The following project has been completed as an assessment piece for the Typographic Design unit (DXB302). This assessment required that I work in a team of four to conceptualise and design a 48 page print magazine. Over the course of six weeks, my group members (Rebeka Zordan, Clinton Porta and Josh Clark) and I have worked to create what we have named Fill & Stroke - an art magazine that aims to inspire, guide and inform up-and-coming young artists. Below is the documentation of our progress.
W E E K 1
We began this week by creating a group Pinterest board to collate a range of visual styles that we found inspiring and appealing. In doing this, it became clear that we all appreciate a minimal, contemporary and elegant aesthetic. With this in mind, we started thinking about what genre of magazine we would create, eventually agreeing on an art magazine. Specifically, this would be a magazine meant for young artists who are looking for inspiration as well as guidance on how to market themselves, make connections and sell their art. We titled the magazine Fill & Stroke.
image credit: Violaine & Jeremy // Snask
W E E K 2
Now having a solid concept for Fill & Stroke, we were able to make a flat plan that maps out every page in the magazine and delegate these sections amongst ourselves. I was given an 8 page feature article, the events spread, and 1 'personal story' page to design.
After researching the advantages of different grids and layouts, it was decided that we would use a 12 column/12 row modular grid to structure the magazine, allowing for great flexibility and experimentation.
Above is a sample spread I threw together to test out different typeface combinations and paragraph styles. I made this to show this to the group when we meet up next week, and hear their thoughts and suggestions. This also shows one of the ways the modular grid can be used.
W E E K 3
When the group met up this week, we worked together on creating the master InDesign file that includes the paragraph styles and colour swatches. We decided on the three typefaces shown below: Futura for the titles, body text and subheadings; Roboto Mono for image captions and emphasised paragraphs, and Caslon for the by-lines and block quotations.
Now that we had an established colour scheme and paragraph styles, we could all start working on the designs. I started by doing some thumbnail sketches of various layouts.
W E E K 4
We had a milestone presentation during the tutorial this week, so all of the team made an effort to have as much of our spreads done as possible so we could get some feedback.
Below is the events spread that I designed; to the left is an early draft, to the right is the final version after feedback that the amount of type styles on this page was overwhelming. The Caslon date above the title was changed to lowercase and the event titles was changed to Futura.
I spent quite a bit of time this week working on the following spread. I could see it was not working and the feedback I received confirmed this. Ultimately, I decided to make all of the images have the same dimensions to simplify the page, making the spread appear more consistent with the rest of the magazine.
W E E K 5
This week we came together as a group to put together the work we've done so far. This allowed us to determine page order, space the colour blocks evenly and consistently, and establish what remaining work has to be done.
I also made the final changes to my feature article on Ben Quilty this week. Adding drop caps was an impromptu decision on my part so I was going to have to discuss with the rest of the group whether they like them and if they could be used in other parts of the magazine. I personally like the drop caps because they draw the reader in, act as a visual reprieve from the monotony of large blocks of text, and signify different sections of the articles.
I've also worked on designing the front inside cover and the editorial page. I'm taking this opportunity to do something a bit more offbeat than the consistently structured articles within the middle pages. I think that this is justifiable because of Fill & Stroke's genre -- a contemporary art magazine for young people -- so I have rotated the text on the left, used a block of colour halved lengthways, and added a rectangle element. It's a little less predictable than the rest of the magazine, and I'm happy with the result.
W E E K 6
The magazine being due to the printer on the Friday of this week meant everything had to be finalised, consolidated and refined.
Cover experimentation:
The previous week, we had brought together the four 'personal story' pages we had individually completed and immediately saw how wrong and inconsistent they looked when placed together. The four on the left are these early versions, and the four on the right are the final pages after some significant changes have been made. My group members liked how I had placed a white border around the image on my page (the "Ashes to Art" story), so that was carried through to the others, and the title font sizes were made consistent. Also, a couple of the images had to be changed due to them being of low resolution.
This is one example of how the consolidation of our individually completed pages necessitated many alterations for Fill & Stroke to appear as a consistent magazine. I volunteered to be the final editor of the group InDesign file so I could nitpick at small details, check for image quality, align everything to the grid, and remove any other inconsistencies. As a group, we agreed it would work to have just one person making these final decisions, and were happy to have any changes made that would lead to a visually consistent final product.
W E E K 7
The magazine was printed on 119 gsm off-white paper and saddle-stitched. These are the photos of some of the spreads I was individually responsible for designing:
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