THE MAGAZINE
What’s your redesign of a space publication about & who’s going to read it. So you’ve decided on a space which your team wants to redesign. Now comes the hard part.
You have to convince people who live and work in the area that your idea is good and your team is the right one to be commissioned to do the job. You will also have to make it look good enough for the owners/administrators of the space to take you seriously as a design group.
Your magazine must therefore talk to:
Residents – some will rent, some will own and they live in the area so will want to know what’s happening. Talk to them and find out what they would wish for.
Shop-owners – they will want to know how it affects their business. Will your design attract more customers for them. See what they think about the area.
Owners/administrators – there will be restrictions as to what they can do and you’ll need to find out from council or the heritage centre.
The present and the past – what happened before at this site, what was it like 100 years ago, who used the site, find people alive or dead who had some connection to the site and interview them for the mag. Libraries, council, heritage centre are a start but also people working locally of a certain age may be helpful.
Over the 20 or so pages of the mag, cover off:
• Name for space, logo and magazine title.
• Heritage of space. (History using text/pictures)
• Interviews with locals.
• Signature stories with living/dead characters.
• Explaining your idea with words/pictures.
• Technical drawing of space, showing it from a number of different angles.
• Rationale on why this idea is so great.
• Call to action. (we'll talk more about that in future classes)
Quite an undertaking.
Firstly build a better picture of the area and secondly build content for the magazine. Content is a major thing and not something to be forgotten. Without content you can't have a publication.
You might do interviews with local people, study council records, take photos, and begin some preliminary drawings. Work out who the target market is for your publication. How old are the local people, what sort of businesses are there?
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REVISIT - FACTORS OF LAYOUT
Back in SEMESTER 1 we talked about the factors of layout and things we should be aware of when putting together a publication.
Alignment
How things line up to each other on the single page and the spread.
Proximity and Tension
What sort of tension is created due to the proximity of other elements.
Balance
What sort of balance does the spread have and is that the right feeling you want to portray?
Contrast and White space
What's the white space doing and is it helping or hindering communication.
Hierarchy and Scale
How are people reading the page? Is it the way you want them to?
Grids
Use one or die!
Make sure you are familiar with all of these again. By following the list it will make you more aware of what your layout is really saying and how a reader might interpret it.
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PRELIMINARY CONTENT LIST
To keep us moving along at the correct speed we need to start thinking about what this magazine is going to contain. We need to work out where our holes are, where we need to compress or decompress and find our flow. The best way to do this is to put together a preliminary content list.
The normal content list of a magazine is generally the last thing that gets done so you can go through the nearly completed magazine and check off article by article. The PCL is more of a wish list developing tool. No one is going to hold you to this list but it's a great device for working out where you are and it'll give us a good indication of what we still need to get done.
Now this list can be done on the back of a used piece of paper and it doesn't mater what it looks like but there is a few conventions you should adhere to. Make sure you include Cover (C), Inside Cover (IC), and their counterparts IBC and BC. Also you should acknowledge spreads as being separate pages but working visually together.
It's a hard thing to do because you really have to stop and think page by page but it will act as a road map for the publication.
This is worth doing sooner than later. Do it now.
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RESEARCH WRITING
This week we are looking at some examples of writing from Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating's ex-speechwriter Don Watson and his new book American Journeys where he drives and train-travels across the USA in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Specifically we are looking at how research can enrich narrative and the reading experience.
"Trinidad is the last town before the border of New Mexico. You put your credit card in the petrol pump and a sign flashes REMOVE CARD QUICK. On the ATM inside they've stuck on a sign that says: REMOVE CARD VERY SLOW. It's just a little town of about 10,000 people. Bat Masterson was sheriff back in the days of the Sante Fe Trail when people were called Bat. In the 1960s a doctor started performing sex-change operations in Trinidad and the place became known as the "sex-change capital of the world". It's a conservative town but the people must have reckoned that being the capital of something was better than the capital of nothing".
The first excerpt looks at his arrival in a small town and instantly sets up interesting stuff: the paradox of the card signs, Bat Masterson lived there for heaven's sake and then the sex-change business. 1-2-3 pieces of information which research has revealed in what most travelers would dismiss as a small, boring town.This is a technique to remember when writing your interviews and history piece.
The second except covers observation. The writer speculates on a scene as he drives by a truck with a couple in the front seat.
"Soon after, I passed a big Dutch Star Winnebago with a jeep in tow. Driver and passenger sat in glum silence. It was a Vemeer on wheels. I got the feeling that they hadn't spoken since they set off six months ago; that he might have been counting their failings, she remembering the hymns they sang as children; that they were silently winding back their lives, sifting through the grievances, the names and faces of other ones they might have married. And then one day they'd go home."
The writer sets up the scene of the big Winnebago and the couple within as a Vemeer painting; the sadness is already palpable. Then he speculates from observation of his own life and others on how this couple may be relating. In true terms he may be completely wrong but he's using his skills as a writer and his humanity as an observer to create a memorable vignette which acts as a buffer from the on going journey and allows the reader to reflect. Describing a scene in this way is a good scene setter when writing up an interview.
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INSPIRATION & EXTRAS
Each week I throw up things I find that relate to what we've been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at matt@billyblue.com.au and I'll get it up here or on the Bluni inspiration site.
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PREVIOUS EXAMPLES - THE PEBBLE
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PREVIOUS EXAMPLES - BONDAGE
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TYPE-SITES
Did someone say Type? Dripbook has put together an amazing list of the best type sites on the web - haven't been through them all yet but the ones I've looked at are great. Damn the web is an amazing place isn't it.
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HITLER WILL GIVE YOU AIDS
The tag line reads: 'Aids is a mass murderer.' The campaign, which also features posters of Joseph Stalin and Saddam Hussein lookalikes was organised with Aids awareness group Regenbogen e.V. ahead of World Aids Day on December 1.
The advert has been criticised for stigmatising people infected with HIV, the virus that causes Aids.
'We asked ourselves what face we could give to the virus, and it couldn't be a pretty face,' said Dirk Silz, creative director at Das Committee, the advertising agency behind the ads. 'The campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of Aids back to centre stage, and to reverse the trend of unprotected sexual intercourse.'
The ad, due to be screened in Germany on television and in cinemas and available at www.aids-is-a-mass-murderer.com, shows blurred clips of a couple having sex but it is only at the end that the man is revealed as Hitler.
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AUSSIE'S CAN CHANGE THE WORLD
A great new innovation that's a lot more than just a new take on Australian Idol. Could end up making a real impact if enough people get behind it. Click here to see the introduction movie.
