602 - Intro to LOTTIE'S PHOTOBOOK

A photography student approached me wondering if I could help her out with one of her editorial briefs. Initially, this seems like a fantastic opportunity to get involved with a bit of editorial this year - to balance out my portfolio and show I can do both print and digital.



Her brief was basically to showcase her collection of photos through an editorial magazine. 
Having already known about the brief from a previous chat we'd had before Christmas I'd already put together some typeface options for her title: "It's Grim Up North", trying to take into account the bold charisma and brash pride of a Yorkshire man through the typefaces I was choosing. There is quite a current and trendy youth which is up & coming up North nowadays in cities like Manchester, Leeds and Newcastle - so I was really excited to go to Town with this project!

We met up to sit down and go through the possibilities of each typeface, for her to only give me the news that apparently it has to be in the style of / replicating the Guardian's printed magazine editions and it is in for the following week!
This quickly restricted the creative scope of the project, as she explained to me that she does not want it very experimental or trendy, just to be simple and quite corporate/commercial as you'd expect from a Guardian spread!
- very strict on guidelines 
      - typeface
      - layout
      - stock

For me, this sucked the life out of the project as I was quite looking forward to really researching zine culture in depth to potentially use this as a full brief for 603. But she knew exactly what she wanted and was not willing to be persuaded, so I did have to adapt as a designer and meet the demands of the client to get the project finished off for her. 

From this I evaluated that I can't do it as a full brief, but still use it as an opportunity to better my client to designer relationship skills - learning to deal with and better communicate with tougher clients.

We narrowed the typeface options down to 4. 
- Soho Pro - being at the top - a very legible slab serif ideally matching that of the Guardian - she loved it and was sold. Also comes in many different weights for use throughout the publication.
- Wellrock Slab, abit more of an experimental slab serif - she likes it but said it was not close enough to the Guardian typeface -_-.
- Sporting Grotesque - a bold and charismatic sans serif typeface - which she likes and considered using it alongside the slab serif in the publication.
- Savate - much too experimental but liked the obscurity of the contrasting line widths.

From this I quickly learnt how we needed some research to support what we were doing, from this suggestion she we went straight out and got a copy of the Guardian magazine edition from a shop so she could ensure every detail was the same!!

    

She was keen to match the covers with the minimal aesthetic and upside down teardrop in the top corner. As well as wanting to mimic the diagonally aligned type somehow with her chosen cover.

The spreads were very basic with 3 - 4 columns of text and various Headings and Sub-headings / quotes next to pictures. 

Would be very simply to imitate this style of publication!











Now it was a matter of getting the content for the articles and then deciding the ordering of the images alongside the text - as well as deciding which images can be grouped together on a page to allow for the collection of images and publication itself to flow and make sense most effectively and clearly for the viewer.