Making a Layout Design - Task 3

For task 3 of my assignment, I have to make a magazine article and a spread to put into my magazine. The content of my article has to be relevant to the publication of my magazine and consistent with the overall theme of the magazine. This is an opportunity for me to solidify the "brand" I'm trying to create and experiment with photography, type design, and layout design. To start this section of the assignment I decided to look at a couple of layout designs and analyze what I like and dislike to gain inspiration and direction of what I would like to produce. 

The research portion was really helpful in identifying what I like and dislike in a layout. I chose designs that were similar to the style of my front cover but also caught my attention and inspired me. I think I picked a good range to analyze and I have gained a good insight into aspects I should incorporate into mine such as different fonts and colors and image styles. I decided, similar to my front cover design, experiment with some sketches to see what really stands out to me. I need to think about the positioning of photos and titles to create a cool look but also the amount of space I have to incorporate my text.

So these are some of the designs that I created. I enjoyed looking at the page and composing a series of different outcomes that could all be presented in a number of different ways through the use of color and images. I have my favorites, I particularly like when the pictures are arranged in a decorative or interesting way, and experimenting with the amount of negative space I allow was fun and interesting. These are just sketches though I find that when I am in InDesign I am more inspired and enjoy playing around and making minor changes to see the effect and difference. I am thinking about basing my design off one of these but I predict it will loosely be based. 

So I began the process of designing in InDesign and something that I noticed is that I have quite a large amount of text to fit so a number of pages might be necessary. I don't want to squeeze it all onto one page as this to me seems distracting and makes everything hard to read. Although this is a personal preference I think it is something a lot of people can agree on. I wanted a lot of images to be on the pages so I collected a range of similar ones for this first design and arranged them in an interesting and engaging way.

In two columns I added my text and I think this looks quite effective. I highlighted them with a white box so that it is easy to read as the pattern of the background is quite strong. The background was the last thing I added as I felt like with the style of my magazine a plain base wasn't bold enough and didn't reflect the brand I am creating. I was unsure of what to do for the title. I wanted it to reflect the front cover so that it has accents of it around however I think it isn't bold enough. Although its the same font it isn't impactful enough. The title is supposed to grab your attention and then make you want to read that article, and here, it doesn't do that to me. Also, my article is about adding color to your wardrobe and the only color seen is red on the shirt. I was very limited on images due to being in quarantine and having a lack of models and materials however adding more color to the background is a possible way to overcome this. Although I could see a lot of problems in the first design I think it was interesting to see the process of what I wanted and could create.

As I have been doing throughout the project I wanted to see what my "audience"/ followers prefer to see and which would be more popular. For the layout designs after I had created each one I posted them on my Instagram story and asked people to vote where they were on the scale of liking them. The bottom left-hand corner being that they disliked it and the right being that they loved it. this gave me an indication of what catches people's attention and is more popular. there is a clear variation in the outcomes that I produced so this was a very beneficial task to do! 

As you can see this design score was just past average, this is probably where I would score it personally. I think it has some interesting features about it but it isn't super eyecatching and exciting so I would rate it roughly where my audience did. this tells me that there was probably something that didn't attract them and my guess would be the title. I think it was the let down of the design and possibly the lack of interesting features.

This here is design number two. As you can see it is much bolder and brighter than the previous design and I wanted to keep this one simple but colorful and expressive. The bold color is something I wanted to get across in this design its fun and matches the theme of the article very well. It doesn't overpower the pages and the image isn't out of place so this is the main achievement of the page. It's much simpler with only one image and fewer columns however I think this is what I like in layout designs which is why I am so attached to this piece. I wanted to reflect the title of the magazine across the page so in bold writing, we have "the bolder the better" in the background. I thought that having the text over this was a simple but effective way of displaying the article and the left half is something I am obsessed with. I wanted to add an image for the spread and I decided to keep with the simple appearance and add this artistic photo of my friend at Kew gardens. I edited the photo in lightroom to make her outfit a little more colorful and created this slanted border around her with the title of the article. This is something I think looks really effective and works nicely. I'm happy with the effect it has and to highlight what the article is about I changed a section of the writing to black rather than white. 

my only concern with this design is the order of the pages. Personally, I think the picture should come first as this has the title of the article and would make sense to be before any writing. If however, I had already introduced the article on a previous spread then this order is acceptable!

