This magazine created for the Narragansett Historical Society of Templeton features the 1938 hurricane that devastated Baldwinville. This project originally was done in Quark, but I have recreated it in InDesign since MWCC has dropped Quark to cut costs. (This meant extra work for me now, but a plus for the future in case the historical society decides to adopt this publication.) I selected "Storm Extra Bold" as the font for the headline "1938 Hurricane" and tilted the photos to represent the chaos of the wind.
The town of Templeton is comprised of four small villages, which always haven't seen eye-to-eye down through history (there have been attempts to separate). That is why I selected the "Four Villages ... Sharing One History" banner, in order to reflect unity.
Changes suggested: On the cover, extend the tail on the "g" in "Villages" in the banner so that "Sharing One History" is now on the tail. On the spread, change the position of the headline on the left panel so that it "swirls," matching the swirling of the hurricane in the background image. And I need to remove the bar code.
Changes made: I wanted to get this online for review now, in case I lost power due to Winter Storm Neptune, so I decided not to extend the tail of the "g" in "Four Villages," but I am open to trying this. I "swirled" the headline on the left panel, but I'm not sure it works. So I have posted both the "before and after" panels. I value your input. What do you think?
 |
| Magazine Cover |
 |
| Magazine Contents Page with border for better viewing |
 |
| Magazine Spread (original) |
 |
| Magazine Spread (updated left panel) |
Virginia, I think the swirling Hurricane 1938 title works well, nice integration of typography and image. Some thoughts:
ReplyDelete1. Cover: The masthead logo is clever with lots of elements tucked into each other – and that’s good. It is interesting that you chose to use fonts that aren’t particularly “old”. I wonder how you could make this look more historical and antique? Think about how you might add an Oldstyle font to the mix in a few places (the “FOUR”, the taglines at bottom, subheadings inside, etc…) See what you think – it might be a way to give us the “feel” of the era.
You are presenting a very dramatic event on this cover. I encourage you to reconsider the “values” of the colors on this cover… they could/should support the “drama” of the design I think, in a much better way. Try using black/white/gray for an experiment… to see which values work best. Doing this as thumbnails would be the fastest way of testing which “values” work best. (The background color of the swath shape that is tilted across the middle of the page and holds the type “1938 Hurricane”…. Have you considered making it black, or a very dark color?)
Then come back to your color palette, and choose colors that hold these values. I see that your cover color palette is cream, white, black, orange, and green. Do you need all them? Another sophisticated way of making old photos have more depth is to use duotones. Have you considered using this technique (maybe black and blue) for your cover photos?
See this tutorial – it’s easy: https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVvmFIOFUER8AEWsnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTB0ZjNuMHJ1BHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkA1lIUzAwM18x?p=duotone+tutorials&tnr=21&vid=69DF899411876359526C69DF899411876359526C&l=337&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608034401679706963%26pid%3D15.1&sigi=11r8dk3de&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DwhypParrOM4&sigr=11bjjtej2&tt=b&tit=photoshop+tutorial+duotones&sigt=10rkuv7f2&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dduotone%2Btutorials%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla%26ei%3DUTF-8&sigb=12t36q7da&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
And, as you reconsider the values, remember your Visual Hierarchy, and don’t confuse us – currently you have 2 focal points on the page.
2. Contents: NICE! Because of your image (containing oldstyle letters) we have that olden-timey feel. The small text block at bottom ends strangely with a page # and photo credit. Find other places for these items (photo credit can be quite small).
3. Page 6/7: Where do you want the reader to look first - maybe the title? In which case I wonder if it should be colored rather than bl/wh?
Do you think you can unify the heading “Powerful Hurricane…”with the bulleted list so they “read” together better? They appear to work together well , in terms of content. Bulleted list has a 2nd line widow, so break that line earlier with a “shift return” after “bridges”. I suggest you move the excerpt to the end of the column to continue to simplify the top of this column.
The yellow text “The huge Smith…” confuses me. Is it a pull quote from the text, or another caption? Or an additional page element? Where does it belong… in terms of content? If it is a stand alone section – I actually think it might be a better headline to begin the page with… it’s certainly more exciting. Consider pulling that to the top of the page, and restyling the current heading as simply a small bold heading atop of the bulleted list, which will need to move out of the primary position at the top.
Looking forward to seeing what happens with this project.
I like your masthead "Four Villages" very clever. I also like the clock on your contents page. The paper in the background gives the page a border. Replacing the background with an image of distressed paper that bleeds off the page may help to give the page a more historic look. I am going to disgree with Coni which is probably a bad idea but I like personally like "The 1938 Hurricane" across the bottom of the spread rather than covering the image of the hurricane itself. The bottom black and white photo on your spread seems to have a tint to it. I would imagine it was scanned from an old news paper. I think it would look better to bring it into photoshop and adjust it so it matches the others. Hope this helps.
ReplyDelete