Publication Design

Like any creative field, designing for publications rewards talent, focus, and hard work. The day-to-day process is a lot less glamorous than the final publication would lead one to believe. Here's my story.

Early Years I began my editorial design career in Boston after graduating from Simmons College with a BA in communications/graphic design. I worked for a few small city publications before I was hired at The Boston Globe. In those days, the paper was black and white and was printed, as it is now, on newsprint. News journalism doesn't lend itself well to studio photography (though The Globe and The Times did accomodate some studio photography for sections like Home or Living), nor is there a budget for expensive photography and illustration. Therefore, there was little opportunity to hire noted photographers like Richard Avedon or or Herb Ritts. And, we didn't have the luxury of waiting a month for a wonderfully detailed illustration. Besides, it would have printed like mud on newsprint. Still, the pace of going to press daily and the quality of the journalism appealed to me. After a few years at the Globe, I moved from Boston to New York City to pursue my career in earnest. By then, I had become enamored with Rolling Stone and chose it as my number one job quest. I interviewed there immediately upon my arrival in the city, but didn't land a job with them until over a year later. (It pays to make a good impression and a give them a nicely designed "leave behind" and resume. A little luck helps too.)

Rolling Stone spread from the 1980s

[asleep on the couch at Rolling Stone image would go well here]

Meanwhile, Walter Bernard hired me to help him redesign Fortune magazine, Adweek, and to design the first issue of The New York Times

special section "The Sophisticated Traveler." In all honesty, by far he helped me more than I helped him. But, I did my best and I learned a lot. From Walter I learned that good journalism is the foremost important [Walter Bernard image would go well element in editorial design and that here] working with the editors to create a publication that serves the needs of the readership and reports the news most objectively is far more interesting than making splashy pages.

Don't let the demands of editorial design scare you! It's a hectic life, but a rewarding one.

[caption]

So, by the time Rolling Stone phoned me, I was much less enamored by the job offer. But, I took it anyway. After a couple of years of designing beautiful (and award winning) spreads, I was ready to move on. The subject matter simply didn't interest me, and therefore, no matter how wonderful the photographer or illustrator I was able to hire, or how wacky the typeface I was able to use, I couldn't get excited about staying on at Rolling Stone indefinitely.

The (Now Not So) Grey Lady I thought hard about what publication I would enjoy working for and which one could capture my attention for a long time. The only answer I came up with was The New York Times. I had interviewed at the Times when I first moved to New York City, and again during my tenure at Rolling Stone, and a third time when I was desperately ready to move on. I was hired during that third interview. There are at least seventeen art directors working on the broadsheet sections. The art directed sections appear once per week in the paper and are known as F sections. Each section has its own staff of editors and copyeditors. The magazine staff is separate from the broadsheet staff, although we are all loosely under the direction of a single head art director.

Sample art directed sections in The New York Times

[New graphics here - same size with some padding, using at least one home section front. We can scan this week's if needed.]

When I first started at the Times, I was assigned to the Thursday Home Section. I worked with the Home Section for about two years before I started to move from section to section on shorter stints per section. The paper goes to press everyday at 8:45pm. In those days, the presses were in the basement of the building and stood four floors high. At 8:45pm they would be turned on, the paper would fly through the inked rollers, the inking would be checked for coverage and spills, and when deemed perfect, the papers were printed, folded, bound, and rolled out onto the waiting trucks. By 10pm, as I was exiting my subway stop on my way home from work, the paper was arriving at my local newsstand. Thus, I begin my story at the end of my week, rather than at the beginning. On Thursday mornings not much was going on with the editorial matter for the upcoming week. We, the editorial staff and me, ordinarily slept a little late, recovering from the hectic week, and always rushed deadline of the night before, and strolled in at about noon or 1pm. We had an informal meeting late in the afternoon to talk about specific pieces that might require advanced planning. We met again on Fridays sometime after lunch to begin the week in earnest. Often this is when we firmed up the upcoming week's story list and I began to commission artwork, be it photography or illustration. If I was able to line up all of the art before I left the building on Friday, it was a good week, although mostly too good to be true. Mondays were generally quite hectic with story changes and last minute art commissions, rearranging the commissions from the week prior, and so on. Learn the classical approach to editorial design. Respect the rules; they won't stifle your creative expression and new ideas.

Tuesdays were dedicated to laying out the entire section, including the jump pages (you'll learn about these later). This I did in consultation with the editors and the reporters to make sure that the story read the way it was intended. Often, as the page came together, one or more of us decided on a better way to handle the editorial material, meaning we scrambled for more or different art or a rewrite. Wednesday we proofed, reproofed, and reproofed until 8:30pm when the pages were being taken from under our rereading eyes and sent in for scanning and plate making. The rest you know. And no. I didn't have the luxury of leaving early to go home to children, a waiting husband, a fun date, or an outing with girl friends. Mostly we (editors and art directors) were a solo bunch or hooked up with someone in the profession who understood the demands. Dinner dates were often canceled last minute, theatre tickets given away, rendezvous postponed. After a while, I learned not to make outside plans. But the reward was excellence.

