Practical Skill

Graphic Designer Inspiration

Max Hubert is a Swiss graphic designer whose style is a playful overlay of colorful objects over each other with a multi-blend mode, Hubert's layout is also very questionable due to the fact that it is diagonal from low right to left.

I have chosen him as an inspiration for my practice due to the overlay element of the shapes which creates a parallax and eye-catching aspect, this links to the fact that I want my magazine to be targeted at mostly teens and young adults which is an appealing aspect would be a graphical- modern style.

Neville Brody magazine design

Neville Brody is a english graphic designer who was born in London on 23 April 1957.

Neville is a famous graphic artist which has worked with big projects such as the poster of the great action film Ocean Twelve, also Neville is a revolutionary in the world of graphic design art as Neville was introducing the styles of futurism and constructive design which made him standout from the competitions and also

giving birth to the influence of using bold and brutalistic designs in the modern world of media texts which is seen even today in the upcoming trends of impactful posters, magazines and art. 

I have chose to cover Neville for my research as to identify characteristics and conventions of a magazine which is professional and has the same design themes as mine.

Although his magazine design seems familiar to mine, i have to say that it is very hard to locate the masthead which due to changing the location of it to the bottom and expanding it even on the back page, therefore stretching its design which i am not a big fan however, I do enjoy the fact that text placement making it very uniform and nice to look at captivating the my eye, I plan also to use such feature for my spread context as well however with a right hand justification making it more geometrical which is what i intend to put together.

FRONT COVER NR 1 (MF)

This right here, is my first attempt at a magazine front cover. The purpose of making this mock-up or test was to experiment and come up with a futuristic aspect that I intend to use for my magazine's design. 

In this poster I have attempted to make add a futuristic design by adding the element of threshold, I have used such an element on the main image (subject) to give the digital distorted look. The use of threshold is to create a harsh contrast between high exposure(white) and low exposure(black), such contrast makes a simple and impactful design but also distresses the picture's quality making the futuristic distress effect.

Also, I have attempted to achieve a digital aspect by the use of color overlay, this is highlighted in the use of color overlay on both the main image and secondary typography, the use of overlay creates a digital color spectrum and a colorful shadow to add not only depth but also nice color contrast. This creates a nice digital effect that can be achieved only through the access of, the Photoshop feature, blend-overlay. 

This poster is not on my satisfactory level due to its confusing design and non-consistent theme, the lack of color consistency can be seen in the differences in the orange coloring between the dark orange masthead and the light to dark orange of the sub-heading. This difference bothers the beauty of the magazine making it non-attractive and disturbing for the customers due to its confusing style.

Even though the coloring of this cover came out disturbing, this was just experimentation with what colors I should use and how they would look together with different tones.

FRONT COVER 2 (MF) 

This is my second making of the MF front cover. I am very happy with the outcome of this front cover due to fitting in all of my requested design elements for my magazine cover.

One of the elements is the minimalistic layout which allows me to put as much content and sub-headings and topics with a balanced content awareness and simple geometrical aspect.

The geometrical aspect could be clearly seen in the use of mostly basic shapes such as rectangles, lines, and squares to give off an old brutalist feeling but filled with bright color gradings which are in the trend of remastered Y2K posters and graphics. These points and effect link to my audience's age demographic as most of them are from an open mind age gap (14- 30) which has an intendancy to future trends in all categories of media, therefore I have used Y2K and old brutalist design as there are on a massive wave into the world of graphic design and also has the most effective layout for information due to its impactful but simple nature.

Another thing about this front cover that I really like, is its use of a bold minimalistic layout. I see the bold minimalistic layout as a very neat way of segmenting information and text which covers the need of the reader for guidance and clarity when going through a magazine, however, personally, the reason why I love and chose this design, is due to its way of giving all pieces of information and texts the same amount of publicity because of its consistent maintenance of a highlighted look, which captivates the reader's eye, without affecting the another text's attractiveness but in fact also highlighting the neighboring text due to similarity. This effect could be seen perfectly between Today's Arts and the Charles Olivera section how both have the same level of attention and attractiveness to it no matter of its coloring and size. 

