes and images.
It was really cool to see how the same content could be interpreted in so many different ways by my classmates. The layouts all looked unique even though it was identical content represented. Seeing my peers’ work gave me insight into how my own layouts could be improved as well. In the future, I could try to incorporate more variation in my designs to create more dynamic visuals.
Overall I had a lot of fun with this project, and I enjoyed getting to explore all the creative ways to represent this article through a magazine layout.