What's Required in Editorial Design As my story shows, designing for a magazine is demanding, and gaining stature as a professional can take time.

For a talented, disciplined, and hard-working designer, however, editorial design (the design of publications) is a wonderful and rewarding creative challenge. At a minimum, editorial design requires attention to detail and a love of the printed word. Whether you are designing an offbeat publication or a taking a classical approach, the design process is the same. I am classically trained, and therefore I am showing you a classical approach. This approach works. Ultimately there are many ways to solve a problem. Please feel encouraged to both learn and practice this approach and to note variations that may be more interesting to you for future projects.

In this class, I'll help you develop the ability to critique your work. [TK new image to replace Rappaport spread]

Defining a Target Audience Before we begin, a word about the target audience. It is always important to decide who your target audience is before you begin to design. Knowing your target audience will help you create an appropriate product for the audience of your publication. Five demographics are customarily deemed essential in determining target audience in editorial design. These are: age group, gender, education level, income, and locale (rural, suburban, or urban). The easiest audience to design for is, of course, one you know well.

Your client or boss will typically supply you with demographic information. For this course, design for yourself as the audience.

For the purposes of this course, I suggest you choose yourself as the target audience. This will not always work on the job. However, for this online course you are the easiest and most accessible target audience to design for. Once you have determined your target audience criteria, please be sure to keep it in mind when creating your projects. Make design decisions that make the product usable for you, the target audience. Our first topic concerns how publications are structured. If you are able to "see" the structure of a publication, designing it becomes much easier.

How Magazines are Structured Features, Departments, and Columns Features are the main stories of the issue. They are usually date

sensitive and appear only once in the history of the publication. They are generally several spreads each with a set of related images. The feature well or feature stories are placed in the center of the publication and are mostly uninterrupted by advertising. Feature stories are often mentioned in the "cover lines" on the cover of the issue.

They may also take up more space on the contents page(s), though there may be fewer of them than there are columns and departments. This is because they run with blurbs and bylines and perhaps in a slightly larger type size than the column and department list. Departments and columns are regularly running sections that appear in every (or almost every) issue. For instance, in a fashion magazine, the departments may be "beauty," "accessories," "dining out," and so on. If the regularly running article is an opinion piece or is written by the same author on a particular subject, it is called a column.

[Caption here. Genevieve may provide additional graphics later.]

Departments and columns are often single page stories, a short article or related short articles paced out over a few pages, or single pages with a set of pictures and long captions that are situated in the front and back of the publication. These pages often face advertising. Departments and columns act as "bookends" to the feature well in a magazine. Sidebar material or service information is often displayed in

information graphics or in a bulleted list. [Note from Genevieve to add example here.]

For your first project, please purchase and dissect a number of magazines so that you understand the underlying structure of magazine design. Good magazines to look at for well-defined department, column, and feature story placement and notation are: Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Kids, Real Simple, Esquire, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, "T" (the style supplements from The New York Times), Metropolis, Teen Vogue, and Dwell. If possible, look at several consecutive issues of the same magazine to see what remains the same and what differs from issue to issue. It's also a good idea to purchase (and study!!) the SPD (Society of Publication Designers) annuals for a comprehensive look at the bestdesigned magazines of each year. In the exercise, I'm going to ask you to present your research into magazines. Here are some of the issues I'm going to ask you to think about:

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How are departments and columns notated (visually identified for the reader)?

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How do contents pages and end pages act as department pages?

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How are opening pages different from jump pages?

Now that you have a basic understanding of the structure of magazine design, let's try something a little more challenging: news publications.

How Newspapers are Structured The A Section Look at The New York Times (and, I don't mean online, folks!). Notice that the Times has several sections titled A, B, C, and often more.

Analyze well respected magazines and newspapers such as GQ, Esquire, New York magazine, Dwell and The New York Times. See if you are able to distinguish magazine features from columns.

The A section is international news. The major stories of the day begin on the front page. These stories can be national, international, business, sports, entertainment, and so on. Any story worth front-page coverage is placed on the front page of the paper. Often front-page stories jump to a section further on or to a page later in the same section. In the upper right hand corner you will find the most important story of the day. This is because the reader's eye goes first to the upper right hand corner. If you peruse the page, you will notice a hierarchy in the size of the headlines. This hierarchy shows the reader what stories are most important and which are less important. Of course, since all these stories are on the front page, they are all important, but the headline sizes help

Notice how many stories begin on a single newspaper page.

clarify most to least important for that day. Notice also that there may be a "bug" or small typographical inset in a column of text. A bug indicates that this story is one in a series of stories on the same subject. A set of stories on the same topic often run weekly rather than daily. The A section or the international section design is based on a template provided by the editorial designers. However, it is designed on a day-today basis by the editors. There are at least four editions of the Times every day. These editions are updated from the first press run at about nine pm throughout the night until the last edition, which goes to press sometime between the hours of four and six am. The editions are edited and updated by a team of editors. Therefore, while the early edition may look one way, later editions may look different. (As a designer, we always hope our pages do not need to be updated or that the updates are small copy issues, as after the first press run we are not present or permitted to correct updates to meet our visual aesthetics). Notice the many typographical details on the international pages of the Times. I will be asking you to comment on these in the exercise.

