The Final Thing

My Work Progress

Heres What I have been doing to create my final product of two double page spreads of a magazine.

Sketches

Heres some of the ideas that I have for my layout designs.

Stefan Sagmeister (Research Task 1)

Stefan Sagmeister

Stefan Sagmeister is a designer who has been following his instinct and intuition to the fullest, having gained recognition for his unique and often provocative, visual explorations. It’s possibly his very personal and almost self-centric way to design that leads to his original approach.

A bit of history. When the Austrian born  designer moved to New York he made it his mission to work for the legendary designer Tibor Kalman at M&Co before starting his own studio in 1994. 
On May 31, 19 years after starting his NYC studio he once again surprised the crowds with renaming to Sagmeister & Walsh in a  trademark Sagmeister fashion (naked in the studio.)

Sagmeister earned Grammys for his iconic music 
packaging art (see his David Byrne CD covers). With his poster designs for the AIGA, as well as a slew of heralded personal projects. It’s safe to say that his status as a design superstar has been cemented.

Neville Brody (Research Task 1)

Neville Brody is perhaps the best known graphic designer of his generation. He studied graphic design at the London College of Printing and first made his way into the public eye through his record cover designs and his involvement in the British independent music scene in the early 1980s.

As the Art Director of Fetish he began experimenting with the beginnings of a new visual language that consisted of a mixture of visual and architectural 
elements. Later he was able to put these ideas into practice and to set new 
precedents through the innovative styling of The Face magazine (1981-1986).

Brody also won over much of the  public through his highly innovative ideas on incorporating and combining 
typefaces into design. Later on he took this a step further and began   designing his own typefaces, 
therefore opening the way for the advent of digital type design.


It was his work on magazines that firmly established his reputation as one of the world’s leading graphic designers. In
particular, his artistic contribution to The Face completely revolutionised the way in which designers and readers approach the medium. Though Brody rejected all commercialisation of his graphic style, his unique designs soon became much-imitated models for magazines, advertising and consumer-oriented graphics of the eighties.

Ideas and inspiration

These great examples of double page spreads are ones that i take inspiration from and will include aspects uaed here in my own work. 
Personally I am a great fan the use of white space, I feel that it gives a sense of 
simplicity and makes the page look more modern and proffesional. 
on the other hand, filling a page with an image and having text overlaying it also makes a great spread. 

The jayz page appeals to me, it has confronted the issue of the crease in the middle page which can prove hard to deal with if not taken into consideration during the design process. 

A more collage effect has me undecided on the layout that I will choose for my own double page spread. I like how it gives the page a more layered look to it, it instantly grabs the attention of the target audience.

Here are a few double page spread that caught my eye. All of them are different but unique in their own ways. 
The first one intituled “HARD TIMES” I especially like becasue of its rough cut “n” stick and the colours that are used are linked the to the topic of the article which is electronic music and dance scene.  
I plan to use these elements in my own work. 

The Second image with the yellow background also appeals greatly to me with the layered images, the use on white space imbetween the images gives it an organised mess look to it which is used throughout the rest of the article, the text int he title and subheadings overlaps the background. i like the face that it isn’t all within the normal set lines and borders, this piece has it’s own style.  

My Brief And Development Of Skills

This Project allows me to explore into another industry that I am very passionate about whic is the music industry. I feel that I am going to enjoy this project as I can interlink graphic design with music to create my final outcome. 

During this project I will able to use the new skills that I have learnt of the last few weeks of my college course. 

Here are some of the skills that I think I will be able to use and improve during the course of this project.

Development of skills


I have been practicing kerning and using sites such as type.method.ac (kern me) this site proved very helpful and gave me more of an understanding about kerning. 
During this project I plan to use kerning in all type that I use to make my work look more professional. 

During this project I plan to develop my skills using Adobe Illustrator. During the Digital Skills lessons that are given on my course I have been working hard on what we have practiced and will use and develop these skills I currently have and hopefully become more advanced in these areas. 

Adobe Indesign is a new program to me as my last place of study had very limited or no access at all to macs or programs such as these. What i have learnt so far with Indesign has stuck quite quickly and I am getting the hang of things now, still there is great room for improvement and during the course of this project I shall be using and improving these skills to create my work and develop my ideas. 

My Brief Analysis


My brief is an interesting and insipring one as it is a competition and also gives me a wide range of opportunities to explore. 
The Society of Publication Designers is dedicated to promoting and encouraging excellence in editorial design. Every year, SPD holds a professional competition to find the best editorial design out there. Now students have the chance to be a part of this world-class event!

The section that I have chosen is to Design a two-spread story for this magazine that is a biography or interview. I am Treating this as a interview and I have chosen one of my favourite music artists to base it on. The main focus will be on a man called Jamie Jones. 

In order to create this project with understanding I must first research design layouts for a interview style reports in magazines and newpapers, major influences will come from magazines such as MixMag and DJmagazine, both have great,attractive and modern layouts to their pages that appeal to the readers. 

Also research into other designers that have influence on writen interviews and biographys will help me to understand more about the task in hand.