anne hathaway: in the raw / mag project

Magazine Identity & Readership:

I envisioned my magazine as literary and fashion based. I imagined is as a mix between Vogue & The New Yorker. My intended readers are women, targeted age (20-45). However, in contrast to Vogue, my magazine’s identity is foused heavily on social issue and justice – in combination with fashion.

Magazine Visual Identity:

I’m highly influenced by photographers such as Richard Avedon and Diane Arbus and I especially wanted to convey that through my feature and jump spreads. I really like the idea of the old-school feel of black and white and I was lucky enough to find a high resolution picture of Anne Hathaway to implement that. The personality I wanted to convey was very raw (hence my title), and honest. I chose a very stilling picture for my feature and it contained the feel I wanted to express in my magazine.

Article Visual Identity:

As an avid magazine reader, I knew that I was drawn into magazines that utilized a lot of white space. Also I wanted a dominating image that would captivate the raders if they were just flipping through the pages, like many people do. I wanted the article to be easy to read – making the readers feel at ease.

Article Design Strategy:

I chose to do my feature and jump spreads on Anne Hathaway. The article that I based my design on talked about the evolution and transformation of a post-break up Anne. In my magazine, I wanted to reflect the frank conversations she had with the interviewee in the essence of my magazine spreads. The types that I chose in my feature spread complemented the organic feel of the picture that I chose, ultimately bringing together a cohesiveness through the picture and type. The color that I chose also was very important in the process of me creating my spread. I knew that I wanted to go with a feminine color, to reflect the classy and composed stature Anne Hathaway possessed, but I didn’t want it to be too overwhelming. I chose a pinkish magenta that I searched through the color palette that I thought complemented Hathaway’s own personality but also would be different from the black and white in the background. These choices were implemented throughout my feature and also jump spreads. I carried the pinkish magenta color and typography throughout the drop caps in my article. I wanted to make sure that the article wasn’t drowning in the massive amount of text that it had. Overall, I designed my article spread with the idea of it being very clean and simple, yet classy and understated.

Style Sheet:

Cover Headline:

“In”-Eccentric, 128.125/153.75, metric, tracking none

“the”-Spring LP Std Light, 128.902 pt/(154.682 pt), metric, tracking none

“Raw”-Eccentric, 128.902 pt/ (154.682 pt), metric, tracking none

Cover Teaser: Cambria, 17/20.4, metric, tracking none

“Anne Hathaway”-Spring LP Std Light, 30/36, metric, tracking none

Author Credit: Cambria, 18/20.6, metric, tracking none

Body Text: Georgia, 9.5/13, metric, tracking none

Photo Credit: Cambria, 15/18, metric, tracking none

Jump Spread Pull Quotes: Orator Std Medium, 19/20, metric, tracking none

SideBar:

Headline: Palatino, 26/31, metric, tracking none

Headline Teaser: Cronos Pro, 12/12, metric, tracking none

Photo Captions: Gill Sans, 10/11, metric, tracking none

Document Grid:

Before settling on the 3 column grid, I tried experimenting with the 2 column, 4 column and even 5 column grids. I thought that the 3 column grid fit best with the design of my feature and jump spread. It wasn’t too overwhelming and classified the information in a clean way.

The margins that I adjusted were also reflective of the design of my layout. I wanted a significant amount of white space to allow for an easy-flow when readers were flipping through the magazine.

Sources:

I used 6 images throughout my magazine layout. I had two dominant image and 4 small images for my sidebar.

Anne Feature: http://ima.dada.net/image/2130729.jpg

Anne Jump: http://www.smokingincinema.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/anne_hathaway_smoking_001.jpg

Anne Sidebar 1: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3165/2546297210_28d6c089c6.jpg

Anne Sidebar 2: http://musicfameandfashion.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/anne-hathaway.jpg

Anne Sidebar 3: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_6p0MudPQEfs/ScltReAJCdI/AAAAAAAAAbk/ObH9bMs6vQw/s320/annehathaway-in-marchesa.jpg

Anne Sidebar 4: http://img2.timeinc.net/ew/dynamic/imgs/090223/Oscar-fashion/Anne-Hathaway_l.jpg

Extras:

I kept my color selections minimal because I wanted to maintain the cleanliness of the layout. I used the eyedropper tool and took out a grayish black color from the first picture and used it as the background color in my sidebar. The pink I created through the color wheel.