The futuristic minimalistic layout is not only in the trend at the moment throughout poster and graphic design but also is a seeking need by a younger audience between 14-30 due to a little decline of attention spam due to short and bold social media content that took over longer media content such as Youtube Videos and documentaries, therefore this layout combats this problem as it requires them no brain work to find where to read from or how hard does the information come to them.

Updated Front cover nr2 (MF)

This is an updated version that would be more appealing and suitable for my magazine and audience. Due to the heavy use of gradients in the context sheet among texts, I have decided to try it out on the text of the front cover which surprisingly works very well and looks like it would be a professional magazine due to its feature of color usage to collect your attention, especially right at the beginning of the magazine.

This change was very easy to do as I just colored the words and I used color selection in order to create a gradient mask on top of the words.

I have used diverse gradients due to the difference in sports and for a more playful aesthetic.

Final Update Front Cover nr2 (MF)

A final update on the front cover of the MF magazine, I have decided to remove the grey rectangle that role was to give an industrial look, however after my viewers said it doesn't look like it has any positive effect on the magazine, as a matter of fact, damaging the colorful brutalist look which I have maintained through most of my page designs, therefore I have come to a conclusion to fully remove it and it seems like is much neater than before and it gives a consistent look right from the title.

The removable rectangle has pushed me to add a bright color to "martial fanatics" in order to highlight the role of the text as a title, the change of color was too white as it creates a strong contrast to the black gradient background and also the color chosen helps with the consistency of my brutalist design.

For "Volume One" I have overlayed a gradient that adds up most of the colors that can be found in the colors of the headings and sub-heading, I have chosen to apply such change because I intend to create a color uniqueness and an identity for this specific volume, this gives one of the "unique selling points" that my magazine would have if it was an actual magazine and not just a demo, the color theme creates the USP that each magazine volumes are completely unique and original therefore pushing my readers to continue in the future to collect and discover another volume.  

Content sheet

This is my content sheet for my magazine, I decided to make a content sheet as it was a good suggestion from my teacher to give a more realistic look to my magazine mock-up.

I think this content sheet would be my chosen one to add to my Adobe InDesign magazine layout. I have used Photoshop to make this content sheet due to my need for heavy graphical looks such as gradient placements and adding vectors with adjusted texture and effects. 

I have chosen this content sheet due as my good-to-go one because of its similar typographical look and text justification. The similarity of the typography in the content sheet and the front cover comes from the use of a font that I have downloaded from the internet under the section of brutalist and bold typography, called "Akira", which I will be using for my headings and sub-headings, is a very strong and bold text which gives a great attention-grabbing feature to the text, such feature is a must when it comes to my audience physio-graphic, because of the target audience is made of young athletes their attention and energy must match on how clear is the gathering of information from the text, therefore, the Akira typography will be assisting with such requirement by strongly showcasing the information and heading to the reader maintaining his attention.

The text justification and pattern from the front magazine is an extreme left or right placement and way of reading the information. I have tried to apply such text placement in my content sheet by placing the text as close as possible without damaging the clarity and look of the starting letters. This is a nice feature that links to one of the "likes" from my target audience's psycho-graphic which is uniformity and order, therefore, the text placement will satisfy the reader through its design encouraging him to engage with the magazine transforming the reader from passive to an active audience.  

 

Spreadsheet template 

Without inspiration from no other magazines, I have chosen to try and do my own template which might look simple but that is my purpose because the clearer and simple the layout is, the easier it would be for my younger audience to understand and read the text underneath each heading, and also its distanced separation between text boxes, allows the reader to select which piece of information the reader might be after making him enjoy more the magazine due to freedom of no matter he chooses there is no small contextual link that forces him to read the whole piece of text which the reader might not like.  

The use of uniform gradient on the major and subheadings shows only one big link between them which is the specific sport that the page talks about, the use of color is a much more pleasant way of conducting a major link between texts as you don't have to read it and just look at it and see the uniformity, therefore helping my young and old audience to understand the content of the page.

Photoshoot 1- 3 May 2023

On the 3 of May, I took a picture for my BJJ chapter which I intend to edit it into monochrome style and put as my spread image.

For this picture to be put this picture together  I have used my uniform as a prop outfit for a medium shot of a BJJ practitioner posting in a traditional or related stance.

My target goal of editing would be a B/W coloring with high clarity and contrast however I had to jump it a little bit in the contrast and exposure due to the fact that my suit has the same color as the drop shadow panel.

