Justin – you have some good material to work with here. Some thoughts…
Cover: I see that you are in love with stroking your text frames on all pages. Why? I’m not sure it works all the time – and it really doesn’t work to separate the cut lines like that on the cover. Please remove those white lines around the type – it just isn’t necessary. Instead pay attention to the shape of the text itself in that area. Choose a more mature font for those cut lines (handwritten fonts is really out of place here) – try a clean sans serif that seems to pair well with the masthead BOSTONIAN.
I see that you have colored a bl/w image in the foreground… but only the uniform. Why not the face too? You can add a flesh color to his face, and he will appear to be alive… something I suspect you would want.
Table of Contents: Overall nice layout – even the crazy amount of rectangles on the left seem to counterbalance that busy street scene. Please line up the photos under each other, making them the same width… as if they were sitting in a column under each other. Pay attention to the neg space between them, and make it consistent. And, I know this is strange, but the sign in the photo is an Optometrist’s practice. We can clearly read that, and it is distraction and misleading. What can you do on that sign that would add to the content of this magazine? Maybe a birthing clinic sign?
Super Dad spread – reads as two completely different designs… not enough items are working together to make this spread seems unified. The color palette should be based on the photo at left (where did you get that crazy yellow and green background?) Allow some items to spill across the gutter – including the Title… it should start on the left page and end on the right. I don’t think you need to enclose the body copy in rectangles. Instead, set up a 2 column grid and pull your elements onto the grid. You may need more content… this doesn’t’ seem like enough body copy (especially when you reduce the size to an acceptable body copy size – maybe 11/16 or something of that size. Lastly – you better open up the photo at right and lighten it substantially – it is really dark.
Lots of work to do here – but you have enough on the pages to give you elements to work with!
I actually like the stroke headings, has a clean look. I would delete the white stroke text boxes on the cover. I like the contents however, I agree balance the images to be the same size. The last page is somewhat confusing I do not see a balance of the two pages.
Justin – you have some good material to work with here. Some thoughts…
ReplyDeleteCover: I see that you are in love with stroking your text frames on all pages. Why? I’m not sure it works all the time – and it really doesn’t work to separate the cut lines like that on the cover. Please remove those white lines around the type – it just isn’t necessary. Instead pay attention to the shape of the text itself in that area. Choose a more mature font for those cut lines (handwritten fonts is really out of place here) – try a clean sans serif that seems to pair well with the masthead BOSTONIAN.
I see that you have colored a bl/w image in the foreground… but only the uniform. Why not the face too? You can add a flesh color to his face, and he will appear to be alive… something I suspect you would want.
Table of Contents: Overall nice layout – even the crazy amount of rectangles on the left seem to counterbalance that busy street scene. Please line up the photos under each other, making them the same width… as if they were sitting in a column under each other. Pay attention to the neg space between them, and make it consistent. And, I know this is strange, but the sign in the photo is an Optometrist’s practice. We can clearly read that, and it is distraction and misleading. What can you do on that sign that would add to the content of this magazine? Maybe a birthing clinic sign?
Super Dad spread – reads as two completely different designs… not enough items are working together to make this spread seems unified. The color palette should be based on the photo at left (where did you get that crazy yellow and green background?) Allow some items to spill across the gutter – including the Title… it should start on the left page and end on the right. I don’t think you need to enclose the body copy in rectangles. Instead, set up a 2 column grid and pull your elements onto the grid. You may need more content… this doesn’t’ seem like enough body copy (especially when you reduce the size to an acceptable body copy size – maybe 11/16 or something of that size. Lastly – you better open up the photo at right and lighten it substantially – it is really dark.
Lots of work to do here – but you have enough on the pages to give you elements to work with!
I actually like the stroke headings, has a clean look. I would delete the white stroke text boxes on the cover. I like the contents however, I agree balance the images to be the same size. The last page is somewhat confusing I do not see a balance of the two pages.
ReplyDelete