Lilian's Magazine Project: Splash!

Rationale

Name: Lilian Chan
Project: Magazine project
Date: 11/19/2009

Magazine identity & readership
My magazine is catered to the female audience particularly female teenagers and young adults. The content of my magazine will include stories about love and relationships, fashion, health, hobbies and personal interests. However, my magazine intends to take a different spin on all the subjects covered to set it apart from other magazines. Therefore, the stories covered for my magazine will be told from an unconventional point of view to give the magazine a fresh twist.

Magazine visual identity
As the content of my magazine is rather unconventional, I wanted the visual identity of my magazine to adopt the same concept. To create a fresh look, my magazine will be using a lot of bold and bright colors. My magazine will also be using a lot of bold and stark imagery. For my cover, I used a black and white picture of Megan Fox to complement the black and white theme of the feature spread of my magazine. To add a dash of funkiness into it, I used bright neon colors for my typography. The visual identity of my magazine hopes to attract female teenagers and young adults who are confident with themselves but are searching for that little extra ‘something’. Hence, my magazine is called ‘Splash!’ to imply that little ‘splash’ of something extraordinary. I also wanted the title of my magazine to convey an image of a person diving into a pool and creating a ‘splash’ in order to symbolize that my magazine is carrying a fresh new perspective.

Article design strategy
My feature spread is an article about Megan Fox. As Megan Fox is always portrayed by other magazines as sexy and sultry, I aimed for a different approach for my spread. My feature spread has a dominant black and white theme to portray a classier side of Megan Fox. I chose that particular image of Megan Fox as her vulnerability and softness shown from the picture complements well with the overall theme of the feature spread. I added the film strip to indicate her profession and also as a background to fit the headline of the spread. I used two fonts as the headline to add contrast; for her name, I used Flood Std as it looks like it could be used as a movie title and for the remaining text, I used Giovanni Std in order to keep the headline neat. For the deckhead, I used the stagger effect to create suspense as the last line eventually reveals what the article is about. I continued this theme to my jump spread by using the same font for my headline (Flood Std) for the drop cap and pull quotes. I also had another black and white image of Megan Fox which again, showed her classiness and elegance. I included the film strip as my sidebar and placed the images of the movies she has starred in into the sidebar. The main colors of the spread which are black, white and red were used in both the feature spread as well as the jump spread.

Style Sheet
Cover -
Cover masthead: Flood Std, 120/19, optical kerning
Cover teaser: Gill Sans Ultra Bold, Gill Sans MT (various sizes)
Cover issue date: Gill Sans MT Bold, 10/19, metrics
Feature
Feature headline: Flood Std, 90/19 and ITC Giovanni Std Black Italic, 60/19
Feature deckhead: ITC Flora Bold (various sizes)
Byline: ITC Flora Std Bold 12/19, metrics
Jump spread
Photo caption: Helvetica Neue LT Std, 11/19
Folio: ITC Flora Std Bold, 12/14.4
Pull Quote: (i) Flood Std, 16/19, (ii) Flood Std, 18/19
Body text: Janson Text Ld Std 55 Roman, 9/16
Sidebar headline: Flood Std, 24/19
Sidebar body text: Helvetica Neue LT Std 75 Bold, 11/19

Document grid
I used the multicolumn grid with three columns because three columns gave my magazine ample space to put in text and large and clear images while maintaining the structure and cleanliness of the spread. My margins were not very wide (4pc6 for top and bottom) for all corners of the page as I wanted the page to include more text and pictures than white space. As my magazine is designed to cater for teenage girls and working adults, I wanted to make sure that my magazine will be as informative as possible to make the audience’s money worth.

Sources
Cover: http://stardustandsequins.wordpress.com/page/33
Feature: http://www.wallpaperez.info/celebrities/download/Megan-Fox-photos-757.html
Jump Spread: http://www.dailyslick.com/content/megan-fox-159.html
http://mayorofconcord.com/2009/the-concord-movie-is-more-important-than-transformers-2
http://www.impawards.com/2009/jennifers_body_ver2.html
http://www.fantastiksports.wordpress.com/page7

Extras
As mentioned, I wanted the main colors of my feature and jump spread to be in black and white as I wanted to portray a different side to Megan Fox. However, I decided to add a dash of color to make the pages more striking hence I used red as it is a very dominant and eye-catching color.