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DEVELOPMENT

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The LGBTQ community is all about breaking the boundaries and essentially not following society’s rules. An initial first idea for the magazine layout was to follow these same rules and replicate them within the magazine. 

 

David Carson 

 

David Carson is a graphic designer and art director, who is best known for his innovative magazine layouts and experimental typography (Butler, 2014). The following analysis of his work has been conducted, as the designer breaks the traditional rules of layouts, graphics and typography in magazines, which can be used as inspiration for the layout of X,Y,Z magazine. 

 

Every page from ‘Ray Gun’ magazine, from 1995, is a completely new design format, following no grid, style or format. 

This page from the magazine, is a clear demonstration of breaking the boundaries and rules. The text is not in-line with the pink box, the black title has font layered with another font over the top, and the same approach is applied to the imagery of the layered drawing with different creative mediums.

The text in this page varies in different fonts, sizes and styles, including various words which are crossed out mid-sentence. The text is presented in a unique form, through being placed on top of the photograph. The title is also in the centre of the page, rather than the top.

A variety of fonts, sizes and styles are used again in this page from Ray Gun magazine. The designer has also incorporated handwriting over the image, which appears to look visually effective. There is also a contrast between the two images, of one being large, bright and pink, with the other looking small, dull and dark. 

From this analysis, it is clear that David Carson does not follow any rules that would usually be applied to a normal magazine. It is apparent that a variety of fonts, styles and mediums to produce text, is one of the only aspects that have a connection in each page of the magazine. It is noted that with such variety, an imitation of this could either look really good, or really bad. This is why only a few elements of David’s style would potentially be used for X,Y,Z magazine.

Following a conversation with Izzy, who is doing the layout of the website, it was suggested that a grainy effect could be applied to the images for the website, in order to fit with the similar magazine aesthetic idea. 

 

The colour ‘dusty pink’ was also agreed to be a suitable colour for the website. After acknowledging this, I then had the ability to create a colour theme for the magazine. 

This is the x,y,z logo which Izzy sent to me for approval. It was then decided that this theme, colour and font would be present within the magazine, and across all platforms, in order for there to be a flow consistency. 

This mood board which I created, represents the initial ideas for the magazine layout.

The pictures were then sent to group members, to determine whether they would be suitable for social media. 

After creating both images with the potential tag lines, it was decided that ‘re-write the rules’ will be used as the tag line and the image created would be posted across all social media platforms. 

The following discussion with group members, was in order to create a tag line and hashtag for the campaign. As a joint team effort, it was finalised that the hashtag would be #iamXYZ and Let’s re-write the rules, as a tagline. This was in order to combine the ideas of group members together, and the idea of re-writing the rules with the name of the magazine. 

Cheska’s initial idea was to use inspiration from the ‘burn book’, which was a first initial element which was discussed in the group. However, it was decided that Cheska would create an outline of her creative piece and then send over to the creatives to finish it off. 

I edited this picture with a grainy and dusty effect and then used a handwriting font to illustrate the images.

I then curated the title to be presented in a scrapbook like form, in order to relate to the ‘burn book’ concept, and to connect the images with the title accordingly.

Magazine Style 

 

As much as I wanted to go ahead with the David Carson concept of ‘breaking the boundaries’ with text layout and font, it became clear that it was extremely hard to pull off, for it to look great. It also became clear that if all the pages for the magazine were different and irregular, there would not be a consistency and flow between the magazine and website. It was decided that only a glimpse of elements from the designer’s concepts would be included in the magazine, which includes this title.  

I initially created this page with the intention of bringing David Carson’s inspiration into the magazine. This was created with a combination of processes, including handwriting and scanning, Photoshop editing and a use of various fonts. However, after realising that the magazine would look better to have consistency on each page, it became clear that this page would not need to be needed. 

I then researched other magazines, including Dazed and Vogue, to identify what the layout structures were. The majority of all images within the magazines are clean cut, structured and presented neatly. A common theme within double paged spreads are one large image that takes up a whole page, interviews are columned in 3 sections, and the title is large and typically in a different font to the text. 

 

I then used inspiration from this theme, rather than David Carson’s, to re-structure and design the magazine. 

Fonts

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Three primary fonts were decided to be used for the magazine. I decided that font 1 should be used for several titles, as it is bold and is the same font used for the X, Y, Z logo and used for various articles on the website. 

 

I decided that font 2 should be used for all the written text for each article, as it is traditional and a common font which is used within magazines (as identified in the Dazed and Vogue analysis. 

 

And I decided that font 3 should be used to highlight any important or elaborate words, in order to create emphasis within the articles. 

X,Y,Z campagin

 

A campaign took place which involved shooting a group of millennials for the X,Y,Z campaign video, where interviews and photographs were also taken place. 

 

Lauren was the videographer and interviewer, and myself and Izzy were the photographers. Below are some of the images which were taken by me. 

The pictures were edited in the same format agreed with Izzy, which consisted of applying ‘auto tone’ ‘auto contrast’ ‘auto colour’ and applying ‘black and white’ to all pictures.

It was important to communicate with Izzy, to make sure that a similar style is approached for both platforms. It is clear within the emails that the website will follow the colour theme of dusty pink, the text will be simple and the overall look will be clear and precise. 

I wanted to therefore continue the colour theme of dusty pink within every page of the magazine. I also wanted to use a similar font and images which are used on the website. 

In order for each page to have consistency and to link, I incorporated a box at the top left of each page, which specifies the page subject to the reader. This also continues the colour theme of ‘dusty pink’ within the pages of the magazine. The writing either consisted of ‘X,Y,Z diaries’, which introduces the name of the interviewee, or ‘X,Y,Z Loves’ and introduces the subject of the page. 

The first image is what Izzy sent to me, regarding how she layered out the ‘TV shows to watch’ article. I then used this as inspiration and created the page for the article using a similar style, design and theme, in order to portray a corresponding image between both platforms. 

When reviewing and being critical within my work, I realised that the text looks a lot clearer and professional with a white background, rather than coloured and a different font. It also became clear that using the pink description box on the top of all pages, also improved the overall appearance. This was also confirmed with Izzy, as I was unsure, unhappy and knew there was something not quite right with how the page looked.

This page which I created uses a similar theme and aesthetic which was seen when analysing Vogue magazine. The entire type face which I have used is ‘Bodoni 72’, which is traditional with a professional finish. The interview (text) is columned accordingly, and I edited the image that Jess sent to me in ‘black and white’, in order for it to relate to the X,Y,Z campaign images which were also edited. 

This page was also created with the same traditional magazine layout approach. However, I decided that the double page spread would appear to look better without a box at the top of the page. Instead, I emphasised the interviewees name, and made the ‘M’ dusty pink, as a way of continuing the colour on the page. 

 

Once finished, I then uploaded the finished X,Y,Z magazine to Issuu. Below is the link:

https://issuu.com/xyandz/docs/download_file-2

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