The B Section and Beyond The B section is the metro section—the local city section. Like the international section, it is designed by editors, based on a template provided by the editorial designers. Other sections that appear daily include Business Day (C section), Sports (D section) and The Arts (E section). The daily F sections are the art directed sections. These include such weekly sections as Science Times, Dining In, House and Home, Style, and Escapes, as well as many Sunday sections including Week in Review, Arts and Leisure, Book Review, Styles, and so on. There are about seventeen broadsheet art directors, each of whom works on a particular section. The art directed sections generally have more white space overall connoting that they are designed with aesthetic considerations as well as for content.

Caption here

In the exercise, I'm ask you to present your research into newspapers. The issues you'll comment on will include:

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What typographical details are used in the international pages of the Times: byline styles, rubrics, drop caps, columns of flush right text versus justified text, and so on?

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How are departments and columns distinguished?

About Newsletters Newsletters are mini newspapers and as such resemble newspapers more than magazines. However, as you have already seen, magazines and newspapers have overlapping design elements. Look at a few newsletters. Choose ones that have received professional acclaim in designers' annuals as well as the one from the company where you work or from a company where someone you know works.

[Photos of high-end newsletter to come - from Art Director's Club]

BTW: I'm talking the printed word here folks, not online newsletters! In the exercise, I'll ask you to present your research into newsletters. Some questions to consider:

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How are the feature stories distinguished from the

departments and columns? !

What typographic elements help clarify the genre of the text?

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What design elements in the newsletters you found help the reader understand the hierarchy of information presented?

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What design elements are not necessary to the presentation and understanding of the information offered?

About Books There are several categories of book design. We'll look at a few in this course: novels, collected stories or poetry, academic prose, and translated classics. Novels probably have the fewest limitations when it comes to cover and text design. They also have little front or back of the book matter to consider. In the exercise, I'll ask you to research several novels with the dimensions of approximately five inches by eight inches. Choose books with covers that are illustrated, use photography, and at least one that uses only text.

[Insert pretty-looking book graphic here]

I'll be asking you to tell me what you find before the text of the novel and after it. Questions will include:

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Is the text matter consistent in the volumes you chose?

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Is the text set justified or rag right?

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Is the text typography a serif or sans serif face?

I'll be asking you to tell me what you find before the text of the novel and after it. In the next section of this lesson, I'm going to talk about publication grids. But first I would like you to research the types of publications I've discussed and present to the class your findings. (Please folks, use the resources I've suggested rather than choosing just any publication. The quality of publication design varies greatly, so please look at top of the line publications for clarity and examples of good editorial design).

Learn general principles for "good" editorial typography. Learn how to select typefaces for publications. Compile a useful typography reference for an editorial project.

Exercise Research and present commentary on editorial designs for magazines, newspapers/newsletters, and book designs. Discussion Share your thoughts and opinions with other students at the Discussions Board.

Editorial Design | Structuring a Publication

Researching Publications We covered a lot in Lesson One. This should give you a Research the publications you'll be designing. sense of the job of an editorial [find new graphic] designer. Much of this job involves careful attention to detail, and a true love of the work involved. Editorial grids create a foundation for building formatted magazines, newsletters, and books. In the "real world" most likely you will be designing the template for your magazine, newsletter, or book as a team with other designers, art directors, creative directors, and editors. Based on its content, your goal is to create an editorial environment that presents the textual material in a way that is convincing and accessible. Once you've developed a formula, you'll want whomever is designing from your grid to stay within the guidelines that your team created in order to stay as true to the original intent of the material as possible.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Summarize your target audience demographics for each of the three editorial mediums discussed in this course. Research examples in each publication design genre: magazines, newspapers, newsletters, novels, academic books. Point out important editorial design elements in each example. Note how major elements like departments and chapters are denoted with type and design.

Project Notes First, since you will be designing a magazine, a newsletter, and a book for specific demographics, you'll need to answer some questions to help you define the audience you're targeting. Second, to demonstrate that you understand the grid concept, please research magazines, newsletters, and books from professional annuals (Society of Publication Designers Annual, Type Directors Club Annual, Art Directors Club Annual, Society of Newspaper Designers Annual, Graphis Annual, Print Design Annual). Choose an interesting spread from these publications in each genre, scan, and import into Photoshop. Present your scanned layouts overlaid with their underlying grid denoted with measurements for the page dimensions, margins, column widths, gutters, baseline grid, and folio placement. (Be as precise as possible without going crazy. If you decide upon a publication that is easily accessible, you may want to buy it and measure directly from the original.) [note from Genevieve to add marked up example here]

Third, build three publication grids to spec for a magazine, a newsletter, and a book.

