Link to Indesign Workshop
This is just a quick practice based on placing the image of Max's work and a photograph of Max as well as the text about him in the initial design I made in the induction. I don't like this as it isn't creative and has too much white space. I will look at the magazines I've researched to help inspire my design. Because I like Max's hair drawings so much, I might try to incorporate this into my article, by trying to draw Max himself.
Layout Plans
After a type and grid session, I decided that the best way for me to decide which layout to use for my article would be to draw out lots of thumbnail designs and choose my favourite. This would make the task of putting the article together on InDesign seem less daunting. Carrying on with my earlier idea, I also did a few drawings of Max based on photographs of him I found on face book to use in the article.
This is the grid I used for my thumbnails.
In Design Layout Designs
Here are some screenshots of the process of creating layouts based on my thumbnail images. I live traced my drawings of Max on Illustrator to use in the article.
This is the page set up for the document.
This is the grid I used.
This is my first attempt at the article. I think there is a bit too much going on, and that maybe colour could be used to bring the article to life. The first screen shot shows how I have used the grid to help lay out my article.
This layout is inspired by Max's love for CMYK.
Layout Crit
The feedback I received in the crit about my layouts can be seen on my PPD blog. I decided to experiment some more after these comments.
This screenshot shows the tools I have used to neaten up the text so that it fits the text box better and looks more like an actual magazine. All these tools are so useful and this knowledge is definitely well needed!
I have experimented with the use of three columns as this was suggested in the crit, but I really don't like this layout. Although there is the same amount of text, it looks as if there is more, and there is already a lot going on in this design. I think two columns looks much more sophisticated for this type of magazine layout that I am aiming to create, where I can understand that more columns would be more useful for a newspaper or something which doesn't need to look as good.
I've also tried to include two illustrations in my layout, however, I think there is too much going on already so it takes away the impact of the negative space. Also, the brief only states the use of two images and I am already using one illustration and one of Max's images.
Here I have kind of gone back to the layout I showed in my crit, as this layout received good feedback. I've altered the position of the quote, using the text wrap technique that we learnt about in the workshop.
Here I've added a margin, inspired by the layout of a page from the 'You' magazine, where I thought a simple coloured margin worked really well. I spent quite a while playing around with the position of this margin, and the character of the text so that it felt really well. I've learnt through this brief especially not just to be lazy and go with the initial settings on something, but to really play about with them until the text fits just right.
Final Design
This is my final design, which I have mainly gone with based on the positive feedback from the crit, but making the changes to make the layout more professional.
