Week 4 Posting 1

I started today by learning a little about Adobe InDesign, I installed it on my Mac just fine but I have yet to finish installing it on my PC. It looks very complicated, but I feel up to the challenge. After learning about the program I went around my house and rounded up some magazines for inspiration. Something that caught my attention was that my mother had kept some magazines on display (shown on left)  in a magazine rack and about thirty others (Some shown on right) stacked in a pile in my garage. I thought, what is the difference between someone keeping a magazine rather than throwing it away? How do I make someone want to keep my magazine? Something that stood out to me right away was simplicity. none of the magazines my mother kept had shouting sub titles that filled the page, but they all had just enough. Well, what about her throwout pile? what stood out in there? One thing that struck me as interesting was the
unopened magazine (Shown at right). What is so uninteresting
about this magazine that she wouldn't even open it? I came
to the conclusion that it was just too simplistic. The designers
were aiming towards "Spring Simplicity" but spring means bright colors,
not boring greys. Even the subtitles are boring, "the eagle hunters of
Mongolia", that may be appealing to a bird fanatic or an avid hunter, but
this issue is centered around fashion. It is not only boring, but it is also
confusing. I think this is something for me to stay away from. Last, but not least on my journey is size. By the end of my wild goose chase my stack was pretty heavy. My mother had kept a thick issue of Vanity Fair but had disposed of a thicker issue of Vogue, but why? They are published by the
same company and have similar enough designs, so why keep one and no the other. I'm going to go with size (they are compared on the right) of course one is less bulky, but what matters is what cause the bulk, and if you have flipped through a thicker issue of Vogue, you know what I mean.  75% of the magazine is pure advertisement. Who wants a collection of advertisements? Again, something I will avoid.



Next time, I will talk about the beginning of my magazine building process.