This design got a much higher score and I think this is due to the pop of color. I did expect this change as I think I personally am really drawn to this and the use of the bold text and simple singular images makes everything a lot clearer and smoother in the design. I would've rated it higher as this is one of my favorites that I created but I'm happy with the rise in popularity

This here is the third experiment that I created. For this test, I wanted to see what my pages would look like if I was to put all of my article across the spread. I am pleasantly surprised as it doesn't look too cluttered or distracting and I feel as if you could have a pleasant time reading the article. I worked with each of the paragraphs only dividing them when it was finished. This means that you can start reading from any section and it will make sense. I also put the introduction of the article in its own separate part under the title in a bolder text to allows the reader to get an easy snapshot of what the article consists of. I like this style and think that it is a very effective way to get readers. I struggled again with the title and which fonts to use. From my research, I liked the use of multiple fonts and think it makes everything visually more interesting. Here however I struggled to find a good match and I'm not sure if they work well together. On the second page though I like the small subheading that is at the bottom and top of the page. I think it looks artistic and edgy and works well as a whole. I looked at adding smaller but a larger amount of photos and I like the increase in visuals and the variation. I included both males and females to target both audiences and also incorporated an inspirational picture of the graffiti saw around London. Its a bold photo and fits the theme of color well. As you can see I experimented with the black background again to see what effect it would have on a double-page spread. I like the font being white as it feels less harsh and bolder on the page. Having a black background also allows me to add a wider variety of colored photos. This helps reach a wider audience and supports my article. I do prefer the right side to the left but it's interesting to see the effect of both. 

A judgment I can conduct from this design is that more dull and formal designs arent as popular as the colorful layouts I can design. I definitely could feel a difference in the feel of this design, its a lot more professional and exact than the other test and its interesting to see the effect this has had on the rating. I want to experiment to see if I change the left-hand page and if the formality would be taken away therefor becoming more popular.

This here is my second attempt at looking at the previous design. I wanted to look at displaying the text differently as I felt it was to cluster in the previous design. I felt as if the right side was effective and didn't need much tweaking but I wanted to create a more picture focused page and decided to experiment further with my ideas. I also wanted to look at more experimental ways to display the text around my model so using the text wrap tool in InDesign I was able to create this interesting shaped text that goes around the outline of my model. I loved how professional and artistic this looks. I felt as if this was perfect for my target audience and was a must in the final product. Something that I struggled with was that a lot of the background in the picture was white and white text against it became hard to read. but I couldn't make it black as the background is and by adding a box it looses all of its effects. I played around for a while until I thought about adding the gradient coloring effect to my text. It worked really well and looks clean and professional. Something I also thought a lot about is which fonts I use. I looked for a while at fonts online and came across the one I used in the title. I felt it worked with the artistic flair of the magazine but also looked edgy and interesting. I was much happier with this title than the previous attempt. I also thought about the little features I could add to fill in some of the empty spaces. I created the small "tape" like pieces from creating a grey shape and turning down the opacity and then looked at using fonts to create a small motif in the corner similar to the yellow design I created. I think these tied the piece together and I like how many of the things I add are inspired from one another, it interesting to see that process and the final look. The one thing that I don't like about the page is still in the images and the lack of color. It's frustrating as I can't go out and take anymore due to quarantine however I think if I was able to add that final touch it would look much better and bright.

I was testing this design against the previous one as I wanted to see if I changed the formality of it and if that would affect the rating. Asking my viewer to judge my work like this is not precise data so its hard to see if there is much of a difference. I can say that there is a slight increase in popularity however this did get fewer votes so that could impact the score slightly. I know this isn't a reliable test but I feel comfortable knowing what people like to see and what appeals to them. Their judgment is similar to my own so I feel comfortable making these decisions knowing I have the audience's views in mind. 

While creating these spread designs I have found in interesting to learn how to use a range of different tools and being self-sufficient in learning how to use them and pushing it. It was fun experimenting and then reviewing multiple times and seeing if I could push it more. My sketches were very helpful in this design process as it allowed me to quickly think about placement and the space around my images and text. I believe i have found the perfect final design with just a few small tweaks needed to make them perfect!