Rebekah Jones
Magazine Project
Rationale
19 April 2011
Design Strategy:
My magazine aims to merge science and communications through visuals and cataloguing new peer-reviewed work. The magazine is simply called “Earth” because it is about all thing Earth – I strayed away from being overly specify about content or excluding any sort of environmental news or features that may be included. This would be a saddle-stitched magazine as it would be relatively small – a periodical to be released monthly or bimonthly. The article I chose to design is a short scholarly piece about how the Gulf Coast barrier islands, because of so many environmental hazards, are disappearing into the ocean. I wanted to show how the Earth is literally slipping into the ocean – and stress how it is all man’s fault and the natural beings of the world are merely the victims. So juxtaposing the natural with the unnatural became my theme throughout the design.
Choice of typefaces:
I chose Aachen STD for my magazine name and carried the font throughout the design in folios and other subheads. Aachen is a strong, simple font that to me looks both organic and somewhat mechanical – representing the intersection of science and nature which the magazine represents.
I used Cooperplate STD for the headline on the opening spread because it has a very final look to it; the ends of each letters look like edges, which plays on the headline “Ends of the Earth.” I also used this font as the drop cap to begin the story on the jump page. The colors for all of the fonts are pulled from the main image on the opening spread – the blue of the umbrellas to captions and the deckheads, the brown of the oil to the sidebar, headline, drop cap.
I used Trade Gothic STD as the sidebar text to further distinguish the sidebar from the rest of the article. Trade Gothic is easily readable against the red/brown background and doesn’t lose legibility when I lighten it to stand out against the brown I pulled from the oil photograph on the opening spread.
Photo sources:
All of my sources either came from National Geographic photographer Tyrone Turner or the USGS (United States Geological Survey) and are marked as such. The cover photo came from a GIS image via Earthnow.USGS.gov, which I changed visible bands to make green and blue and give a metallic-looking feel. Since this is an environmental magazine, maps are important and I used them several times throughout my design, all of which came from the USGS.
Extras:
I turned the sidebar into a timeline which would, if I could change the text, highlight the major disasters to strike the gulf in the last 5 years. It worked out well that it counted 5,6,7,8,9,10, too. I wanted to change the arrangement of the years so that the reader’s eye follow easily along the timeline.
Margins:
Top: 2 p
Bottom: 5 p
Left: 2 p
Right: 3 p
Gutter: 1.2 picas
Style Sheet:
Cover:
Title: Aachen STD 160 pt
Headlines:
Cooperplate STD 30/70/100 pt
Aachen STD: 16 pt/ 20 pt
Opening Spread:
Headline: Cooperplate STD 50 pt/150 pt
Deckhead: Meridian LD STD: 12 pt
Byline: Cooperplate STD: 12 pt
Jump Spread:
Body Copy: Meridian LD STD: 11 pt/kerned from 0 to 70
Captions: Cooperplate Gothic STD: 9.5 pt/no kerning
Sidebar text: Trade Gothic LT STD: 12 pt/no kerning
GRA 217.3 Low Resolutions 