Story
I chose to do Barbie’s 50th anniversary for my story because after watching a documentary on Barbie, I realized the popular culture phenomenon behind her. The article I chose looks back on the past fifty years of Barbie. I felt that she could be fun to art direct because she has never really been art directed in a magazine before, but she is just as well known as other individuals on magazine covers. I thought it would be fun to do a different kind of cover girl. I felt that this story would be in a young female interest magazine, which is the type of magazine I like to read. I also wanted to do a timeline because that would give me a nice horizontal aspect in my design to break up the visual flow of my page and create emphasis. I also wanted to escape boundaries in some areas. I used a Barbie shoe instead of a drop cap and placed it slightly outside the grid to break out of the established visual flow. I also used a pull quote to tie together the horizontal aspects and the escaping boundaries.
Typeface
I chose Eurostile Lt Std Bold for my magazine typeface. I used it for the name of the magazine, the date, the cover line and the folios. I think it is a simple, legible, sans serif that works in larger sizes and smaller sizes, which is important in the magazine. For my headline, pull quote and timeline header I used Bell Mt Std Bold Italic. I thought it was very feminine and similar to the Barbie logo. I used Century Expanded for my body text because it worked well with my headline font but had enough contrast. For my timeline and side bar as well as my byline and deck head I used Frutiger Lt Std Bold. It created contrast with my body copy and catches the reader’s eye for breaks on the page.
Color
I used Pantone colors for my magazine because the Barbie pink has a designated pantone color, Pantone 219. This pink was used for my magazine title, my headline, my pull quote, my timeline and my sidebar. I bought a Barbie doll with pink clothing to use for my pictures to work with the whole Barbie pink idea. I used Pantone Yellow 012 for the cover of my magazine and my side bar because it gave a nice opposite color to the pink. I also used Pantone 292 for my opening spread because it worked nicely with the pink and I tried to match Barbie’s eye color. It makes Barbie stand out because she is warm colored and the blue is a cool color that drops to the back. I used Pantone Warm Gray 2 for the rest of my headline, byline and deck head because it was a silvery gray that came out of the Barbie’s outfit on the opening spread and it worked with the pink.
I really like this magazine. I think that the idea was really clever, and I appreciate that you took time to take a lot of the pictures yourself. I think that the text works really well on the cover and that the font is really appropriate for this magazine. I think that the star for the dot in the "i" makes it really stand out from other things that might carry the same name.
ReplyDeleteThe jumpspread you used is really nicely laid out and I think you used your white space in a great way. The headline moves your eyes right down into the deckhead, and I think you did a really good job doing that.
I think my favorite part of the magazine is your timeline. It flows very nicely and has great readability. The pictures are also really fun and adds a graphical touch to the text.
I think overall you did a really good job. Each of the spreads work together to form a great magazine, and I like the fact that the colors are used consistently throughout the magazine.