Magazine Page Anatomy / week 1

Today is the first day of editorial design. We started the class with magazine page anatomy. Ms Utari told us about all anatomy in a page, those are : running head, headline, credits, into/kicker, image, image caption, pull quote, subheads, folio, body copy, by line. There is no condition or trick about layout, but we have to be a problem solver, we made a magazine page that match with the target audience and easy to read.

- analyse a spread of magazine - 

Cinemags is one of the best source for Movie news and Entertainment in Indonesia. For this spread, they are using six grids, because if you look at the left page, there are 3 rows and there are 3 rows with different way on the right page.  I think the article is too crowded but overall i like this spread because they know the target audience and they put 5 images (teenager would like to see images because this is a movie). I love the way they put the image on the centre of this spread and also the left bottom image, it helps to make the image not too stiff because too much of square images. They are using some fonts but still acceptable for teenager and the leading little bit close (maybe because the target audience is teenager that still can see small characters).

This Concept Magazine edition is discuss about China and we all know that china is full of history. On this spread, there is only one big image and text is really has a big part too. maybe they are using six grids for just in case but they only have 3 rows on each page. They put a line between every row maybe because too much text, they just trying to help our eyes read this easier. I love the text, really neat and sans serif font is easier to read than serif font. I also love the right row, they are not block into two parts only (image vs text), but they give little bit space for the text, but it looks nice, also the picture is not square, make people not too serious to read a serious article :)

We have a big part of text on the left page and big part of image on the right page. But i think this is a trick to finish a long story part on the left page. because too much text and they balanced it with the images on the right. That is make people know that is the end of story part and attract people attention to the next page, which is image attract people attention directly.

Forbes is an American Business magazine owned by Forbes, Inc. I think they are using six grids because on the left page, there are three rows and on the right page there are two rows. Six grids are really safe i because we can play with two or three or four rows depends on the target audience. Those are still easy to read, only two images on this spread and that gives more space for the articles (just like a business magazine should be > informative). The typeface little bit boring for me but its okay for business because easy to read for busy people, and the typeface has a serious feel. The leading not really close and makes people read it easier because the business man mostly moves fast.

At the end of the class, we traced the layout on tracing paper.

My conclusion is...
there are no definite rules how to make a good page/spread/magazine, but we have to be wise to use margin, grid, image, hierarchy, and all the elements. From some of the spread magazine i have analysed, i knew target audience has a big part when we make this.
If we make a serious magazine (ex : business magazine) we should put more articles and less image, with a serif typeface (serious) with little bit big leading because business man has to move fast and not really playful with the grid. also the materials maybe can use just thin paper (so they can bring them), or coated paper (some people spill something into the magazine because they moves fast).
If we make a teenager magazine, we can put more images with playful rows because teenager loves the image more than articles and they just read. About the leading it can be close because teenager can see small things.
If we have to make a long articles, we can not really play with the rows, but we better make 6 grids just in case. We can put a big part of image to balance the articles part. And i think we should use sans serif typeface that help our eyes to read a long articles easier.

greetings,

JAJ