Trashion
Trashion is described as a fashion and culture magazine for the alternative scene. They are about creativity, quirky and handmade crafts, thrift finds, customised clothes and vintage fashion. As the make do and mend culture is booming and becoming cool, they are embracing the new wave of stylish cool. Their target audience are females, aged 18-30, mature teenage girls, university students or graduates, with a keen fashion eye with interests in arts and culture. They spend their disposable income on clothes, accessories, gigs and club nights.
I'm going to design the "Trashion" magazine, by developing a house style and using the content provided which includes article content and images.
Codes and Conventions Research
Look is a weekly glossy high street and celebrity news magazine for young women, launched in 2007. Its content focuses on fashion, high street clothing, celebrity style and news, and real life stories. it is A4 in size.
Glamour is a monthly women's magazine that focuses on celebrity news, A-List fashion, expert opinions and beauty advice. It launched in 2001 and is "handbag size" which is around A5 in size.
Both front covers are bold and eye catching. Look uses a mix of serif and sans-serif typefaces, which mixes the traditional print media typeface with a more modern one. Glamour magazine only uses a serif font (apart from the text below "GLAMOUR"), varying in size and between bold and regular.
Both magazines have an image of a well known celebrity as the main subject, which looks like it has been photoshopped onto a bold coloured background. Both magazines also have a circle shape over part of the logo, which contains important information that will catch the customers attention like "25% off" and "only £2". By using headings from the articles in the magazines on the front cover, it also catches the viewers attention.
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| Look's content page |
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| Glamour's content page |
The two above photos are of Look and Glamour's contents pages. Both magazines categorise their contents, and this can make it easier for customers to find what they could be looking for. Look has an image on half of the contents page, whereas Glamour uses more than one image amongst the text. The page opposite on both has advertisements. Advertisements are on nearly every other page in both magazines.
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| Look article page |
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| Glamour article page |
The two photos above show the article pages for Look and Glamour magazines. Look is three columns wide, and Glamour is two. Glamour uses a serif typeface for the heading, and then a sans-serif font for the body text. Look uses serif font. Both magazines use a drop cap initial of five lines, and also use an image in the top half of the page. Look has pull quote that has a larger bold font that only stays in one column. For the footer, Look as the page number and "LOOK.co.uk". Glamour has the page number and "GLAMOUR".
House Style
Masthead/logo
I wanted to create a masthead that represented Trashion, so I thought that a bold handwritten font would be suitable. I wanted one that looked like a marker pen, or paint. I found the font 'Breakpoint'. Thinking about other fashion magazines, I also wanted the masthead/logo to just be the magazines name. This is an important part of the magazines brand identity, and it is something that customers will look at first. I think that Breakpoint suits the hand made, quirky, DIY philosophy. The logo is in a size 196pt, and the white rectangle opacity is 63%.
Typography
For my article page body text I wanted to use a font that was easy to read. I went with an old-style serif, Garamond. Garamond is considered to be among the most legible and naturally readable serif typefaces when printed on paper - which is very suitable for a magazine. I went for a size 9pt, so that it was not too small but not too big. I chose to create a drop cap for the start of each article, still using Garamond, but in a bold font with a drop cap number of 3 lines. The body text is formatted as justify with last line aligned left.
For subheadings I wanted another easy to read font, and I found "Timeless". This is a serif font, and it is to be used bold for subheadings, in size that fits the page best, around a 15pt.
Grid layout
As my magazine is A5 in size, I decided to use 3 columns, which were within the margin which were 5mm wide. The gap between the columns was 2.5mm. I also decided to have five rows, which I think will help me visualise better with a grid.
Footer
On the footer I decided to just have the Trashion logo in 36pt and the page numbers in Timeless Bold 22pt. The page numbers are in the centre of the corner outside of the margin. Page numbers are only on pages where the margin is blank.
Colour palette
My colour palette for the magazine is white, black, and pink. The pink colour I used is #F7BED6. When using a coloured box that goes over an image, or is used to make text more readable, the transparency should be at 63%. I chose this colour scheme as it is simple, and suits the female target audience. The colour scheme could change every issue, like many other fashion magazines.
Pull quotes
Depending on the quote size, the pull quote should go over one or two columns. It should have a pink background rectangle, and a large opening speech mark. The stroke should be left slanted dash at 7pt in white.
Images
The small images should have a stroke around it, which should be left slanted hash in white 7pt. I chose this because it looks like stitching, which echoes the DIY and crafts areas of Trashion.
Magazine Production Process
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| Before starting on InDesign I thought I should brainstorm on some ideas for the magazine. I wanted it to reflect the crafty, vintage, DIY elements of the magazine, so I thought a handwritten messy title would be appropriate. I found BreakPoint online. I thought about using mixed newspaper font, but I thought the other font would look better for a magazine. |
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| Firstly I chose a photo for the front cover, and converted the colour to CMYK and dpi to 300 on photoshop, so that it was print ready and in TIFF format so I could place it into InDesign. |
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| To begin with I went for the magazine to be A4 size, but then images weren't large enough to fit the page, so I thought it would be best to go for A5. |
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| I then placed the image on the A5 size, and then played around with the logo to see what colour and stroke would look best. I decided I wanted the typeface to not have a stroke, as I didn't think it suited it. |
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| I then decided to go with black text, with a slightly transparent background, so that you could read the text and still see the image. I firstly tried the pink, with i pulled from the graffiti in the background of the image. I went with the white in the end, as I thought it was a more classic for a first issue. |
Final Magazine Design
For my front page I wanted an image of a girl, like my case studies. If my photoshop skills were stronger, I would have liked to put her onto a plain coloured background, but I just settled for the original graffiti background, which I think suits the magazine anyway. I also liked the idea of putting enticing information into a circle on the page, so I did this with a slightly transparent circle. I also wanted a barcode, so that it actually looked like a magazine ready for print. For the headings, I could only put them on one side because the girl in the image was on the left. I put the most important article heading at the top in the biggest font, so that it follows the order of information.
Left page: On this page I took one of my own images of Birmingham's canals, and made it into an advertisement. I did this because I did want to include some or at least one advertisement in the magazine, so I thought that this was the best place. I think that the advertisement suits the magazine, as it shows local culture, and some of the articles talk about Birmingham. for the "VISIT BIRMINGHAM" I widened the tracking, to make it look bold and fit the page. I added a web address at the bottom, to keep it simple.
Right page: For this page I created a contented page, and like my case studies I liked the idea of having an image on one side of the page (over two of the columns). This is where you first see an image that has the sewing effect around the edges. As there is not as much content in this magazine, I did not categorise it for the contents page. The "Page x" is in Timeless bold 16pt, and the subheading is in Garamond 12pt. I decided to use the pink rectangle, to give some colour to the page and to fill some of the unnecessary negative space. Thinking about it now, I could have added a letter form the editor or an introduction, to tell the reader about the magazine.
This is a double page spread for the "The Trashion Guide To Shopping In London" article. On the left page I used one of the images provided, because I thought that the big ben went with the title. I used a text wrap on the image so that the text wrapped around the image in more of a circular shape rather than square. This creates a nice contrast with the other square shapes on the page.
As the article "The Rise of: The Cool Craft Kids" was short, I thought that I would add a photo fashion spread to make some more content. I added an introductory page opposite the article, to fill some space. On the right hand side page I used an image from the resources given and centred it in the page, naming the feature vintage trends. I didn't want to use another advertisement, as it is a new magazine and a short one at that, I thought it would be best.
The two spreads above are for the vintage trends feature. I used the images given in the resources, to create a full page photo spread. I think that doing creates a nice break in the magazine, so that there is not too much text.
This article was the longest and had the most photos to go with it, so I used four pages for it. On the left page, a used a photo of Judy next to her name, which breaks the grid and goes over the middle column. Judy's logo under that is centred in the left and middle column, again breaking the grid. The pull quote on the right page goes across the left and middle column, and has a pink background which I think adds some colour to the page. I like how the stroke also matches the photos, so it ties the spread together.
Above are images from Judy's vintage fair, and I think doing this over two pages is a good way to visually support Judy's article. It can also entice readers to go to her events. I like the collage look of it, and it also looks like the images are sewn together, again showing the make do and mend crafty side of the magazine.
I thought that the best way to do this article was to have the instructions and then the images on a separate page. This way the reader can read the instructions and then follow the images for help.
For the back cover I thought I would use an image similar to the front cover, to tie the two sides together. I also added a barcode, so that it can be scanned easily when readers buy the magazine in shops.
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| What an article page would look like in real life. |
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