Brief
This brief is designed to give you a chance to explore editorial design and art direction through the production of your own magazine.
A magazine is a periodical publication that contains articles, photographs and illustrations, often based on a particular subject or aimed at a particular readership. Magazines are generally a commercial enterprise with a specific target audience in mind. Circulation of magazines can vary from a small local market in a specific city or to a much wider global audience.
Over recent decades, the gradual shift from print to digital content has created difficult circumstances for traditional print industries. The Internet has changed the landscape irreversibly... however, the magazine lives on both in the form of the big name publications and also the glut of bespoke titles that are launched each year.
We want you to think of a theme for you own magazine and produce it, taking responsibility for design and content, and to share this with your audience by whatever means necessary. We will be looking for your design skills as evidenced by your choice of typefaces, use of grids and selection of supporting imagery. The success of your outcome will be judged not only against a Graphic Design criteria but also by how well you communicate and connect with your audience.
Final Presentation
Final Online Magazine
Video on whole process of project
- Youtube video
Process Of Project
1st. Three idea treatments & research
The first stage was to come up with 3 ideas that I could propose. I wanted all of my ideas to be very different from each other. I also didn't want to do something very predictable which would be a magazine about small business and how to run them. I wanted to have 3 ideas that I learnt something new and that challenged me creatively.
2nd // Planning and overview
I wanted to get clear in my head what the magazine was about, what ideas it was trying to communicate, who it was communicating too, the creative direction and how it was trying to make the person interact with it. I also knew that planning way key as I only have 5 weeks to carry out all the tasks.
3rd // Research into relevant areas
I proposed the 3 ideas, they got good feedback, Most people decided to go with the Medicine for the soul, they thought this as it is very relevant, people can relate to it. It's a type of information, which is slow media, so people want to keep a copy and come back to it here and there. Also, it's the type of information that could have an impact or people can interactive with on a very person level. It hopefully could add a small value to someone lives, like songs do cause they connect to them on that intermit level.The next step was to do more research from looking online, going to magazine aches, reading a wide range of relevant books, pulling out books from my print collection and do a document that really got a clear idea on all ideas of the magazine.
This will give the magazine a heart a clear information to communicate.
General Research / books / images / articles
A couple of sources I used were:
- Vogue Magazine
- Turning Pages book
- The Art Directors handbook of professional Magazine Design Book
- Editorial Design Book
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| Libary full of magazines |
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| Here are some of the books and magazine that I looked at for research |
Magazine Culture talk
On Tuesday 17th of January 2017, the founder on Magculture came into to UAL to give a talk on a overview of what he does, how it got there and more information about his shop. It was very interesting with lots of useful information. I really liked how the talk was mainly set before technology was about and then how the whole industry adapted to digital versions. It really got me thinking about fast food media and slow food media.
Magazine shop visit
After this talk, I then headed over to the Mag Culture shop, located in at 270 St John St, London EC1V 4PE. This was where I did a lot of primary research looking at content, layout out, magazine forms ect... Here are some photos of the shop and some magazine that I found visual interning, content interesting and then just beautiful made
Vogue Research
Vogue is one of the biggest magazines in the fashion world, they had some great resources from video, photo and article about the design world.
The September issue 2009 // This was very interesting to watch and it showed the process on how they put together, edit the September issue of Vogue.
Anna Wintour's 10 rules for success ( Evan Carmichael ) // Thought this list was a good
1. Be Decisive
2. Don't Highly Specialised
3. Accept Failure
4. Avoid Mediocrity
5. Be true to yourself
6. Always do your best
7. Experience new things
8. Have a sense of business
9 . Enjoy what you do
How to Become a Creative Director with Alexa Chung | Future of Fashion | British Vogue // a
Tiffany & Co - some Style is Legendary // a
History of Type Lecture // Here is a video that sums up what it was about.
Zine in a day
We had a day workshop where we had to design and make a zine in a day. I made my one the Tiny House Movement. It was an interesting day where I learnt a lot of skills, like coming up with ideas quick. It was nice to have a very loose style for this day. It was also fascinating doing the whole process of editorial project in a day, to really understand what the full project entailed.
4th // Initial Planing of overview of magazine / layout / Content
5th // Creating Content
None of the content from my magazine has been taken from the internet. Everything I have written, shot and drawn myself. I think this is really important as the magazine is the heart of the person that creates it, so how am I meant to communicate how I feel about the topic if I don't create the content or tell other people what I am meant to be communicating. However I did want to collaborate with other professions so I got Rhea to write 2 article, to learn the skills of communication.Photography
Though out the whole magazine I really didn't want the photos or content to be cheesy. I had 3 main shoots for the content of the magazine:
1st Studio - 27th January // Josh & Ellie
The first shoot was photoshoot was in the photography studio with Alex, it was to capture the human art form, human emotion and human connection cover in white flowers.
2nd Bath - 21th January // Sisi
Was to capture some interesting photos of the water, flowers and abstract parts of the body, that could link to vulnerability, hurt, pain, emotion ect....
3th Natural 28th January & 20th // Josh and Ellie
Just to capture moments, where people look reflective, in the moment, in pain ect..
