Reviews re-design part 5

 

Below are the final images we have created for the layout of the paper showing roughly,  what the page will look like. This was created using Adobe In-Design by creating the boxes from scratch and importing image files of the circle banners, star ratings and Icons. Creating the article boxes for the articles is relatively quick and simple and appears more organised and flows better.

 

Pages Include a new reviews title, a banner consistent throughout the paper, page numbers and date. The boxes can easily be altered to fit the sizes of the articles however banners and icons remain the same size.

Reviews Page re-design part 4

Below is an example page layout created on Adobe Photoshop which displays the final box and icon designs, we are now working on creating these as a template in Adobe InDesign. This is a basic idea of what the page will look like, using some old and new reviews written by me:

Reviews Page re-design part 3

Below are some developed ideas for the boxes which include the icons, star ratings and positioning and also some additional icons made:

Reviews page re-design part 2

Here are some developed designs for the article boxes and also some icon designs by Derek to be incorporated into the box designs.

The Bradford Student Re-design

Following a meeting on the 24th July 2010, discussing the future of the University's student newspaper it was decided that a re-design of the reviews section was needed.

The reviews section does not flow very well from article to article, making it difficult to read and unclear as to where the articles begin and end. On top of this, to encourage more people to read the section and get involved in writing for the paper the colour schemes and layout will be a more modern design and stand out from other articles.

Below are some initial ideas for the section:

Below are some initial ideas that myself and Derek Doherty created for article boxes that text and images will be inserted into:

Media Product - Fair Play magazine

Below are my final magazine page templates including: a front cover for the first issue, a letter from the editor, an example feature page, a previews page anda reviews page. Each contains my own written work artwork and photography, some images however, like game screenshots had to be found. The magazine pages were created using the program Adobe Photoshop CS3, making use of the stock fonts, shapes and some colour schemes.

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Front cover sources: Barcode from www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=16389

Editor's letter sources:
http://image.shutterstock.com/display_pic_with_logo/10629/10629,1187014026,1/stock-photo-noise-on-old-tv-screen-retro-television-concept-no-signal-4545907.jpg

Feature sources:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/5407490.stm

Previews page images and sources:
http://uk.media.ds.ign.com/media/142/14286495/imgs_4.html
http://www.nintendo.com/games/detail/nR48Ll934oyuhjANoCz-4-ANa2ZLbYPK#images
http://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption/screens
http://www.rockstargames.com/reddeadredemption/info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Dead_Redemption
http://redsteelgame.uk.ubi.com/red-steel-2/?page=medias§ion=1
http://uk.gamespot.com/psp/rpg/kingdomheartsbirthbysleep/images.html?om_act=convert&om_clk=gsimage&tag=images%3Bheader%3Bmore

Reviews page sources and images:
http://www.officialnintendomagazine.co.uk/article.php?id=16142
http://www.godofwar.com/en_GB/index.htm#Downloads
http://www.winterbottomgame.com/
http://uk.gamespot.com/ds/action/aliceinwonderland/images/0/2/
http://uk.gamespot.com/wii/adventure/calling/images/0/93/
http://finalfantasy-xiii.net/final-fantasy-xiii/screenshots.php

David Carson

David Carson is an American graphic designer, best known for his innovative magazine design and use of experimental typography. He art directed various music, skateboarding and surfing magazines through the 1980s and most famously the style magazine "Ray gun" (1992-5). His layouts featured distortions or mixes of "venacular" typefaces and fractured imagery.

Plazm is a design and culture magazine which has been published by a collective of designers since 1991 . The image to the left is a cover design by David Carson for issue 16 (1997) of the magazine.

The cover is very simplistic, the photo is the main focus which is very hard to understand, a convention of Carson's style. The Image appears to be of a man's head in a waste paper basket, concealed by a newspaper. The framing is closed as due to the dark lighting it is very difficult to see any of the background. The object in the bin is possibly a manakin's head and wig, but Carson does successfully achieve a realistic perspective. The combed back hair of the head, suggests sophistication, and put into context with the wastepaper bin and newspaper, cultural connotations suggest it is a business/office worker. What is also interesting about the newspaper is that none of the text is legible as this is not meant to give meaning or context to the picture, making it more difficult to give deeper meaning to the image.

The smaller heading under the title suggests the subject of the picture and possibly alludes to material inside the magazine. "No more heroes" suggests that the head in the bin is that of one of these heroes, an office worker, who has been discarded and disposed of.

The lowercase text, white in colour and very bold, stands out against the dark background photo. The text, although distorted, is still readable as the first section of the title is higher than the second, leading the eye to read the top part first.

Sources:

http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Carson_(graphic_designer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plazm_(magazine)
http://www.plazm.com/magazine/back-issues/plazm-16