(10) Second Attempt!

Second Set of Ideas

I've decided to give the magazine another go and try something different. Instead of cluttering up my pages, I'm going to try and simplify things to make it look less busy. I've been trying to create pages with plenty of white space and a lot of emphasis on the layout rather than image. Here's an example of what I've started working on:

I'm going to attempt a few more experiments and see if I can form some kind of consistency or theme throughout my magazine. So, I'm feeling confident about the red strip photo but I could try and make something a bit more exciting!

(7) Looking For Photographs!

Photography

I need a photographer! I've been contemplating on the idea of hiring a photographer, talking some photos myself or asking for of my old Photography friends for some thumbnail images in the mean time. I have an idea of what sort of photography I want. I would like images that are clean but have a vintage and stylish look to it. 
I've been doing a lot of research into photography lately. I came across an amazing talk via TED.com and discovered a photographer who believes in receiving equal rights for the LGBT community. Her photography is raw, natural and exactly the sort of style that I'm looking to create for my project.  

This image especially is sort of style that I'd like for my magazine. It's clearly a modern photo but the style and effects in the photography make it look like something old and vintage. I like this sort of look and I'm hoping to find a photographer who can supply this sort of photography for my magazine. 

You can see that majority of her photos are black and white. They're candid and beautiful in presentation. They also have an almost vintage feel to it. 

I've also been research an old photographer called Sir Norman Parkinson. I came across his photography a while ago when searching for vintage images. Here are some examples of his photography:




"Parkinson's brilliance has everything to do with time, and defying it – for he managed to be something that should be logically impossible, a "timeless" fashion photographer whose art danced through the decades and always remained in style.

Born just before the first world war, Parkinson lived through a century of extreme change and yet his pictures did not get relegated to yesterday's model. He defined the look of Vogue in the mid-20th century with pictures like his monochrome shot of a thin lady in a very wide hat. Surely, style like that should have made him old hat when the 1960s, miniskirts and sex blew 50s elegance out of the water, yet Parkinson took stunning images that captured the revolution of the 60s. His 1960 photograph Traffic, Queen is a phenomenal distillation of the new spirit. A woman is posed in front of a moving bus: in a typical Parkinson device, she is in sharp focus while everything else is allowed to blur. The bus becomes an abstract mass of speed – Parkinson's use of colour is scintillating, with the slender model wearing a red cap and black dress and leaning against a black and white pelican-crossing signpost."

(6) First Set of Designs!

My First Attempt

I'm trying out a few layouts of my magazine and so far, I'm not as pleased as I want to be with my designs. I don't feel as though I have an structure with it. However, I'm only trying out a few experiments and enjoying the process so far. Here are a few images of what I've done so far:

This image shows a design of what I wanted to use as an editors page. I wanted something similar to the designs of Baron but it didn't come out how I wanted it to. The page was supposed to be crowded with the large words, however, after looking back at it a few times, I'm not completely satisfied with it. 

This next spread is something that I attempted in the beginning of my research. I wanted something slightly vintage but still modern. To some extent, the spread does have a vintage feel but the image on the right clashes with everything! The colours are also quite dull, so I need to research some colour palettes. 

These next few spread are my attempt at a contemporary layout. I tried to do something with some of the photographs I had and it's starting to go somewhere. I think that I just need to find some kind of consistency is my layouts. Because I'm still not entirely sure what I want for my magazine, my designs are all over the place. I'll draw up some new ideas!

(5) Researching Fabien Baron

Fabien Baron

I've been researching an artist known as Fabien Baron. So far, he has become one of my favourite artists in the editorial design sector. His work is very abstract but still well accepted among the mainstream audience. I've seen a lot of his previous work in old Vogue issues and some websites. Here are some examples of work that he's done:

You can see that Baron is a huge fan of large headings and lettering. This is something that I'm hoping to incorporate into my designs. I like the idea of crowding an entire page with a title and or just a simple letter and photography. It's clean but still contains a wealth of aesthetically qualities to appeal to a large audience. This is exactly what I'm hoping to incorporate into my magazine. Here's some information I've found out about Fabien Baron:

"Fabien Baron is well known as one of the leading creative directors of our time. Vanity Fair magazine has called him “the most sought-after creative director in the world. Great names in fashion flock to him to bring a certain cool, understated elegance to their public images.”

"Condé Nast soon moved Baron to Milan, Italy, to redesign Italian Vogue in 1988 under editor Franca Sozzani. After a year and a half, he returned to New York to become creative director of Interview magazine during its 1990 relaunch. He turned Interview into a showcase for the best in contemporary photography, illustration and typographic design.

