Wednesday, April 9, 2008

'Stylish' Spread Redesign






Do you guys prefer the bottom edge of the text blocks to be more regular on the bottom? And how about the grey box behind the figure grounding it?

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

DNR Magazine

A men's wear magazine I just learned of today:


DNR Magazine
http://www.dnrnews.com/

Sorry, I can't make it to class tonight because of work, but see you next week!

Monday, March 17, 2008

Feature Intro Variations

I think I am settled on the one above. Again, I have the faint 45 degree stripe pattern in the back.

…Although I think the relationship between the two photos in this one is more interesting…

I want to cry. My work is really sucking…

Sunday, March 16, 2008

Still flogging this dead horse…


Reversing out white on body of 45 degree stripes…(you'll see this better for yourself in class, basically it looks like the white of the paper cut through the pattern in two circle shapes, very subtle). I think I'm settling with this one.

Thought there was too much white everywhere–so I decided to add some color:

(thicker stripe width below, but I prefer thinner)

New Dept Variation

Basically changed the layout of the right-hand page based on our critique.

Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Department Spread Variation


Carol-Anne: Yes, I do have a demanding 9-6 job…and I also freelance outside of work and sleep very little.

So, maybe this looks a little over designed and not as effortless as it should look…

Did you know?


INTERNATIONAL TYPEFACE CORPORATION was partly founded by HERB LUBALIN.

"ITC's revival designs frequently follow a formulary of increased x-height, multiple weights from light to ultra bold and multiple widths. While the dramatically higher x-height increased legibility in smaller point sizes, in normal text sizes the extreme height of the lowercase characters imparted a commercial, subjective voice to texts. In recent years several new revivals have been praised for showing more historical accuracy, and for not increasing the x-height to the dramatic heights of earlier ITC typeface revivals."

No wonder why I don't like a lot of their revivals…I don't like those tall clumsy x-heights!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Dept 1 Spread

Dept Reworked (Single Page)


You can't really see the 50% Cyan, 45 degree rule pattern behind my AB rubric on my screen because of the gamma…check it out in class…more to come.

Recent Editorial Inspiration: Homme Arena Mag








Thursday, February 28, 2008

DEPARTMENT IN PROGRESS





I'm reacting to what Gabriella made note of during the last class, that we have too much copy, and lack of compelling imagery.

This is a work in progress…(duh), preliminary, but more changes tonight…

Thinking of a side bar or service material on the side--but not a helpy/advicey sort of thing that GQ and Men's Health would add? I'd like to think my readers are more in the know?

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

A DISSECTION OF DETAILS MAGAZINE

More on focusing the editorial mission of my project:

"Strictly speaking, Details is not really a fashion magazine.

After all, who dares to call itself a mens’ fashion magazine, given that the fashion market for men is so limited? The best performing men’s magazines are those that deal with current affairs, business, automobiles and sports. Fashion is often treated as a side-dish in men’s mags, like in Men’s Health. Even Men’s Vogue steers clear of men’s fashion issues, preferring pages that are not fashion-driven, but personality or celebrity-driven. Some mags don’t even bother to market themselves as men’s fashion but for the benefit of earning ad dollars from both menswear and womenswear brands, they make it known that they do men’s fashion, e.g. i-D and Surface. So far, Ac.Stet can only count upon “T” The New York Times Style Magazine as doing men’s fashion really really well, but even so, the Men’s Style edition comes out half-yearly."

"Having said that, Ac.Stet must say that the layout and order of the fashion pages in Details are a study in how a men’s mag should be put together. To the uneducated eye, the mish-mash of the fashion pages – some here, some there, but never grouped together the way most men’s magazines do it for the sake of this strange concept called “organization” and “categorization” – seemed haphazard and all-over-the-place.

But, to those in the know, such pagination is a brilliant exercise in educating men – especially those who either don’t understand fashion or has no patience for it – about the ways of fashion.

This is how Details orders its fashion features:

It usually begins with the style column in “Know + Tell” section starting on Page 66, following that are feature-feature-feature, and then another story on style (the badly written “Lose The Peter Pan Haircut”) on Page 112, and then sandwiched by feature-feature-feature, next comes “The New American Bespoke” on Page 122, again feature-feature, and then more fashion product spreads in “The Details” Page 147, story-story-story, and then even more product spreads in “The Best Suits In The World” Page 170, and then again cover-story-story-story, and then like a jack-in-the-box, more fashion spreads in “How To Wear A Vest” on Page 184, and “Outsider” following that.

This way, like coaxing a wayward child to eat his green veggies, you mix it up with his favorite foods so that he laps up the whole damn bowl. Fashion information gets absorbed into the system one way or another. See? Simple but brilliant. But not many magazine editors get it.

Speaking of fashion stories, the “The New American Bespoke” feature on bespoke and made-to-measure (MTM) clothing is one of the finest articles on tailoring Ac.Stet has ever come across."

from blogger Acrylic Stetson

Thursday, February 21, 2008

ARCHER PAIRINGS



Like wine and cheese, man…

ON THE HUNT: NEW FONT WISHLIST…


An alternative for my subheads for my template, instead of Stymie. This is apparently a newly drawn typeface, from Hoefler Frere-Jones

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

PROBLEM SOLVED…



Those geeks on Typophile are freakin' fast…I blogged about it there, and they answered, 3 mins, tops.
Fuck—the L is really getting me all hot and bothered…Show's how even the smallest tweaking of an old typeface can have amazing results…(obviously the findfont samples are not as nicely kerned as samples in the older post)

DOES ANYONE RECOGNIZE THIS FONT?



Kind of similiar to the font used for abc's Lost, no?



arghhh…I must know!!!! I love the L in the above pic, it looks like it's half the width of the S, and it is SO open.

I've grown to HATE setting type in Futura, but it looks really banging here.
It's amazing the sort of mood that is set just with type, absence of color, and lighting in this case (blurring, transformation if you count the entire titling sequence and not just this frame).


Futura=Sort of Bauhaus Modernist=Calculated=Sterile=Santized=Empirical=Mechanical=Cold=Mysterious?

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

SAMPLE DEMOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION



"Portfolio promises to be different enough from its rivals—Fortune, Forbes, Business 2.0, Fast Company—to sell ads when they can’t seem to anymore. But according to its publisher, David Carey, whose career credits include running the business side of The New Yorker, SmartMoney, and, earlier this decade, an ill-fated combination of Fast Company and Inc., the slide of Portfolio’s competitors represents an opportunity. He rattles off a list of brands—Microsoft Xbox, InStyle, Fox News—that thrived in supposedly saturated markets. And Condé Nast does pull off upsets: Two-year-old Teen Vogue sells more ads than its competitors by appealing to the children of the affluent (think the popular girls from Heathers), who are more interested in pricey fashion than in relationship advice. Portfolio’s supposed to appeal to their dads. The premiere issue promised ad buyers an average reader who’s a wealthy, 42-year-old male, and claimed there’s a 30 percent chance he’s a “C-suite” executive (i.e., CFO, CEO, or COO). "

from NY Mag's article on Portfolio "Will Portfolio Prove the Nay-sayers Wrong?" April 2007 Click Here

  • 300+ pages
  • "Wall Street", Business Magazine
  • "C-level executives who, in our experience, do not respond well when people talk down to them." dealbreaker.com
  • Competition: Monocle?