Below is an ISSUU condiment containing the final boards for Stack Magazine:





                                                                                                                                                             

Evaluation

At first, this brief was not promising. The client I am working with on it seemed very disorganised, and there was poor communication on her end.  A brief was never put together in full, just emails sent now and then with information and possible influences. Not having a set brief to look at made the whole process much more difficult. For this reason, I compiled all of the relevant information into one document and created a brief. This made the whole process much easier, and allowed me to make design decisions.

As the brief progressed, the overall job was made much easier. Charlotte sent through all the body copy, allowing me to get started on layouts. I was also allowed entire creative freedom on the magazine, with nothing but positive feedback in return.

Although all the body copy was sent through, Charlotte is still waiting on a lot of the imagery from illustrators. I had to randomly leave spaces for the imagery, which could cause issues if they’re not the right format.

Although the magazine is not finished yet, I’m really proud of it’s progress. I think it certainly has it’s own unique identity, and I did not fall into any obvious cliché design decisions made with independent magazines. Creating a full magazines pushed me in terms of layout and type setting, and working with existing body copy. Pages seem well balanced, and also varied visually.

I cannot wait for the finalised magazine to be printed at mass, partly because I will be paid, and partly because of the pride behind it. I look forward to working on future editions.

Below is an ISSUU document of the final layout of the magazine. The images still need to be filled, but I am waiting on these from the client. The colours are also subject to change. 

Below you can see the layout scamps produced for Arvinn&Finn's first issue.

I went though these with the client, and she was happy for all the pages to be developed as they are.

Today we had crits on our current working projects. I was also lucky enough to have Amber sitting in on the meeting, so I also received feedback form her. 

The work I wanted to show was: 

- Welsh & Jefferies (Brief 17)
- Self Promotion 
- Stack Magazine (Brief 18)

                                                                                                                                                             

Welsh and Jefferies

1. Which do you prefer - The original form or something connecting all three letterforms? 

- The original form is much less fussy. 

- There does not seems to be a good way of connecting the W to the ampersand. 

- The connection of the ampersand to the J is smooth, but does it pair them together and separate the W? It does at large scale slightly, but at a smaller size (where it will be used) this is not obvious. 

2. Branded collateral I could consider? (apart from business stationary)

- Tools of the trade - tape measure, scissors etc. Research into this. 

- Wax seal? 

- Embossing stamp? 

3. Colour scheme options?

- Darker, rich colours. 

Other comments: 

- The below stamp could work well as part of the brand too. Try more options out. 

- The secondary logo below could be too lavish. Maybe use something more simplified / reduced the weight or serif size? Try another version of Caslon? 

                                                                                                                                                             

Self Promo 


1. With or without ea /te ligatures?
- With. 

2. As a surname hyphenated or not hyphenated?
- Non hyphenated, people may think of it as a double barrel name. 

3. Which business card option? 

First option. 

                                                                                                                                                             

Stack Magazine

1. Which display typeface is more suitable / individual?
The second option is much more eye catching. 

2. Which body copy typeface is more suitable / readable? 

The body copy typeface in the second is much more readable. 

Charlotte sent over an interview, and wanted to see a few quick ideas for layout and typeface options. 

Below are the two options I narrowed down to. 

The first is more of a typical aesthetic for an independent magazine. I have tried to push more for the second option, as I feel the headline typeface is much more interesting, and has a lot of scope for different layout options. 

See ISSUU document below: 



Response From Client

Charlotte agreed that the second option was much more interesting, and more unique. This will be developed further and experimented with more. 

With the magazine eventually being used commercially, it was essential to look into commercial typefaces. I have a large collection of PDF's of typefaces released by Type Foundries, with a few of them selected and screenshot below. I need to consider both headline and body copy fonts. 

Antwerp could prove well as a bodcyopy font:

CWM is too technical for the mag:

Grot 10 has a low x-height, so would not work well as body copy that wants to be quite 'block' like:

Italian Sans is too much of a Grotesk:

The same can be said for Recognition:

I absolutely love Berlingske Serif. It has a good size x-height for block like bodcopy, and also has some beautiful details seen at display sizes. 

Domaine is another typeface I love. It has lots of quirky characteristics that make it more appropriate for headers and display:

Drake could be a great contrast against Berlingske, if Berlingske was used as bodcopy, with Druk used for headers. Druk is clearly designed to work at very large point sizes. 

Euclif Flex is an interesting sans serif, with lots of additional features and alternate characters. It could be good to use as a display typeface. 

Waldheim could be an option to use, as it's geometric angles would suit the audience for the magazine.

Tiempos is similar to Berlingske, which I also love. Unfortunately, I recognise it's use is Printed Pages magazine, which means it should not be used for confusion reasons. 

I was contacting by someone I was on Art Foundation with, asking if I wanted to get involved in designing a magazine she was starting and writing for. Interestingly, she is now a professional writer. 

I hadn't ever worked on a full magazine design before, so I was interested in being involved. 

A Jumble of Ideas

Charlotte was absolutely hopeless at putting her ideas together and formulating a brief. Information was staggered and so were influences. This made it really difficult to make a start on the project. 

Compiling A Makeshift Brief / Compiling Content 

Ventrally I decided the best idea was to compile a makeshift brief, which was an InDesign document with information thrown together. This can be seen below in an ISSUU document: