Creative review was first launched 32 years ago and has readers online in over 120 countries.
The aim of creative review is to give your average designer some insight as to what is out there and how far visual communication goes. This magazine is relevant to those in graphic design, advertising, digital media, illustration, photography and any other fields where visual communication may occur .
What is Visual Communication?
Visual communication from theory to practise - I found this book very resourceful and it also gave me a more in depth explanation to visual communication than I already knew. A point I took from the book was " why focus on an audience? ". Aiming a design at a mass audience is very easy as what is produced is subjective but by narrowing your audience it makes sure that the message you are trying to portray gets through without being questioned and only your audience then will really take interest to your design which is what I would be trying to do. This is a prime example as to why it is very important to understand your audience because if you try to guess or ignore the tastes of your audience the outcome will be disastrous.
Visual communication can also be very simple, for example type is a very simple way to portray various types of communication. Type is relevant in brands and logo's - every company will have some form of visual communication and the way they have been designed as this will effect their audience.
The visual communication from theory to practise book also talks about how the visual communication of the page layout for the " Wall street " newspaper, which allows the typical busy life of a business man to be able to read for short amounts of time but still take in a lot of information. The simple tabloid papers on the other hand are aimed at people who have a little spare time on their hands - people who will sit for a while to read the newspaper, so the front covers have simple yet jaw dropping headlines. These headlines are aimed so that when you look at them your interested as to what has happened.
Visual communication even occurs in products - energy drinks are a prime example of this as the typical colours used are blue, red and silver. In this case cliches aren't always a bad thing as trying to stay original risks confusing busy shoppers and confounding their expectations . Another example at visual communication is Tesco's value food, the packaging on their products are most of the time blue and white - this really does give the cheap feel to them and makes it easier to find their products so the visual communication of the packaging is aimed at people who want a cheap shop.
The book also cleverly indicates that if your visual communication is weak then people will have various ideas and views on what it is that they are looking at. If you want a design to portray an image aimed at a certain audience then it is important to make it clear for example; picture an image of a house at night and you are standing about ten meters from it and only one light is on, your initial message is to portray that someone has burgled this house, now, any other person looking at that image may think differently for example someone else might think that its a welcome to a warm cozy looking home, another might think that someone is up late and watching television.
Visual communication is even relevant to the Mod culture, the clothes they wore are a form of visual communication. Someone living in the 60's would be able to tell what type of person someone is by the clothes they wore. If a person had a parka jacket on and a Fred Perry Polo with a pair of Levis, they would be able to recognise straight away that this person was a Mod, same way if a man had a Moss suit on you would know he has money, and then you could probably guess that he has a good job and is a wealthy man. To me in a nutshell visual communication is the visual aspects in which something portrays and what you gather from it at a first glance.
Creative Review previous front covers.
These are some existing Creative Review covers from previous months. What I like about these front covers is how they are all very different. However what they all have in common is that there is some form of space which allows the front page to be able to breathe. What Creative Reviews do, is incorporate their magazine heading " Creative Review " into suiting how the design is on the front of the cover. As I have to create the front page from scratch I need to consider how the type and colours used relate to my Mod theme. Possibilities of type would be type from the 60's period, or it may even be type that gives off a visual language that vaguely describes the Mod Culture, but at the same time I need to keep the visuals somewhat similar to those styles in the current creative review magazines. I also believe the front illustration on the front cover has to compliment the head and work along side it, things that effect this can possibly be the colour and arrangement - these simple adjustments can help the image to work with the header.
Creative Review Type Tryouts ( www.dafont.com )
Here are some typefaces I found that I think would suit the Mod theme and work well on the Creative Review cover. The first font is one that I found from Dafont.com, the name of the font is " Modern Conformist ". What I like about this typeface is that it has a sort of Mod type look and a rough feel to it. This typeface when I look at it gives me the feel that its not going by the rules and where parts of the typeface are broken insists its not perfect just like what a Mod is. I could also see this typeface working well on a front cover - even with the parts of the typeface missing, as humans only need the top half of text to be able to read it.
The second typeface is called Moderna and is also from Dafont.com - what I like about this typeface is the whole rounded effect, this straight away comply's with the Mod roundel symbol. This typeface could work really well along side that image. Even if the image wasn't used with the roundel, by simply changing the colour on the typeface it could easily give the exact same effect. This is my favourite out of the other 3 typefaces because it also has a 60's feel to it which would work well with other images I may consider to have on the front page of my magazine.
The third typeface is called LL Rubber Grotesque. What I like about this typeface as far as visual language is concerned, the feel this type gives off is again rough around the edges and cool and that its not going by the rules. Mods were far from your law abiding citizens, they took drugs and had fights, this made the public view them as people who they dont want to be associated with and I think this typeface really conveys that message across.
The 4th typeface is your normal standard Gill sans. The reason for choosing this as an appropriate typeface was because in the 60's this was a popular type, its quite a neutral typeface and would work well on the cover of a magazine but it does not really convey any message of any kind. The typeface used on the front cover I believe has to convey a message as it will help give the Mod feel to the magazine.
My Creative Review Front Page Templates
This was a front cover template I came up with - basing this on my research of previous creative review issues this was very similar to their current design, this design acts as a header for the magazine and has some basic information such as the issue it is ( Visual Communication ), the month of the issue and also what edition it is. Although the design is very basic I think its very effective as it leaves a lot of breathing space for the illustration. Also I found that with creative review front covers the header is very minimalist and that its the front page image that gives the cover its wow factor.
This design is very similar to the one above but this was a matter of rearranging the text to compliment the front page more. I think having the design this way suits better as the creative review is more dominant; when people first look at the front page they will automatically look at the main image but the name of the magazine has to also be dominant so that the person looking knows what magazine it is for.
This was another idea different to those above this design gives the page less breathing space but at the same time it makes the magazine name more dominant. The placement of my illustration would have to change as it has to compliment how the header is placed.
A problem with having the design like this, is that my illustration will fill the whole front cover so the colour of " Creative " and the other type will have to remain black as this might effect the readability.
Creative Review Page Layouts
The Creative Review page layout is all about the imagery and then how the type fills around these images. Images fill most of the pages in creative review and this is what gives the page its feel and what its all about . Although type isn't as dominant as the imagery, the placement is as just important as it compliments the imagery and makes the page more design filled, analysing these pages have given me an insight as to how the various creative review pages compliment each other. The layout of the text is always done in collumns sometimes 4 to a page.
Page Layout Ideas
This was an indesign document I made in class - the main feature on the page is the text wrap around an image. I think this simple method is highly effective as it makes the page look more design filled and makes it look more attractive; this is a method I could possibly use in my page layout design.
This was another design idea I had for one side of the page spread; although its highly text orientated the simple text wrap on the " We are the Mods " is very effective, this also gives immediate indication as to what the page is about without any imagery. This was done by simply using the pen tool to draw around the text and then using the text wrap tool this makes the text wrap around the pen tool line and not go into the area within the pen line.
Another method to use on a page spread is a drop cap; this makes type look more appealing to read than your standard type - having a drop cap enlarges the first letter of a paragraph making the text stand out more. A drop cap on text entices the person looking at the page to read the text, most people if they aren't generally interested wont read text if its really bland but the drop cap makes it more interesting to look at and will make the viewer more inclined to read it.
This is going to be one of the main text phrases used in my double page spread. It is a well known phrase to Mods " We are the Mods we are the Mods we are we are we are the Mods " - this symbolised that Mods were proud of who they are, I think to too many people this will make the page interesting and eye catching.
No comments:
Post a Comment