Development on Reductress

Working on feedback improvements:

Reorganised the existing pages (ooh sorry I'm late and eating me out is a marathon articles) onto more spreads to create space and therefore create more balance between the text and images and to ensure greater legibility and clear hierarchy, which was a problem with the initial designs. 

I used this method across the development of the magazine when I felt there might be too much going on in the spreads between the titles and illustrations: Moving the title to its own spread, made large and beside a few smaller illustrations from the following spread. I reuse elements from the main illustration in a way that it does not ruin the reader's appreciation for and interest in it when they see it alongside the article, but in a way that intrigues them to turn the page, like little nuggets of images. Having the text larger lets me play around with how I can use the type to convey the tone and theme of the article, this also means an interesting super graphics page that is not only pleasing to look at but it also links to this notion of independent published magazines pushing the creative boundaries and producing aesthetically pleasing designs in competition of the digital world. It is unlikely that decades ago simple spread involving super graphic type and small illustrations would have been in a magazine, but due to the booming world of small creative independent magazines and hand crafted publications such as zines this type of aesthetic is being seen more and more and so adopting this new method of no restrictions within the magazine structure means my product will successfully reflect the new direction of editorial design and publications. 

After initially developing the illustrations on Adobe Illustrator and then placing text into it as well I realised to ensure the outcome would be to a professional standard I needed to produce only the imagery on Illustrator and then place this into InDesign. This definitely improved the placements of texts and headlines as I could see through using the bleed lines and page edges how to appropriately apply them to the spreads. The guide lines on the page within InDesign also proved really helpful. 

When moving on to create more spreads for the outcome I came to a halt and spent time on thinking how I could present the article '4 Emojis to Wordlessly Respond with When the Conversations Spins Out of your Control.' Thinking about how the website uses terrible tacky stock images to illustrate its articles I felt for one of the pieces rather than focus purely on using paint marks, doodles and ink/pen illustrations I could follow this direction and simply manipulate digitally the emojis they picture on their website. I image traced them and played around with the number of colours traced within the emoji but found that they felt too basic and boring. 

Decided that for the insert magazine to keep this handcrafted, creative and professional aesthetic and feel it should continue the use of illustrations and paint markings/doodles for the overall outcome to feel consistent throughout. Although it may feel inconsistent with the online website version, the aim was to rebrand it completely with a new aesthetic to appeal to younger audiences and to reflect how independent published magazines are using new and creative methods to catch people's attention. Therefore having half the magazine one aesthetic and the other a different tacky stock photo aesthetic would not make a successful publication, particularly as the publication would need to gain loyalty from readers who appreciate and enjoy the aesthetic for further issues to be published; with two very contrasting aesthetics this would be unsuccessful. 

Produced some simple emoji illustrations that are inspired by the original ones pictured on the website but kept it monochrome and with less detail. For additional detail on the page this was reserved for the various ink marks I incorporated on previous spread designs which I think will be used across the insert as it creates nice texture and would bring together all the pages into one aesthetic. 

Made sure that I was not refining the emoji illustrations too much as this handcrafted aesthetic of unfinished lines and overlapping lines where they would not be on the actual phone emoji is the direction of the magazine. Also prevented myself adding too much detail as simple is best!

After producing the illustrations and placing them into Illustrator I realised I needed more material to fill up the spread if I were to divide the small article into two spreads (more space on each page = better balanced appearance). Produced some quick type with text related to the article with ink. Throughout the magazine I want to try and create lots of different text styles as through my research I have found that a lot of independent publications/zines adopt this method to create a hand-crafted human feel. It also just makes it more interesting. Using a square brush means the variety of type styles I can produce depending on how I hold the brush is extensive, but I do need to be careful that when I restrict myself to using it in a specific way to create a new type that the letterforms are still legible 

= eg. the E in 'END' above was illegible once I placed it into Illustrator and so I had to copy and paste the E from 'PLEASE' instead. 

As I wanted to use these illustrations on two spreads I found a way to make them look different and still interesting for the first spread would be to colour them in some way and integrate them into another form, which I decided could be a paint stroke seeing as they are to be used across the magazine. This page feels slightly too digital for me but I think it works as an additional style within the publication whilst still within the boundaries of looking consistent with the overall aesthetic. I want to have these different styles within the overall aesthetic as similar to how independent magazines/zines use a variety of type they also commonly use different illustrators, graphic designs and so on to produce work for different articles. Doing this also links in with how feminist should be presented - a variety of styles to represent how feminism is about breaking boundaries and freedom. 

Once I laid out the imagery of the page I wanted to have the title curving around the main form as the words 'Spins Out of Your Control' in the title made me think the tone of the article should be presented in a free flowing, uncontrolled way. However with the type being hand written with a pen for a hand crafted feel this layout felt messy and unprofessional. I had also made the first words smaller and the last largest as this emphasised the 'out of control' sense of the title, however this contributed to the problem. 

The first step I did was simplify its presentation and make all the words the same size and placed into a simple box format on the bottom right, as with the weight of the illustration/imagery of the page placing the text at the top felt unbalanced. Once I saw how the 'Of Your' in the title stuck out in an odd way I placed the word 'control' larger and within this space between the 'of your' and edge of the page. This meant the 'control' would still be the biggest element for hierarchy (it's like a satirical focus on how society views women as always needing control or they get stressed) and would balance out the chunk of the title. I also changed the type used for 'control' from the original hand written pen version to one using a more sparse amount of ink. This bold, paint textured version reflects the tone of 'control' better, fits with the paint aesthetic and uses the principle of mixing types. 

Could also see through the cowboy emoji that the image had been stretched out of proportion and so I made sure I fixed that. 

Wanted to then put some focus on the layout of body text within the next spread for this article after looking at the magazine NEST by the university, as I realised I was spending too much time on the imagery of the insert and needed to put more time into the text placement. 

Inspired by how NEST places text boxes of quotes and smaller pieces of additional information half within the main body of text and half outside of it, I spent a lot of time trying to make this work for this spread. The difficulties were in the fact that there was not a lot of the article itself, which meant less text for the new text box to integrate into (needed to be surrounded by text so you can see a clear rectangle around the extra quote) and that the article was divided up into small sections under the different emoji headings which again meant more white space that could make the additional added in text look out of place. 

I had to play around with kerning of the letters within this spread particularly with the 'Framed Picture Emoji' as it was within a space that was too small for the three words in the titles to fit, but close kerning the letters for them to fit did not look professional. After moving the article around so that the framed person emoji paragraph was above and the tooth emoji below everything fit into the spaces much better. Although this does not reflect the article online, I think for a printed publication these small changes can be made without it altering the reader's perception of the website and overall content. 

Upon reflection it may have to just been easier and made more sense if I had simply divided the different emoji paragraphs across the double spread, however the challenge of making this additional pulled out quote work alongside the main body of text was interesting and I think the overall aesthetic of the page is more dynamic with the amount of white space than if I had done the alternative. It also reflects again how independent magazines/zines are using new creative methods, which this text layout could be interpreted as. 

 Spent some time working on the front cover after the crit with the UMERUMER cover I made quickly for the crit but again have come to a standstill on this:

- Suggested to me to use the block flower logo I created 
- Cant seem to apply it in an interesting way 
- Most difficult part is reflecting the satirical aspect of the magazine whilst maintaining a creative and professional aesthetic 
- Played around with incorporating a large title but I feel if the magazine is predominantly illustrations and a paint aesthetic then this should be reflected on the front cover

- Leave front cover to end to use elements out of each article spreads for the front cover?