I have chosen to investigate page layout to aid me when designing my own A3 page layouts.
I have looked into Shortlist magazine which is a free handout. I have chosen Shortlist because it is a free publication which I imagine is rather popular, but with it being free, it contains many full page advertisements, which I didn't want to include in this sampling.
Shortlist is a publication which covers films and other popular topics, for this reason I perceived that the magazine would contain text and image which my layout will replicate. I felt I needed an insight into how text and image could be used injunction with each other.
1. This page titled 'The chosen few' is a page containing text and image on an A3 spread.
It contains image and then text in a column style, which travels in a vertical direction.
I have created a small grid on Photoshop with the images represented in blue, the type symbolised by black and the header located where the red square is.
The header/title is located in the top left corner of the page (usually where titles are found), and the blue images boxes cover the top horizontal half of the page, where the type's space comes directly beneath it.
I feel this specific piece of page layout is very individual and unique. It is a good way to annotating images, as a description of an image usually comes underneath the picture, in this instance it has
This type of layout is very beneficial for advertising many products at once, and giving each product their own amount of designated space, where there is no hierarchy located on this page, it has even distribution.
The page makes use of a dark black border around the margins of the page, in which the text is located, this appeals to me a lot as I feel it shows the constraint of the page in a stylish and professional way.
It contains image and then text in a column style, which travels in a vertical direction.
The header/title is located in the top left corner of the page (usually where titles are found), and the blue images boxes cover the top horizontal half of the page, where the type's space comes directly beneath it.
I feel this specific piece of page layout is very individual and unique. It is a good way to annotating images, as a description of an image usually comes underneath the picture, in this instance it has
This type of layout is very beneficial for advertising many products at once, and giving each product their own amount of designated space, where there is no hierarchy located on this page, it has even distribution.
The page makes use of a dark black border around the margins of the page, in which the text is located, this appeals to me a lot as I feel it shows the constraint of the page in a stylish and professional way.
2. This page in the magazine is title 'Style & Vision'.
The page explains the fashionable eyewear that is available.
It makes use of many images, and small pieces of information which explain the prices of the glasses.
Instantly, the amount of image on this page hits the audience and sends their eyes all over the publication, looking for text to justify the images.
The images are again laid out in columns which descend down the page.
There is a small amount of type located next to the images, which explains the prices of the eyewear that the models in the photos are wearing.
3.This page is different to the other pages I have exhibited due to the fact it contains a ranging sized sample of images which are sparsely located.
There is also a lot of type located on this A3 spread, as these pages review films.
There is a large image which instantly hits you when you open the double page spread.
The amount of body copy text conveys to the audience that these pages are ones which you would have to put time and effort in to read, and it is not a set of pages you could browse.
Each piece of body copy has a header and a title, located in red, and the images are sparsely located over the spread. The square images work in conjunction with the text, where as there is a character that has been cut out and the negative space removed, the text works around this image in a tight square style mode.
4. This double page spread in the magazine uses a large amount of text, small images and many large headers, executed in a gothic typography.
It is evident that these pages in the magazine will require time to but put in for the user to read all off the body copy text.
Again, certain images have been cutout which sends the layout of the text off balance and pulls it away from the normal theme of square text boxes.
It feels in this magazine that the pages are getting more information, and are more creatively designed to include text and image.
5.These pages makes use of a very large image which takes up an entire A4 side of the spread.
The pages are reviewing a new games console, and the image size almost represents the actual size of the handheld games console. (Maybe that's what the magazine creators were attempting?).
The images, found in blue take up a massive amount of space in this double page layout.
In comparison to the giant picture, the body copy font on this page isn't very much, this shows to me that the creators of the games console are trying to advertise the aesthetics of the console rather than justifying it with type.
Conclusion
I feel from this exercise, I have learnt a lot about magazine layout an have been inspire by certain spreads in the book to take some ideas forward in my own creation.
I have identified what I feel is good and bad page layout and how it can be more or less successful than others. I have witness how page layout can be used to inform or to display an image or product, such as the pages with the film reviews, in comparison to the page advertising the games console.
I like the use of images which have been removed from their negative space, I feel I will execute that idea.
Borders can be used in double page spreads to show the constraints of the page and to set a margin on to the spread.