Writing Poems, thoughts & Articles
Poems & thoughts
I sat down and just wrote everything that crossed my mind when I thought of the situation that my magazine is based on. These came up from me reflecting on my personal live thinking about the past, the present, the future, old conversation, old emotions, places, objects and locations. I think it was also good for me to get everything out, it made me sad but it made my head feel a lot clearer, which is the point of this magazine.
Some Examples of my written content:
The Dreamer & the breaker
I think now he’s gone, It feels like my imagination has shattered and it’s raining down on my life.
I feel as though writing is me running around
trying to catch fragment of memories and feelings
and piecing them all together to figure out the mess
we both made.
My mistake was that I was a
naive girl who was looking for love and care.
I was a dreamer, a perfectionist and an overthinker.
Every moment that was spent together,
in my memories
were always edited like it was a film.
I know that by accident I was living in my head and
he couldn’t keep up with it or maybe I just made the
moments magically in my head and
he never shared them.
His mistake was the way he dealt with the situations.
The way things moved too fast, the way he would
cancel and stand me up. They way he didn’t seem
to care about how his
words and actions would cut so deep.
The way words fell out of his mouth, he didn’t mean
them but my heart and mind believed them.
------------------------------------------
The ghosts that get left around the city:
Walking around this grey dim light city,
There are just faces after faces that I pass by
movement, noise, laughter,
sunlight.
I just feel like I’m trapped in time
and everyone else is
moving on and forwards
in their lives,
I’m screaming but no one can hear.
I’m walking down a street,
and I get to a place where we have been together
The ghosts that get left around the
city haunt me everywhere.
I can see them so clearly.
Well I can see him so clearly.
I can see him standing there,
with the afternoon sunlight getting
caught in his hair.
My memory captured the moments so clearly,
my heart retained the feelings to strongly.
These ghosts seem to haunt and follow me around, will they ever just disappear?
Articles
I wanted all my articles to be real pieces of writing that have a value. I wrote one and I commissioned Rhea to write two. I thought this was important so I can practise how to communicate my idea to someone else in a profession.
I wanted the articles to feel light hearted, funny, easy to read, easy to connect, relatable but then have serious points around it.
1st. I learnt a lot about friendship and a little about love // Written by Lili
2nd. How boys just screw us over // Written by Rhea
6th // Placing all grids, layout, typography, image and refining it.
I used InDesign to create my magazine, I set up grids, bleed and crop marks on my document. I drew up the ideas from my wire frame I planned in the planning stage. Then I dropped the my content into the document. From there I would
7th // Printing
I decided that I was going to print at ABC Printing over in Farrington, they had a lovely selection of papers and they had a range of bindings. I got some test on different papers. What I learnt from this is to print the same image on different pages. |
| Here are samples of differnet type of papers. |
8th // Lifestyle for Magazine
I wanted to make the brand feel more real so I wanted to put the magazine into potential context. Also I wanted to produce some high-quality flat lay images.Photoshoot flat lay of magazine:
I booked a session into the photography studio to get flat lays of my magazine. However I didn't think that the photos looked professional enough for a portfolio, so I had to use a mockup to display what my magazine looks like. As the photos came out different colours, shiny of the paper ect...
Lifestyle Photoshoot:
I went to a coffee shops, to try and make the magazine look like it was real and that reader could read it in these type of environments. Also these images could be used across social platforms.
UI & UX Design for Magazine App:
I used Sketch to prototype an Ipad app, where users can access the magazine as a digital form, as I think that print is great but there is a massive trend with it dying out slighly. Users want information cheap and fast.
Social Media:
I also used sketch to mock up the UI of social platforms, to show how the content of the magazine could work across all platform to communicate to the readers.
Evaluation
I felt like it was a short amount of time for such a big project, but I really enjoyed this project. I loved learning the process and i loved learning the history and content of what magazines are.
My strengths were:
1st. I think my organisation skills really came into play here. I knew how big this project was when we got given it, I wanted to allow myself to have enough time for each of the sections, so I could feel like I have enough time to everything I wanted without feeling like I was compromising time and quality of the task I was carrying out. I defiantly think this had a massive impact on my whole project as I never felt stressed that I did t have enough time to carry out task to get tot the final one, this meant I had as much time as I wanted to do excusal the what I needed to do.
2nd. That all the content is my own, I thought was an important thing as it meant that my magazine had a heart and a soul. This allowed me to think creativity over different disciplines.
Things I improved during this project:
1st. Photography skills have massive improves, I've been learning to shoot on a 50mm lens and
lighting. I did a lot of research online and asked photography tutors for help.
lighting. I did a lot of research online and asked photography tutors for help.
2nd. I never really focused and learnt about layout before, so this was really interesting in discovering the rules and theory. It was also interesting how there rules were carried out indesign.
Weakness:
My biggest weakness was that two of the articles I got a writer to write an article for the magazine, she wrote two of them. I wanted to work with someone to learn working and giving out projects and learning how to communicate what I wanted. The work that I got given was not exactly what I wanted, I thought that the tone of voice was very different from the whole magazine, it didn't really have a soul to the words. I think if I was too do this project again, I would have written the article.
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