Target Audience Modern, upscale magazines typically have a more square format than general audience magazines.

Five demographics are customarily deemed essential in determining target audience in editorial design: age group, gender, education level, income, and locale. So, tell me who you're designing for:

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Age group. Provide a 5-10 year range.

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Gender. Male, female?

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Education level. Graduate, college, high school?

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Income. Provide a general range.

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Locale. Rural, suburban, or urban?

Magazines Choose some magazines with a square-ish format. Start with Martha Stewart Living, Martha Stewart Kids, Real Simple, Esquire, GQ, The New York Times Magazine, "T" (the style supplement from The New York Times), Metropolis, Teen Vogue, and Dwell.)

Pay close attention to how departments and feature stories differ in design.

Creative Director: Gael Towey Design Director: Deb Bishop

Design Director: Rockwell Harwood Designer: Elizabeth Spiridakis

Design Director: John Korpics, Designers: Chris Martinez, Dragos Lemnei,

Creative Director: Janet Froelich, Art Director: David Sebbah

Kim Forsberg

1. Please show me your dissection of the departments, columns, and features from one of the listed magazines. 2. Notice how the columns and departments are notated for the reader. Pick out examples of such notations (called rubrics) and show them to me. 3. Notice also that the contents page(s) and end page(s) of the magazine are essentially department pages. Show me how this is the case. 4. Show me how several magazines denote features and departments differently on the contents page(s). 5. Show me how the first department opener looks related to other department openers in the same publication. Do the same for columns. How are departments designed differently from columns in the same publication?

6. Show me several opening spreads for feature stories. Also, show me the continued or jump spreads for those feature stories. How are the opening spreads different from the jump pages?

7. Show me which story is imaged on the cover. Is it a feature story or a department or column?

8. Show me which stories are notated in text lines on the cover. Are these features, departments, or columns? 9. Pull out a few information graphics. Show me how the information is displayed and discuss the differences between sidebar information that is housed in a graphic versus a bulleted list.

Newsletters vary greatly in design quality. Choose ones that have garnered acclaim from design associations like The Type Director's Club or The Art Directors Club.

10. Notice typographical idiosyncrasies like caption intros, the first line of a feature story, drop caps, and pull quotes. Show me several examples of each of these. Please be sure to choose ones that are designed differently from each other.

Newspapers Look at the cover page of The New York Times, which uses a 6 column grid, as an example. [note from Genevieve to show examples of the times 6 column grid on front page of the paper here]

1. The A section of the newspaper is sometimes called the international pages of the newspaper. Notice the typographical details on the international pages. Look for byline styles, rubrics, drop caps, columns of flush right text versus justified text, headline choices, and so on, and tell me why these choices are made.

2. The B section is the metro section—the local city section. Like the international section, it is designed by editors, based on a template provided by the editorial designers. Please look at the typographical conceits mentioned above for the international section. Show me a set of your findings. 3. The daily F sections are the art directed sections. These include such weekly sections as Science Times, Dining In, House and Home, Style, and Escapes, as well as many Sunday sections including Week in Review, Arts and Leisure, Book Review, Styles, and so on. Please look at several sections over a period of days and weeks. Pick out the feature stories versus the departments and columns. Show me how you are able to make these determinations.

Newsletters Look at a few newsletters. Choose ones that use a six column grid and a page size of 8 1/2" x 11" or a multiple or size down thereof. Choose ones that have received professional acclaim in the Type Director's Club and The Art Director's Club annuals as well as the one from the company where you work or from a company where someone you know works.

1. Pick out the feature stories versus the departments and columns. Show me how you are able to make these determinations. 2. What typographic elements help clarify the genre of the text? 3. What design elements in the newsletters you found help the reader understand the hierarchy of information presented? 4. What design elements are not necessary to the presentation and understanding of the information offered?

Books Novels Please choose several novels with the dimensions of approximately five inches by eight inches. Choose books with covers that are illustrated, use photography, and at least one that uses only text. [Note from Genevieve to show photos/scans of novels here]

1.Tell me what you find before the text of the novel and after it. 2. Is the text matter consistent throughout the volumes you chose? 3. Is the text set justified or rag right? Is the text typography a serif or sans serif face? Please refer to these studies about the readability of text type. If you are interested in exactly "why" margins and leading should be set according to particular guidelines with white space, these pages

explain those details: http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/62/whitespace.htm http://psychology.wichita.edu/surl/usabilitynews/2W/whitespace.htm

4. How is the cover designed: Meaning which design elements, including style of typography, illustration, or photography give the cover a special and interesting look? 5. Is the author's name larger than the title of the book or vice versa? Choose examples of each and explain why in each case. 6. Do the novels use illustration, photography, just text, or a combination on the cover? 7. Is there a logic to why illustration is used versus photography? Please explain. 8. How about the book that only uses text on the cover—can you figure out a reason for this?

