SHORT ARTICLES & INTRODUCTIONS
With magazines it's important to lead your audience in gently and not give away your core stories too quickly. Your core stories are the reason your magazine exists and therefore (just as in a presentation) should appear near the middle to create a peak to the experience of reading the issue. This rewards the reader and also allows to them to become familiar with the writing style of the editorial before getting stuck into the heavier 3-4 spreads devoted to a core. In magazines we use news items, mini articles and editors notes to achieve this.
Similarly a book, (whether a journal, coffee table, or annual) does not want to launch it's reader directly into the core topic without giving any context. In this case we use introductions, prefaces and forewords. They needn't be text heavy manuscripts we see in novels either. The use of visuals can be most helpful to bring the reader up to speed and required understanding.
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NEWS ITEMS
Most periodicals contain news items as a way to give brief introductions to the world and industry the publication is involved in. Some magazines take on a catalog format for these pages while others try to cram in as much info as possible. Rarely do news items carry an author's name and are generally limited to one image per item.
The main thing to be aware of is clarity between articles. It should be easy for the reader to navigate the different news items without becoming confused. Pictures should match up with text through; a key, numbering, proximity, font, colour or framing.
Juxtapoz uses the catalog feel and you can almost imagine a price appearing below some of the items as you would in a JB Hi-Fi catalog. They also use numbers as a key (a larger and smaller one to match up to) but it seems hardly nessesary as the stories and images appear side by side.
Wired magazine also uses numbers but in a more dynamic way, often interacting the numbers with the text.
Russh doesn't use numbers but instead relies on font size and style to differentiate between stories. This is a harder read because of it's density but rewards through the increased information it can hold.
Monster Children packs the whole page full but uses a frame technique (similar to websites) to seperate the articles.
Grafik has a post-it note vechile for it's text, giving it an up-to-date, casual feel.
Frankie separates through the use of illustration and graphic frames.
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MINI ARTICLES
When there is simply too much text to fit into a news item we might consider letting it expand to a full page, or a spread. This is generally called a mini article and can carry an authors name and numerous images. You can also start to incorporate some title/headline style and a lead-in.
Frankie does theirs in a nice basic way. Bolded headline leads into a capitalised lead-in.
Wired incorporates a black bar that sits on the page to distinguish mini articles. Interestingly they often use side columns to hold reviews or extras that link in some way to the mini article.
Juxtapoz in the past was very basic in it's design. These days it has refined vehicles to hold it's headlines in the mini articles.
Because of it's nature, Juxtapoz often extends to a spread so it can show of the artwork at a larger size.
Grafik carries it's post-it note style on from the news items to fit to a full page or changes to a frame based layout.
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EDITORS NOTES
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INTRODUCTIONS, PREFACES & FOREWORDS
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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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Skate Generation
49 portraits in black and white taken by the photographer Igor Ponti with testimonies of a generation of skaters describing a style of life. Published by Fontana edizioni the book really impresses from the cover. Unfortunately once inside it feels a little generic with the type, while being well done, fairly uninspiring and not relevant to the lifestyle of the skater. It makes me wonder who this was made for - probably me, skaters who got too old and became obsessed with serif type. It's a small but dedicated target market.
Designed by Luciano Marx
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