Editorial Design: Ideas pt ii.

For my initial ideas for the content pages I created a brainstorm, documenting the different styles I could use. One I felt would be quite interesting was inspired by Paula Schers work, who creates maps using typography. 

Paula Scher cuts up pieces of typography from different mediums and lays them out to create the outlines of countries, similar to an atlas. It's quite significant and strange, applying her flair and love for larger scale designs into her work. In some pieces she incorporates vibrant colour, whilst others such as the second image above of Africa, use sepia. 

Taking this style into account I decided to look into other illustrated maps of the place I have chosen. As London is a capital and holds a lot of attention it was easy to come across these: I thought this would be quite a cute idea to distinguish a whimsical style to the page, though it needs to be in keeping with the cover spread, which could be through the use of a colour scheme and typography.

When creating these on the computer I used google maps to understand the layout and style I would like to use, especially as this is just the experimentation phase. I spread the map across the whole of the page, leaving only the margins: I also added circle images on the page to highlight the places, alongside the text below. 

Experimenting more on the map idea, I followed a similar idea with the page as the cover spread, using furniture to highlight the article content. I also continued to add the circles which show photos of the places I have chosen. That being said, I feel that these pages don't fit in to my final idea for a cover spread as I feel it will be difficult to create a running theme throughout, which is something I feel is important.

When looking at trends, I came across a lot of usage of geometric shapes and pages similar to the one above: I find it visually striking with the different images mixing colours, disrupted by the white of the borders. I wanted to recreate this style. 

My first attempt at imitating this was to recreate a similar style, using triangle shapes orientating the page.

I then added furniture and used the images to frame the article content. I personally feel this looks quite effective, though spacing between the triangles may have looked better. I didn't want to settle on this idea, though I do like it and feel it looks quite pretty on the page. 

Again, I like the way the colours go together, and the way the images flowed well but I also felt that the shape didn't give everything it could to the image, often cutting of certain aspects so you couldn't see specific details and couldn't tell what they were of. I feel possibly a square or circle might show more and be stimulating. 

Looking more into different shapes for my images, I created a similar spread to a roll of film, with the images cut off and adding movement. The different sizes create a really nice dynamic but again there is something missing: It doesn't seem to flow well with the front cover. 

Scrapping all original ideas, I decided to try with a black background and a white stripe vertically. I thought this looked very similar styling to the cover spread which was something I wanted to achieve. I added the images of the content in circles, overlapping the white line. Though slightly reminiscent of a certain football team, I really liked the way the page came together. I used Ever After as the type, but felt a lot of it was lost with the difference of white and black.

I adapted that design to create a singular black line horizontally across the page. I liked that the circles were bigger than the line and overlapped, and the typeface was quite contemporary, and not something often found in Editorial design. I think this would look good in a very modern, urban magazine.