Academic Books Academic prose is somewhat more complicated than novel prose. It may be "bookended" by several title pages, copyright info, a prologue, a foreword, an introduction, a translator's note, a dedication, contents page(s), and so on. [Note from Genevieve to show photos/scans of academic books here] Have a look at several books of academic prose. (Not textbooks, but books written by academics about their particular subject.) Choose high level publishers like Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, Princeton University Press, Stanford University Press, University of Chicago Press, Columbia University Press, and so on. Tell me what textual matter you find before the actual prose of the book begins. [Note from Genevieve to show scans or samples of some of these here: bibliography, epilogue, title page, copyright page]

1. Is this consistent throughout the books you found? If so, how so? If not, how not? 2. Look at the back matter of the book. What do you find? Are there notes, a bibliography, an index or several, an afterword, an appendix, an epilogue? 3. Is the order, styling, and typography of the textual items consistent throughout the several books you choose? If so, how so? If not, how not? 4. Look at the prose itself. What do you see? How is the prose set? Is there more than one column? Is/are the column(s) set in justified or rag right text? Is the text typography a serif or sans serif face?

5. How are the chapter beginnings marked? What design elements indicate chapter beginnings? 6. Are there subheads throughout the chapters? If so, how are these subheads indicated? What are the typographic choices? Are the typographic choices consistent from volume to volume? If not, how are they different? If they are the same, what is the styling? I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Show your understanding of publication design by researching relevant publications in specific genres (magazine, newspaper, newsletter, novel, academic books) and commenting on your findings. Identify layout and typography elements and their importance as reader guides in their respective publications. Respond to questions with succinct and carefully-written answers, supporting your findings with reference to uploaded scans of publications.

How to Post: Type your written answers in your word processing program, then paste your text into the Dropbox and upload your images once you're done. Please label your images in numerical order and include the file names in your written answer so I can match up each graphic with your answers. For example:

1. Departments, columns, and features 1-MarthaS.jpg Departments in Martha Stewart Living are notated thus... 2-MarthaS.jpg Columns in MLS have a very different treatment... And so on. Scans of your research should be posted as JPEGs. They must be 72 dpi, RGB color, and appropriately sized (at least 500 pixels wide).

If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design | Publication Grids

Publication Grids Why do publication use grids? My guess is that the grid system was developed to parcel out page space in fractions in order to price it fairly for advertisers. In other words, if an advertiser wanted to purchase space, but didn't want a full page or The grid is a structure for your creative designs. [Note from Genevieve: more exciting leadoff graphic needed even a half page, a system here] had to be developed to divide the page into smaller sections that could be priced as fractions of the whole page. However, editorial designers have come to regard the grid with reverence. Grids help us keep our design consistent and exciting at the same time. Let's examine how that's possible. In this exercise, you'll develop the grids for the three publications you'll design as you work through this course.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Learn how publication grids for magazines, newsletters, and books are created. Develop grids for your magazine, newsletter, and book projects. Determine appropriate page margins and gutters for your publication grids.

About Grids In general, a consistent and appropriate underlying grid supports publications such as magazines, newspapers, newsletters, and books. The original grid is created in the developmental stages before a publication is launched. It may be redesigned occasionally or even frequently in order to sustain the interest of an ever-changing readership, refocus the content, expand the scope of the readership, or denote a change in leadership/management. [Note from Genevieve to add grid mag examples here]. In book design, the cover and sometimes the entire volume is redesigned to update its look in order to attract yet another generation of readers. It should be noted that some publications do not use grids. Under the design direction of David Carson, Raygun became a high profile magazine that did not follow a grid. David Carson's enormous contribution to contemporary print design was to free us from the grid. Alas, commercial publication design does not always lend itself to taking such liberties. [Note from Genevieve to add David Carson examples here]. In terms of the editorial content, the grid helps to solve a number of practical problems for the designer as well as for the reader:

Images and text blocks are often spread over multiple columns in the sixcolumn grid.

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The grid organizes the editorial matter hierarchically, thereby directing the reader through the subject matter.

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The grid maintains a consistent look through out the magazine.

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The grid facilitates page layout for the designer.

Let's look at a six-column grid and use it to design grids for a magazine, a newsletter, and a book. In the example below, Fernanda Cardoso designed a simple six-column grid for a lifestyle magazine aimed primarily at urban, college educated women ages twentytwo through thirty-five. [Note from Genevieve to make sure the following graphics are clearer. Perhaps popping an example in a second window - or even linking to the entire PDF - would suffice?].

This two-page spread is based on six-column grids. The grid may not be apparent here.

Please keep your measurements accurate.

The grid and guidelines for the article spread are shown here.

Above, you see the completed feature layout and the underlying grid, typeface choices, sizes, and leading, and the spacing of the elements on the spread. Shown below is an empty six-column grid. In this grid, as in most editorial grids, facing pages in spreads are mirror images. In a six-column grid, each page is designed with six columns.

Twelve columns are shown here because we are looking at a two-page spread of six-column grids.

