Magazine Design Project

Magazine Reflection Questions:

How does the design that you created demonstrate your knowledge of Magazine Design and the parts of a magazine cover and interior?

As that I created the interior of my magazine, I had to ensure that I met all the criteria and included all parts of a magazine, including the main headline, kicker, body copy, and a pull quote. In my physical copy, all of the mentioned elements and others are separated into individual layers. Additionally, my partner (Colleen) did the same with the cover.

In what ways does your magazine connect to the corporate identity of the magazine? What are some design queues that you used from the existing magazine?

Foodie Magazine isn’t a fan of colors that are outside of black and white for font and background colors, so we had to give up a little bit of their identity to make the color scheme more consistent and fitting with our article. We did, however, find the fonts they use, and followed the layout used in their articles. For recipes, like the one seen in our interior, they have an odd spacing between the amount of an ingredient and the ingredient itself. We were also able to work in a colored-box behind text as done in some of their issues.

How did completing the brainstorming packet and sketches affect your design process?

When trying to find inspiration for our magazine design, Colleen and I were fortunate enough to find multiple online copies of our magazine. As a result, we were able to take ideas from multiple different copies of the magazine, and really get a feel for the corporate identity of the magazine. When we understood how they lay out the cover ands the interior, we were able to mirror the design yet also add a spin on it. While though we did have to use different designs than we originally wanted, we were pleased with the final design (we did create the used templates for the two when first sketching).

How did you like working with a partner? How do you think working with a partner makes the design process easier and more difficult?

Although personally I prefer working alone, working with a partner was a nice change. It’s nice to work with someone you get along with and have similar ideas to. In a way, it makes the design process easier because you don’t have to do the entire project. You can also critique them without being ignored because they realize that it is a dual grade. On the other hand, this makes the design process more difficult. While checking each other’s work, it something your partner did and does not want to change may be bothersome, especially if you think your idea is better.

Looking at your partner’s design, if you were to design your partner’s portion by yourself how would it look different? What would you have changed?

While I do love Colleen’s portion of the project, I think some of the font sizing and spacing could be a little different. The cover lines are a little thin and oddly tall. I also wish she had made the “S” in “Petty Elliott sees Pink,” capitalized. I do like how well she photo-shopped the background, you can barely tell.

Describe the ideal partner (co-worker / co –designer)?

The ideal partner would literally be my twin because I’m very stubborn and strong-minded. I tend to think what I create is the best it can be, and while that might be true many times, I would need someone who would agree with me. But in reality, two Sams don’t exist and I think that’s ok; I think one running around is plenty enough. The only thing that would be good for is all the extra cookies.