Art 254 - Magazine Editorial Redesign - Final

Popular Photography Magazine Design - continued

Here is the initial layout for the table of contents. I tried keeping the red block with white text consistent with the front cover. I changed the "of" to a script type thinking it was looking too static set in the same type.



I got comments that the front cover's color combination was giving a Christmas feel with the red boxes and green from the image. So I started playing with some different colors, I wanted to make sure that I used some very bold and bright colors that would pop off each other... I also removed the Nikon camera from the cover as it was being a bit distracting. After the camera was removed, I moved the text boxes in the bottom corner down a little to give more space to the image.

First I tried using some bright pinks and yellows. I think this was a little too bright and it didn't compliment the image very well. Plus the color combination isn't one you'd normally find on a photography magazine...


The image has some browns and tan colors so I thought I'd try an orange color. I was happy with how this orange was working with my image and the white text was still able to pop off the orange pretty well.



Here's the intro spread to the article for my editorial redesign. I chose an article about picking full-frame vs cropped smaller cropped sensor cameras.

I wanted the word "full frame" do what it says and take up the whole spread. I am trying to stay consistent with the orange being the main accent color.

I after looking at it again, I felt the orange header box may look a bit too dominant and distracting.


Here's the last spread of the article. I tried giving some fun negative spacing in the layout. The se images are also ones I took. The seagul on the left with the boxes indicates the field of view from the different sensors for the mainstream digital SLR cameras. I wanted to leave one column empty for negative space of the first page but with it being such a large open space with the other side being so tight I felt it was giving a bad tension.




FINAL VERSIONS
Front cover:




Table of contents

Updated colors to match front cover and updated the page numbering.


Article Spread 1

I decided to remove the big orange box and just have the header text in black. I think it was competing too much and being distracting.


Article Spread 2

I decided to center the two columns of the first page to give it more balance, there was just too much tension with both columns on the right of the page.

Art 254 - Magazine Editorial Redesign

For my last project, I'm doing an editorial redesign for Popular Photography. I am using info from the April 2009 issue.

The magazine is pretty much design towards photography enthusiasts. They normally have shooting tips, post production tips, photo contests, and new gear review and recommendation articles.

The magazine has a very clean cut and well structured feel. They use lots of grids and most pages are setup in a 3-4 column format. They have a good mixture of information and also very attractive images. However I found it odd that none of these very powerful images were used on any of the covers for the 3 issues I had, as the front covers only featured images of cameras.

One thing I want to do is add a very powerful image on the front that would quickly grab readers attention. I also wanted to give the design more breathing room in terms of negative space. One thing about the magazine is that they have a lot of information they are plugging into the pages, in nearly all the pages, every square inch is occupied and there is rarely much negative space.

I hope to achieve a unique way of structuring text and body copy that will be as visually engageming as the images that surround them, as compared to the traditional top to bottom left to right equal sized columns.

Below are the three issues of Pop Photography I had to review:
April


May


June



April table of cotents


Here are some of thumbnails of various layout ideas I had


After taking some of my concepts to digital, here is my initial version of the front cover...

Art 254 - A Tropical Luau 21st Birthday Dinner Invitation Final

So after trying to fit all my text into a box and not achieving the results I had intended I needed to scratch the concept and look towards a different solution.

I tried to keep a few of the elements of the previous design that I felt was working. I still kept a rather close to being in a box but some of the text was laid a lot more loosely and didn't feel so congested in a compact space. Here is what I came up with first...

I still wasn't entirely too crazy with this concept. I felt it was rather static to me and didn't have much appeal.

So I started playing with changing some of the colors in the background. And eventually I started looking at interesting textures to use. I also thought it would be fun throwing all of the copy into a 45 degree angle. Here's a dirty stained wall look.



Here I tried a fun color rich texture



A more cool feel



Finally I found a texture I really enjoyed. It's a simple bokeh picture, or out of focus. I really like the random smooth shapes. It brings a nice energy to the design.


I was really drawn to this concept and really wanted to explore using the bokeh concept, but there was still something missing to tie everything together. I still really didn't have a primary concept other than it being a 21st birthday party. So what does that mean? I needed to do more research. I looked at endless party theme ideas however most of them were too cliché.

I finally got to a theme that I was excited for, a Tropical Luau. I went to Hawaii a few years ago and went to a luau and it was a blast, and I'm heading back to Hawaii this summer, so thought it'd be good since I can also relate to it.

I kept the bokeh texture from the previous version I had however color adjusted the image so it would be green to go with the new tropical luau theme I was going for.

I changed the tilt to a 15 degree angle instead of the previous 45 degrees I had it set and updated some of the type. I changed the "you are cordially" to a script as suggested and aligned it with the type above it. I also increased the weight of the word bash. I also added some lei's on top of the shot glasses. I like they look on top of the glasses but was afraid it was making that area too busy or was taking away from the glasses...

