Magazine Project

Magazine Identity & Readership: Personality Web is a magazine about celebrities. Its name is meant to convey that it’s a magazine about celebrities—not just the gossip about their lives, but also some insight into their personalities (hence “personality”) and the interconnected world they live in (hence “web”), because celebrities often mingle with each other and my magazine should present that. It’s directed at young adults.

Magazine Visual Identity: The magazine should be young and should express vitality, energy, and fun. Thus, it will use vivid colors and the pages will be bigger. The articles should be light, but should preferably have somewhat more substance than most magazines.

Article Visual Identity: I wanted to portray the “fun” aspect of the magazine mentioned above, but without taking away from the story’s topic, which deals with the lives of the “rich and famous.”

Article Design Strategy: Because my article is about the rich lives of the Gossip Girl cast, I chose a typeface similar to those used for Gossip Girl DVDs, ads, etc. for the words “Gossip Girl” and for the deck, and then chose a relatively elegant typeface for the rest of the title. The photograph takes up one page of the spread and, while posed, shows the fanciness of the cast’s lifestyles in aspects such as their clothes. I carried the same typefaces over to the jump spread in the folio, captions, and pull quotes. Also, I used Garamond as my body text font because, not only is it readable, but it is also elegant. The pull quotes pulled out information from the article that emphasized the point I was trying to make in my feature spread.

Style Sheet:
· Title:
o Bell Centennial Std Sub-caption, 120/144
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 70.5/84.6
o Bulmer MT Std Italic Display, 90/108
· Credits: Bell Centennial Std Address, 22/26.4
· Deck:
o Bell Centennial Std Address, 26/31.2
o Bell Centennial Std Address, 35/42
· Drop cap: Bulmer MT Std Display, 10/12
· Body text: Garamond Display, 10/12
· Pull quotes:
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 15/18
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 17/20.4
· Captions: Bell Centennial Std Address, 7/8.4
· Folio: Bell Centennial Std Address 7/8.4
· Sidebar:
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 18/21.6
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 15/18
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 11/13.2
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 9/10.8
o Bulmer MT Std Display, 10/12

Document Grid: I placed my margin so I would have ample space for my text and photos. I chose to have three columns for each side of the jump spread because it spreads the text out in small chunks that allow the reader to stay focused, but without making lines too short.

Sources:
Image 1:
http://images2.fanpop.com/images/photos/3200000/The-Cast-HQ-gossip-girl-3218070-1252-1607.jpg
Image 2: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeT34u78Rrcm2I3Nm22VMxvn612IpD8lObvfp5TMHuEDlO6W8vl5i1hy3GDJugzmfucKCExo67UOSFfdJjg3swCmEMLfZ0PfXW17pjSMNy1nFAdsyW-DVObku3jlyywrL-FnVjVZMsTCw/s1600-r/gossip-girl-gap-ads-01.jpg
Image 3:
http://www.vidiot.com/GossipGirl/images/GossipGirl_2009_SweepsAd_WK5.png
Image 4:
http://cm1.theinsider.com/media/0/74/46/247375.0.0.0x0.432x285.jpeg
Image 5:
http://photos.ed-westwick.org/displayimage.php?album=349&pos=2
Image 6:
http://photos.ed-westwick.org/displayimage.php?album=349&pos=13
Image 7:
http://projects.daytondailynews.com/cache/galleries/photos/1058266/
Image 8:
http://projects.daytondailynews.com/cache/galleries/photos/1058260/
Image 9:
http://projects.daytondailynews.com/cache/galleries/photos/1058247/

Color: I picked all of the colors directly out of the photo on the feature spread. In the deck, I made important concepts stand out by shifting their location and using different colors (purple for “Gossip Girl” to show royalty, which is what the people on the TV show are treated as, and to create contrast with the “Gossip Girl” in the title, red for “hearts” because red represents love, and green for the last part because it mentions money, which can be connected to dollar bills).

Katie Mae's Resumé!

Visual Message

The tone of this particular wordmark in conjunction with the rest of the piece is meant to convey an air of artistic openness combined with organization.  The layout is standardized in such a way that it is easy to read but also able to express a certain amount of individuality.  It allows the reader to understand that I'm capable of both logic and creativity without losing a sense of professionalism.  The legibility also makes for an easy-to-read layout.

Audience

            My target audience would not be an overtly "professional" organization; rather, I would send this piece to an advertising agency or graphic design company.  It is meant to convey creativity in addition to organization.

Design Strategy

The design of my resumé plays off the use of opacity in the text as well as an incorporation of right-aligned text.  I was drawn to the Avant Garde series first because of its unique structure of the lowercase "a," then by its combined appearance of both creativity and professionalism.  It seems to convey a sense of both artistry and proficiency.  The size of the wordmark, 48, is rather large, but because I decided to go with the extra light version of Avant Garde, it needed to be large in order to capture my audience's attention.  The body text, on the other hand, is Garamond, which has been a personal favorite of mine for some time now.  Since I had decided early on that I needed to use a serif font in order to contrast Avant Garde's san serif, I chose Garamond due to its professionalism and, more particularly, its legibility even at a small size.