A simple six-column grid offers the flexibility of using one column per page, or two, three, and six columns per page. It's unlikely that the narrowest column, one sixth, will be useful for text type. However, it provides an under grid for the other elements on the page.

Magazine Grids For this course, let's design a magazine grid with a square-ish format because it's a

popular size (see Martha Stewart Kids, Details, Esquire, The New York Times Magazine) and because this format offers opportunities to design grids that are varied and flexible. [Note from Genevieve: add example of a marked up page here?]

Please measure a few square-ish magazines and decide upon a size for your magazine. Consider the margins of the page as well as the gutter spaces between columns. As you work, consider the type of magazine you'd like to design as well as its target audience. We'll go into more detail about this later in the course, but it's helpful to have an idea in mind as you create the grid. Let's look at the elements of a grid.

Page Margins Grids should have margins for the readers' thumbs, the magazine binding, and the folio.

Page margins are one important aspect of a grid design. Generally, the page margins are the same width on the top and outer edges of a page. Leave about five eighths to three quarters of an inch of space. In part, this is an aesthetic decision and in part, a practical one. The practical aspect is that the reader will handle the magazine by holding the outside of the spread. Therefore, allow for "thumb room" on the outside margins.

A 3/4" margin is used on the magazine we looked at earlier.

The inside margin is slightly smaller. This is because the margins meet on the inside when the magazine is bound. Since the space will therefore be doubled, allow slightly less space for the inside margins. Generally three eighths to one half of an inch is sufficient for the inside margins.

You may need to modify your software preferences if you are not working with inches and picas.

A 1/2" margin is used on the inside of the spread, while a full inch is used on the bottom to leave room for the folio.

The bottom margin is generally larger than the rest. In most cases, the folio (meaning the page number, issue date, and name of the magazine) runs along the bottom of the page in this margin. Though the folio line takes up little space, an allowance for "eye space" makes the page look less crowded on the bottom. Note: If you decide to change the location of the folio later on in the design process, you will need to adjust the grid.

Gutters The gutters (the spaces between the columns) generally measure one pica in width.

Standard one pica gutters are shown here.

Exceptions to this rule are determined by the aesthetic of the designer and

sometimes by the width of the column. That is, when designing a page with a twocolumn grid (using three of six columns for each block of text type), you may want to add another 6 points between the columns making the gutter space 18 points or a pica and a half wide. The extra space between columns makes reading a wider column easier.

Department and Feature Spread Templates The grid templates you create now will be used for multiple department and feature spreads in the magazine you create later in the course. The grid can remain the same for now. The typography will differ slightly. Look for details on this topic in our next lesson.

Books usually have one or two visible text columns, but a six-column grid may still be used.

Newsletters and Books Newsletter Grids Newsletters are often done in-house and are therefore less expensive than magazines to produce. They generally use 11" x 17" paper or a ratio thereof, and are folded or saddle stitched (stapled in the center). [Note from Genevieve: add samples marked up here?]

Please design a six-column grid for a newsletter using 8 1/2" x 11" as your single page size and 11" x 17" as your spread size (twelve columns).

Book Grids Pages in books generally have only one column of text per page (text spread over the six columns of the grid). Exceptions are annotated books or specialized books that contain notated information in the outer columns, like this lesson! Note the narrow column in the annotated book below:

The Annotated Alice, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Illustrations by John Tenniel.

Book sizes range from 5 1/4" x 8" to slightly smaller and slightly larger. To prepare for this exercise, I'll want you to measure a number of your favorite paperback "literature" volumes for a comparison of sizes. Please design a six-column grid for a book using 5 1/4" wide x 8" high for your single page dimensions. Design a spread following the grid example shown above in illustration. Please observe the same margin guidelines, albeit proportionately smaller, as discussed in the magazine design section. [Note from Genevieve to add examples of book grids including ones that accommodate notated matter]. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Create and submit publication grids according to given specifications for each course project: magazine, newsletter, and book. Determine appropriate margins and gutters for all grids with accurate measurements and showing consideration for your audience.

How to Post: Upload your grid files as PDFs to the Dropbox and include a brief comment about your work. Make sure each file is labeled clearly, for example, "magazine_feature" or "book."

If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design | Typography and Templates

Typography Typography is the single most important aspect of publication design. To become proficient as an editorial designer, you must develop the skills to set typography that is readable, aesthetically pleasing, and easy to follow. When you open a publication, you should notice all the typographical touches that make the pages work.

Editorial design is nothing without skillful, tasteful, and expressive typography. [Intro graphic/caption will change]

In this lesson we'll focus on developing your understanding of typography and guide you through the process of designing the typography for your three projects.

In this lesson, you can expect to: Learn general principles for "good" typography in editorial design. Learn how to select typefaces for publications. Compile a typographical reference book for future editorial projects.

"Readable" means different things to different audiences.

Good Typography An Imperative As I boldly stated a minute ago, typography is the single most important aspect of publication design. But what separates good typography from bad? The basic requirements for "good" typography are:

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The size and font choices must clearly direct the reader from the most important information on the page to the least.