In 1992, the late editor-in-chief Liz Tilberis asked Baron to join her dream team to reinvent Harper’s Bazaar. His elegantly innovative new design and creative direction earned the magazine two Ellie’s, the most esteemed award in the magazine world, from the American Society of Magazine Editors"

(4) Researching Hans J Barschel

Hans J Barschel

I've been looking at a few artists as part of my research for my editorial project and I came across an Art Editor known as Hans J Barschel. He's not the most popular magazine designer, but I've seen some examples of work that he's done. Here are a few examples:

I quite like the complexity of his illustrations but they're not the kind of designs I want as part of my project. The work he's done for Harper Bazaar is interesting but not soft enough for what I'm looking to achieve. I've decided to keep examples of his work as a guide and inspiration for the time being. I've also found out some interesting infromation about him:

"Barschel's own promising career as a freelance designer and art director for the Deutsche Reichsbahn came to an end when he decided to leave Germany himself, eventually landing in New York City with few prospects. A fortunate connection with the entrepreneur and graphic arts patron Dr. Robert Leslie led to many commissions, and Barschel soon found himself in high demand. His innovative cover designs for Fortune, including the celebrated German U-boat "torpedo aiming-sight" image, established his reputation as a designer of imagination and with an eye for relevant detail. His covers for Town & Country, Alegheny Ludlum Steel Corporation's Steel Horizons, along with many dust jacket designs for publishers, helped him flourish during a period described by Dr. Leslie as the "creative forties." His circle of friends and design influences included Will Burtin, Paul Rand, George Giusti, Lucian Bernhard, McKnight Kauffer, and Joseph Binder. Later in the decade, his career moved in another direction and he began to design progressive graphics for the pharmaceutical firms of CIBA, Sharp, and Dohme and La Roche.

Moving to Rochester, New York in the early 1950's, he taught art and design at RIT, moving the program towards a modernist visual communications curriculum. His achievements were recognized through many awards, and his career has been documented in numerous periodicals, including PM Magazine, Arts & Industry, IDEA, and Gebrauchsgraphic. -- DP"

From the information I've gathered so far about him, Barschel is very well accomplished as a graphic designer but not specifically as an art editor. I'd like to find more artists that are accomplished specifically in art editing. 

(2) Names & Mast Head

Naming The Magazine

I had the option of creating a series of spreads for an existing magazine but I decided it would definitely be more interesting and challenging if I created my own magazine. It gave me the chance to come up with a name and my own complete style for the magazine. 
For the last week and half, I've been drawing up a list of ideas for a magazine name. Names have been a bit of on issue seeing as most of the obvious names have already been taken. Here's a small part of this of names that I came up with during the week:

RIOT!

Pump

Kandy

M83

Anthem

Aztec

Sahara

Rouge

Bleu

Blank

Blanc

Monroe

1992

Ombre

Dame

Cheri

It's taken me a while to come up with something original and easy to remember. I wanted something that has few syllables, short and straight to the point. I came up another list of titles for my magazine a little while ago. After a quick chat with my tutor, I've settled on the name, IKO. It's Japanese for "let's go" apparently. I'm not entirely sure if the meaning is correct but I like the sound of the word and it's short and simple. 

UPDATE

So, I've been researching mastheads and have started designing a few ideas of my own. 

Here are some examples of the sort of mastheads I'm aiming to design:

Because I'd like my masthead to be simple but still interesting, I've decided to incorporate the idea of Japanese symbols into my design. Here are some examples of what I've been working on:

I used a very simple font and turned it 90 degrees in order to get a Japanese print signature look. I'm hoping that my masthead has that sort of look. Here's an example of what Japanese signature marks look like:

(3) Researching Alexy Brodovitch

Alexy Brodovitch

I've recently been researching an artist known as Alexy Brodovitch. I've been searching for artists that specialise in editorial design. I thought that this might be a good way to get some inspiration and ideas for my magazine. Here's some information I've found about Alexy Brodovitch:

"Alexey Brodovitch is remembered today as the art director of Harper's Bazaar for nearly a quarter of a century. But the volatile Russian emigré's influence was much broader and more complex than his long tenure at a fashion magazine might suggest. He played a crucial role in introducing into the United States a radically simplified, “modern” graphic design style forged in Europe in the 1920s from an amalgam of vanguard movements in art and design. Through his teaching, he created a generation of designers sympathetic to his belief in the primacy of visual freshness and immediacy. Fascinated with photography, he made it the backbone of modern magazine design, and he fostered the development of an expressionistic, almost primal style of picture-taking that became the dominant style of photographic practice in the 1950s."

Here's an example of some of Alexy Brodovitch:

 

"Brodovitch created a harmonious and meaningful whole using avant-garde photography, typography and illustration. After being hired he asked several old friends like Man Ray, Jean Cocteau, Raoul Dufy, Marc Chagall and A.M. Cassandre to work for the magazine. Cassandre created several of the Bazaar covers between 1937 and 1940. Brodovitch was the first art director to integrate image and text. Most american magazines at that time used text and illustration seperately, dividing them by wide white margins."

So far, Alexy Brodovitch is becoming one of my favourite Art editors. His work was quite ahead for his time. His designs look like something you might find in a modern magazine. The front covers are definitely something that I'd like to incorporate into my designs. They're not too busy and they look almost like art pieces on their own. This is exactly what I'm looking to recreate in my work.