For more in-depth editing here are the percentages:

• Temp 4500
• Tint 130
• Exposure -0.30
• Contrast 78
• highlights -100
• shadow 53
• white 100
• Black -100
• Grain 100 
• *any saturation is -100
  
  
  

These are some of the pictures from today's photo session, unfortunately, I was meant to have diverse models who were practitioners themself, however, I couldn't fetch them in time for the finish of the week, therefore, I have chosen to use myself as a model for the sake of not affecting the progression of this week and also I am coming close to the deadline.

I haven't changed anything from the lighting plan or the setting from the editing, I have kept such things because I want to keep the theme and consistent look of the magazine spread pictures. 

MF Magazine

Here you can see a demo of my magazine with only 3 pages, that is the front cover, pages one and two. I have labeled this as a demo due to the fact that I am still experimenting with the tools of InDesign and created templates. however, it seems like the demo spread works quite well, considering the positive feedback from students, teachers, and some people that are in the Martial arts field.

Some of the ratings were mostly "4/5" with the common complaints of the front cover magazine title being quite boring and missing consistency in the grading of the sub-topic text. This presents a problem in the visual design of the magazine cover since it feels like it disconnects the heading from the rest of the page.

To solve this problem, for the title of the magazine, I would experiment with the effects of the blending tools which Photoshop offers. I was told by one of the viewers that "maybe try to add a 3D drop-shadow" for the geometry of the letters making it stand out more, and for the color "add any non-chrome color because of the background being already black." 

I would be taking this advice and experimenting with the text in Photoshop by using the blend tool and I would also look for some free texture on the internet which I could be using to add as an overlay(low opacity texture) and not fully as an 80-100% opacity texture because I think it would damage the consistent industrial and futuristic look.

I personally think I would be keeping the template and the choice of the gradients as it fits perfectly with the industrial and futuristic look that I am aiming to show serve to my audience, although it seems like the layout pays a big role in the specific look due to its feature of expanding its size to occupy as much of the white space emphasizing its message and what it tries to tell. The use of such an easy technique of giving straight-up context is very useful as it matches the low level of attention need it to understand the purpose of the text, which my energetic target audience requires because of their high physical energy output background. 

My Final Magazine

Above u can see my final and completed version of my magazine. I have to say that while in the process of making this magazine, I experienced many revelations and changes from the original plan, these changes and ideas were of course targeted to achieve the same goal as planned from the beginning, therefore not changing any purpose or at least show disruption in my final major project's outcome and quality.

The procedure of assembling and crafting this magazine was spread across two editing softwares, Photoshop, and InDesign, each of these softwares were used for developing essential parts which are used in the assembly, these essentials are Template and Text

For the template, I have spent my time on Photoshop, which I have to say was the most time-consuming because I was targeting to do a very graphical design and simple template. Experimenting with designs and graphics was very painful until I have come to the conclusion of installing a gradient use in my design which made my job 10 times easier, also the tool of bleeding really helped me not only save time but to fully customize the gradient with no difficulty.

I have chosen to use a complete gradient for each sport, therefore, making each page more attractive and unique without creating a problem with the consistency of the overall design, this choice also links to the planned futuristic and brutalist aesthetics, by the gradient, which is a futuristic look, is applied to a very geometrical and bold typography which covers the brutalist design.

As for InDesign. I have used this software to fit and add the text content which I have found it the most hard to work with because of my lack of experience with the software therefore leading me to do research on how the pluggins and tools InDesign has to offer, such as spread management and parent page system, which I have founded the hardest to use as I experienced many problems with it however I have solved it by independently arranging the text box for the page number on each page.  

In the process of making such a magazine, I changed the design of the title because my originally planned title design was seen a lot as a problem in the consistent design of my magazine. My original design of the title was a black version of the title " Martial Fanatic" overlayed on top of a grey square which was meant to be giving a geometric design of the 80s cassette sipes, fortunately, I have received the feedback from one of the readers which gave me the idea to experiment with the text and make it to stand out, don't disturb the consistency of the visual design and make it simple and not to complex. Once the feedback was received I jumped into Photoshop and decided to make the text "Martial Fanatics" white and remove the gray band making the front cover more neat and consistent in its design with also highlighting both the title and volume number.