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The typography must be appropriate to the textual and visual content of the publication.

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The typeface must be readable.

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The spacing between letterforms, words, text blocks, headlines, subheads, bylines, captions and photography or illustration credits must create a fluid read of the textual information.

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The typography choices and mix must be pleasing to the eye.

Consider your target audience when choosing the typography for your

Size and spacing may vary based on age, education, type of material, and other factors.

products. Your decisions should be based on an informed idea (using the demographics mentioned in the previous lesson: age group, geographic location, income level, education) of how your audience will respond to the publication name and logo, and whether serif or sans serif text, headline, subhead, and byline typefaces best suit the editorial content and the target audience.

Caption here - [Note from Genevieve - that there may be several iterations of type design added to this graphic (from bad to good). Pop larger versions in a second window?]

Additionally, you need to choose specific typefaces that look good together in the context of all the typography in the publication. For example, each passage below uses Garamond 9 point, but with a different leading. Look at them up close and notice the differences.

The type settings must be both pleasing to the eye and appropriate to the content.

[Note: We'll need a larger version of this file to make it crisper. Then it could be shown like the examples further down the page.]

Working with Type Make 8 1/2" x 11" InDesign documents of type blocks as shown in the examples above.

Set at least ten to twelve different serif and sans serif faces. Set four blocks per page beginning with 8 point on 9 point, 8 point on 10 point, 8 point on 11 point, and 8 point on 12 point. Continue the exercise with 9 point type (9/10, 9/11, 9/12, 9/13), 10 point type (10/11, 10/12, 10/13, 10/14), and 11 point type (11/12, 11/13, 11/14, 11/15) for each of the faces you choose. Set pages of each face and size in flush left, rag right, and justified blocks. By the time you are done with this exercise you should have at least 160 pages of text type. Be sure to label each of your pages with the face and size.

Compare a variety of publications and notice which use serif text faces and which opt for sans serif.

Please print all of your typography on 360 dpi paper or on a good basic paper stock that bleeds very little so that you can see what the typeface looks like when printed or used in a formal comp like the one you will eventually make. The type blocks must be printed in order to assess the typeface properly. There are no shortcuts to this folks, so don't try to get around the printing process by looking at the typography on the screen. File the printed pages of text in alphabetical order in a three ring binder. You can refer and add to this library for future projects. If you do this exercise in earnest this time it will save you hours the next time. A few suggestions for text faces are: Serif text faces: Garamond, Century Expanded, Century 751 Roman, Cloister, Baskerville, Bembo, Bodoni Book, Bodoni Seven ITC Book, Caslon, Caslon Two Twenty Four Book, Clearface. Sans serif text faces: Bell Gothic, Helvetica, Trade Gothic, Neutra Text, Gothic, Din, Clearface Gothic. Though I didn't mention this in the "good type" basics list, essentially you are looking for a text type that gives you an even gray (no heavy thick and thin line weights, no slurpy finishes to the letterforms, and so on) that allows you to show off your editorial design skills. The even gray text blocks provide a playing field (like astro turf) for imagery and headline typography. Of course, your text type choice must also be an appropriate size (larger for the 40+ age group) and style for the target audience, publication style, and page size of the publication. In the examples below, I have chosen a sans serif face (Helvetica, News Gothic, Din) for a science/health magazine or an upscale artsy thirty something lifestyle magazine. Click for a larger view. [Note from Genevieve to show published magazine examples of these typefaces if available.]

I've chosen a light serif face (Italian Garamond, Jenson, Cloister) for a general interest lifestyle magazine or literary publication.

And, I have chosen a heavier, denser serif face (Century Expanded, Times Roman, Baskerville) for a news magazine or corporate newsletter.

Can you decipher why I've chosen these typefaces for the specified

purposes?

Typesetting Guidelines "Lorem ipsum" dummy text should be avoided for most projects. Real, relevant text is always best for a professional presentation.

The above suggestions are the opinion of a classically trained, almost 50 year old publication designer and should not in any way prohibit you from trying something new. New is always interesting if it is done well!! Please note: the text (body) type remains the same size and leading throughout the publication except for special text blocks such as party notes or sidebar information. Party notes or sidebar information can be set in sans serif (against a serif face body text), bolder, leaded, and so on, to distinguish it from the text type. [Note from Genevieve to add examples of sidebars with different text types and/or beautiful information graphics here] Information graphics, that is, elaborate sidebar information is a research and design field in its own right and is beyond the scope of this course. Therefore, unless you are trained in information graphics, keep your sidebar material simple so that when you show this piece in your portfolio, your publication skills are seen and the art director looking at the piece is not distracted by uninformed information graphics. Please always use "real" text for all textual information. Do not use lorem ipsum. Lorem ipsum never looks like real text, and therefore it does not suitably show off your typography skills. Swipe an article from the Web or a document easily at hand that is related to your subject matter. In other words, do not use text about plate tectonics for an article about a pop celebrity or vice versa. And, you may need to write a headline or two to make the headline and image relate to each other. Consider headline suggestions part of an art director's job. Of course, the editor always has the final say about the text, so differ without a grudge. But, take the opportunity to write a headline if it helps strengthen your choice of an image with a particular story.

