editorial piece:double page spread with follow on page.
influenced by the way the body type is set out from my research
how the background is fluent on the page with the type layed on top with a colour block box underneath the text to make it stand out on the page and keep it legiable.
this also influenced my design from my research.
images that influenced my ideas, from the v festival advert 2009
In my research of effective editorial pieces I look at how layout is handled with its content and what content is used in the magazine layouts that I thought where affective, of which I had found that they worked most affectively if they had used the same appearance to the background and overall kept the magazine relatively simple with most magazines tending to use white in the background (white space) to a) keep printing costs down and b) is used sometimes to bring balance to the foreground with the bold black text usually used in contrasting in dark and light tones, that can make it stand out without adding to much the page and overdoing it.
This is one thing is I had to think about with the text whilst developing my design aswell as how the text is set out and how it can shape around imagery or it text can be used as imagery.
My given subject of which my editorial piece is based is the v festival, before this I had never heard of the V Festival and never knew it even existed, so firstly I had conducted research on this subject matter, finding out the general information about the festival, i.e the location, being a weekend long, its rules etc.
After researching my subject I then thought about what I could do the article based on the V Festival, which lead to doing it based as a survival guide to the v festival, being such a big event that everyone wants to go to with lots of things people may not know or things that may help with some sort of idea forming of what I could do I from Looking at my research with wellies and the basically grass being the main focus point linking in with the festival because its scenery surroundings and how it usually rains which links in to the idea of survival for a survival guide.
I also looked at different ways of presenting my ideas in terms of layout ideas for my my initial ideas I did with 2 in mind knowing I am going to try out.
For this I thought about the size of the text, the layout presenting the text and the imagery, how these would fit on to the page roughly as guide.
I thought about these ideas and found that the double page spread to be working more affectively with one side focused as a feature page to the image that meets in the middle and works out as the right page of the page spread to be purely for the design to mainly focus on the text.
Since it wasn’t possible for me to be there and take photos of the actual event this year, I thought that there may not be much reference I could use of my own to show the event through the photos, so I thought I may use a few photos and compile these in with some of my own drawings against some textures and illustrations, so I started drawing in fine liner and found that being inexperienced at drawing this subject was letting me down, since it was not going to turn out right visually if I could not draw the stage and people around it up to standard, and so I decided not to do the idea of the girl hanging out the circle shape with the view of the festival behind her and decide to do my other idea that would be quite fitting with the subject aswell as it being more practical to produce and develop, with using polaroid’s with each one showing some of the tips made in the body text of the article of the survival guide, that I had found from virginmedia.com/survivalguide web page.
In a sense this would also act like pull quotes with the text written on the bottom of the Polaroid explaining what each image is representing of which tip.
This would the appearance the Polaroid’s have just been taken spontaneously at the festival and fell on the grass, giving a fun but reinforcing clearly in a subtle way of the survival at a V Festival.
Thinking about this idea abit more made me realize that I could improvise and still take my own photos providing that I use a scenery similar to what the festival may have in it surroundings of its location, so I took my own photos in a big grass scenery at a park which I took of various props and poses in a subjective and action style photography aswell as photos of the grass for the background.
I picked out the best ones and placed these inside a polaroid frame, with a new master created in InDesign and the polaroid laid on top along side the text with opaque boxes behind the text to help stand out more was not fitting in right and the grass background was pixelating, even though of which, was taken with a 12.2 megapixel camera.
Since this was not working like I had initially planned, this had resulted in taken some more photographs of the grass and found that the darker the grass the more its works in with the text and I had to experiment with fonts and colours used in the header, sub header, body text and the opaque box the ended up being scrapped off the double page spread and found the most affective way is to have the body text black and have a white background on the second page but use a feather edge rectangle box in its place from where the opaque box would have been. The font of the header, intro text and body text changed a number of times to end up with fonts century gothic for the body text, being sans serif - rounded modern and clear to read, justdownhere – for the text to caption on the polaroid’s and carrying on this style from that page on to the second page, aswell as it being more fitting in its appearance and place of use in the intro text with its quirky, fun and handwritten appearance.
Making these amendments to the colours of the text changing to black of the body text and adding colours to the sub header and subtitle aswell as fixing out the background to be used behind the text has made a real effective impact, being abit more simpler, easy to read, more prominent and stands out on the page a lot more.
I also placed the polaroid on the follow on page, one being enough to accommodate the text and maintaining its balance of its design with the grass in the background and feathered edge boxes behind the text in white with the body text in black turned out being just right and fitting in around the text with a text wrap without changing it size, made this decision to only have the polaroid to be used on this page in the middle of the second column.
I then found the body text to be plain and the subheading where not standing, so to make it do this, I made each sub header bold and added a splash of colours to it which as made it easier to navigate and skim through the
Initially I had also planned to have 3 columns in the body text but found it to be a bit squashed in appearance, so I made it 2 column in its place instead which works more affectively, sentences not too long to read in length and not squashed looking, so I carried this 2 columns through out my development and in to my final design.
Overall I think my project went all right, it came together in the end the more that I had developed it with fonts, colours and making the sub headers stand out with making it bold and adding a splash of colours taken from the colours palette of the header- brown and green to it made it easier to navigate/skim through the content and adding little touches such as page furniture with numbers and the name of the magazine really bring it together, turning out more better than I thought it was going to be before.
If I was to do this project again the only thing I would change is that I would have another attempt at that first idea by experimenting quite a bit more with my drawing skills, practicing trying to draw the image more better, trying water colours or fine liner and illustrator together and maybe mix this In with photography and vector graphics, producing a mixed media piece compiled together and resulting in a interesting and striking final piece that would run through from the first page and link on to the second page then maybe the follow on page.
my final editorial design
double page spread
follow on page
SWOT Analysis
• Strengths - What did I do well?: time management and i have grown quicker in writing reports and essays since doing more, i have became more confident than i had before.
• Weaknesses - What do I need to improve? having printed some editorial pieces out i find the image cut off from the bleeds.
• Opportunities -What do I need to do to build on my strengths and weaknesses? need to practice working with bleed in workin indesign and editorial design.
keep practising and building on my strenghts so that it comes naturally.
• Threat - What could stop me achieving my goals? if i dont keep up to date and not keep on top of courework with not using time management.
SMART
- • Specific - Well defined: practice drawing my drawing skills, to help when it comes to times when illustration is involved and it having to be of a standard.
- doing this will this up my drawing skills and will be quite useful
- Measurable - Know when it has been achieved: when my drawings are have progressed and i am able to see a diffrence in comparison from before.
- Achievable – Are the goals achievable: it is achieveable, it may take some time as it will be the matter of practice makes perfect.
- Realistic - Within the availability of resources, knowledge and time: i will use diffrent materials to practice with, look at some books that provide tips. this will be done in my own spare time.
- Time Based - Enough time to achieve the goal: this will take some time to occur, this may begin to happen at the end of the academic year.
