In one of the previous posts, I mention that I am going to create a magazine that is 185 mm x 205 mm, this is so that it won’t feel ordinary when you hold it.
I created the InDesign document and began playing around with different ideas.
The page size is interesting. It is quite an experience creating a magazine from in almost square space.
The grid was adaptive, I had 3 or 4 for each different purpose (contents, recipes, titles etc.) but this did compromise consistency.
I considered maybe putting a slider or progress bar in the top right hand corner of each spread, to tell the reader where they are but thought better of it. I want to let the reader get lost and if you know exactly where you are it ruins the point. Also something like that would constantly remind you that you are inside a magazine and effectively ruin the experience of each page.
To follow on from the idea of that reminder at the top of the pages, magazines always have a folio to tell you the page number (mine will not), the magazine’s name and the issue number. I am toying with the idea of deliberately not having a folio, that way there is one less think of each page to remind you you are inside a magazine. The only issue with this is that people (readers or even later on down the line, in interviews or such things) may think I did this unintentionally and am no good at editorial design.
Maybe I should keep the folio to show a degree of experience and professionalism to the magazine…?
Here’s the initial tester: Initial Magazine
However none of this work can be used, as from showing this in lectures, many changes were suggested to me. The next blog explains this.
Luke Sutton | Y2 