The front starting to feel good, but there was still a few issues I had to work out. Getting things aligned. And some staying consistent with the colors.


Then I worked on the inside spread of the luau themed invitation for the guest lists and menu. I choose celebrities with Hawaiian roots for my guests and traditional luau foods for the menu. I added an illustration of the luau girl in the center. I had some images of luau performers working with fire on the bottom and got another bokeh image in green.


So I finally had to part with my beloved shot glasses I had as the I's. Don't worry, I will find a way to use them in some other project! The luau girl I had in the center page was very well received and it was suggested that she gets a companion male counterpart. The new luau couple now stand in as the I's for the word invitation. I think it still reads well with them there.


The massive white boxes I had laid the body copy on was a bit distracting and taking away from the nice textures I had. So I tried setting the type in a more grid like structure and also decreased the angle of the text from 15 to 5 degrees to help increase readability. I change the body copy to white with red accents for headers. I also added a short party theme description box on the right page of the spread. The tropical luau couple got blown up and I placed them aside to the edges purposely bleeding off a bit since I didn't want to take too much space away from my body copy or I'd have to reduce the font too much.


I worked on the backside for the directions page. I got an image of PSU off Google and used the same bokeh image on the front page and faded it into the map. I also added a tiki torch to identify the location.



I removed the date/time info that was on the bottom of this page to the center page, since I felt it was a bit distracting on the front. I increased the darkness of the certain parts of the green bokeh so the white letter forms would pop more since I thought some of it was getting lost.


Not too much changed with the center page. I did find that when I showed the guest and menu page to people, they were sort of confused at first what they were looking at. The little tiny "guests" and "menu" tags I had on the luau characters were hardly noticeable so I moved them to the page of the page and really enlarged it and angled them to match the body copy.


The previous version of the map I had was extremely pixelated when I printed it out. I decided to actually illustrate the whole map out myself. This way I was able to completely control the elements and keep the the colors consistent. I also titled the page like I did on the center page with the large condense header at the angle and slightly bleeding off the top.


(sorry for the super long post!)

Portfolio Review Completed...

So the big and scary portfolio review has come and gone. Now it is the waiting game to find out the results in a week. I logged 70+ hours of week in a a little over a 5 day span.

I feel pretty good about how it came out, there are just a few minor things that I wish I had spent more time to refine. It was the most stressed out I've been in a long time. It was truly a great learning experience to go through that. I feel like I learned a lot more about myself and how to push myself. I found myself spending many hours trying to work on a concept however just to end up trashing the idea, sort of hard to swallow but its part of the process.

I wanted to take pictures of the final pieces but it really came down to the wire for me so there was no time to set any of that up. I'll try to update some pictures once I do get the portfolio back. I also have some other projects to update.

So after I finally had some time to sit down and gather myself today, I thought it'd be fun to make a drawing that would portray the whole experience... So here it is.

Art 254 - 21st Birthday Dinner Invitations

So at first I was trying to design around having shot glasses with the invitation type contained within the shadow of the glasses... Originally I was going to have different type of alcohol drink glasses but had trouble finding separate images that would match.

I pushed some very vibrant colors with this concept... The vibrant colors didn't get very good reviews as they portrayed more of a beach party theme instead of the 21st birthday party I was trying to achieve. Below are two samples I had of the shot glass & shadow concept.


I still wanted to try making a concept where I would fit text into a square box. I first tried hand rendering the text. I like how the bottom half looks but the top part looks a bit static to me...

Then I completely changed my dinner invitations... I decided to go away from the colored shot glasses and take images of my own.

I still wanted to go with the text fitted into a box concept, however my hand rendered type wasn't as effective as I had envisioned, so I tried it out on the computer and took out the letter I's in invited to be replaced by images of shot glasses...

I am pretty happy with how this part came out so far... I am not sure though if I want to keep the tight leading or should I give the lines some to breathe?

Next I added some color to help with hierarchy since I had some of the lines laying right on top of each other. I also photoshopped the shot glasses and removed the las vegas logo.


I tried moving some of the type around and playing with different locations to place some of the text. I added some details in the bottom and thought it'd be good to include info regarding what the party was for.


In the previous version I had "twentyfirst" laid in white sideways over the 1 in the 21... After I printed it out I thought it'd be a little distracting so I removed it... I think it may work a little better.

Art 254 - Dinner Invitatation Sketches and Mood Board

Here are some of the initial ideas I have for the dinner invitations I'm designing. I think so far I like the broken glass concept the most. I also like the Panels/Tech concept but am not sure if it would fit very well being for a 21st birthday party invitation.

Below is a mood board of some designs and concepts I was drawn to when doing some research...