Friday, 2 December 2011

Creative Review

Creative Review is a monthly magazine which was first published in 1980. It is target at the commercial arts and design scene. It is published by Centaur Media plc. Down below I am going to be looking at double page spreads along with front covers of this magazine to try at get an idea on how I should layout my designs.

Front Covers



The first front cover I am going to look at is rather different from the one's I have seen. They have taken a picture of what seems to be a male face and then gone into illustrator or even photoshop and has either gone over it with different shades of circles, or used some kind of effects in the program. What I like about this front cover is how they have shown by using different shades, the can reconstruct an image in a different way. What I don't like about this front cover is how they put the CR box in pink, it clashes completely with the image ruining it in my opinion. 



This next front cover is rather interesting. I like the way they have focused on one letter and made it look different. To be honest I'm not sure whether it was created or whether it is just a photo, either way it has been nicely done. What I don't like about it is I don't see any meaning behind it. I don't understand what it is trying to represent. 


In this next front cover I like the way they have used that main image of the circle, and cut in up to make the pattern at the bottom. If I had to guess I would say that they used adobe illustrator to do this because that would have been the best program to used for shapes, and that it doesn't use pixels. I don't really have any faults with this cover, although it is simple I like that part about it. 


This front cover is clearly a picture of a bird eye, and if I were to guess, I would say its a picture of an owl's eye. I really like this cover, and the amount of detail the photographer has been able to capture in the photo. Like the colour of the eye and how you can see different shades of blue in it. I also like how you can see the detail on the feathers. This is a brilliant front cover and I would like to see the photographers work just by seeing this cover.


The last front cover Im going to look at is good because over how its been made. The creator has cut out a piece of paper and the created a type of sculpture of the letter thats been cut out, using what seems to be different materials to make it. I like the creative side of it, and how they have gone to the effort to create something and photograph it rather that just taking a photo of something already made.

What I've Noticed!
By looking at these front covers and others online I've noticed a similar pattern. They majority of them seem to have this white border around the edge of the cover. This may be because they don't want any of the image to be cut off, or they would like to keep some kind of consistency. I've decided to use this in my front cover, because I think it works well to have this type or border around the picture. 

I have also noticed that they seem to focus around one thing, and not have a lot of things going on in the front cover. I will also keep this in mind when creating my front cover. 



2 Page Spreads




The first 2 page layout from Creative Review i am going to look at has been done very well. I like the way they have used the whole page to dedicated to one photo. However with that photo they have let it come over slightly onto the other page, which personally I think just looks like they didn't crop it well. There isn't a lot of writing which is good, because the main focus on this double page spread seems to be the photos which have been taken. 


This next layout has much more writing than the other one I looked at. This tells me that the main focus here is the article itself. I like how they have placed the picture in the middle as one of the main focus points. Its interesting looking through a creative review book they are not afraid to let there photos over run onto the next page, which other magazines would try to avoid. Another thing i like about this layout is the way the two main topics start with a large first letter. Its an old technique which you would see in Manuscripts but it still works well today.


This next layout has been done so that the left hand side page contains most of the images. However I like how they have created gaps between the images which makes them look nicely laid out. I also like how they created a type of slogan, "Come in We're open" which goes well with the images that are being shown. 


Again like the previous article they have put the main image in the center of the layout I find it to be a dangerous move sometimes because it tends to ruin the image were you have a big line down the middle were the pages are joined. I do like however the little circles with the people faces in, I feel its a good way to show a persons image. 


Again they have used the same technique of putting the main image in the center of the layout. By seeing this so often I may try to include it in my layout when I look at designing my layouts. What I like about this particular layout though is how the images have been put together and the words have kinda been placed around them. 


From looking at these layouts I have noticed two things. That they tend to not be afraid of letting the image run over to the other page, or don't even mind it being divided between to pages. I have also noticed they are not afraid to space everything so there is a lot of white on the page. I will take these points into consideration when designing my ideas so that they will look like something that would go into the creative review magazine. 

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