Learn how publication logos are designed and redesigned. Learn some principles for developing a typographical logo. Look at examples of magazine, newsletter, and book cover typography. Learn one designer's approach to gathering inspiration for logo design.

Exercise Select typography for your magazine project and produce spread templates. Discussion Share your thoughts and opinions with other students at the Discussions Board.

Editorial Design | Typography and Templates

Magazine Typography Once you have completed the text type exercise, and have thought through the type of magazine you want to design, including a serious assessment of the target audience, begin to make typographic choices.

Important typography choices should be made well before the page template design begins. [Note from Genevieve to find new graphic]

For now, these are experiments, so be both serious and playful. Eventually, you'll need to settle on one choice. In this exercise, you'll choose the headline, subhead, byline, drop cap, callout, caption, folio, and credit faces for your magazine. These choices, along with the grid you made in the previous lesson and a baseline grid that you'll make in the next exercise, will comprise your feature and department templates.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Learn the key terms in magazine typography. Learn how subheads, captions, drop caps, and other type elements add impact and clarity to an article. Choose headline, subhead, and other typography settings for use in your magazine project.

Guidelines for Type Use no more than three typefaces in total. Some publications use the same typeface, in all its variations, for the entire publication. This is a good option if you are unfamiliar with pairing typefaces. If you decide to use more than one typeface, choose one for the rubric, another for the headline, subhead, and byline, call-outs (blurbs or grabies), and a third for the text type. Generally a variation of the text type, such as small caps, works well for the folios. Let's go over each of those terms and look at some examples. As we do, start compiling your choices in a document that you can show me and that you can keep as a helpful reference as you work on your magazine project later in the course.

Headlines Department headlines nearly always use the standard headline type chosen for the magazine. Feature

Headlines are teasers for the editorial content. They are designed to draw the reader into the story. Headlines are often set in a different typeface from the text face and are generally the largest and boldest typography on the spread. Often they are

stories may deviate from this.

quite short—three or four words. If the headline is set in caps and lower case, it is set in up style, meaning that all words except articles are set with the first letter in upper case. An exception to this rule occurs if an article is the first word in a line. [Note from Genevieve to balance the following example with quiet headline]

An interesting current trend is to diminish the size or boldness of the headline (see example above by designer Ifaat Qureshi), making it sometimes as small or nearly as small as the text type. Often these small headlines are set in the text typeface in caps or small caps. Since we are trained to expect a large headline, a small or quiet headline often does the job of grabbing the reader's attention better than the expected large one.

Creating Headline Sets Set samples of headline faces in all caps and caps lower case. Label your headline pages with the name of the face and the size under each face as shown in the example below.

Try many variations of typefaces, not just bold and italic.

Sans Serif display faces: Helvetica Bold, Akzidenz Grotesk Medium, Franklin Gothic, Agenda, Bell Gothic Bold, Meta , Impact, Trade Gothic, Gothic, Din, and so on. [Note from Genevieve - other typefaces? We would defer to you on that.]

Serif display faces: Modern #20, Mrs. Eaves, Cochin Black Italic, Bodoni, et al. When you have completed this part of the exercise, compile your printed pages of display (headline) faces in alphabetical order. Store these in a three ring binder labeled "display faces" or "type specimen book."

Subheads Subheads modify and explain the headline. They communicate the editorial point of view and the precise content of the story. [Note from Genevieve - create samples that show combinations of headlines, subheds, and bylines together. Be careful to create "good" spacing].

Variations of a typeface keep a design consistent and ensure that different text pieces complement one another.

The subhead of this article clarifies the headline and gives the reader a better sense of what to expect.

Let's suppose the magazine headline reads "Bon Jovi Goes Bonkers." This headline teases the reader into the story, but it doesn't disclose the content of the editorial. The subhead might read:

a) Bon Jovi returns from world tour where he drew crowds of millions at every venue. b) Bon Jovi last seen atop the Empire State Building threatening suicide. c) Bon Jovi arrested Thursday in a Las Vegas Hotel due to complaints about drugs, alcohol, and scantily clad women.

Though the headline is the same for each of these subhead choices, each subhead offers an entirely different editorial content. Subheads are often a variation of the text typeface—a larger size italic for example, or a variation of the headline face. Since headlines and subheads relate to each other, it is a good idea to make them relate to each other spatially on the page.

Bylines Bylines identify the author of the story. For this exercise, use the text face for the byline. Set it a number of ways including italic, bold, and small caps. You might also try tracking out the letter spacing. The byline should be noticeably larger than the text face. It may be as large as the subhead depending upon your visual aesthetic.

This byline uses bold type and the headline/subhead color to set it apart from the article text.

Drop caps can quietly indicate the starting point of the article or be a graphic element in their own right.

Bylines are related to the text created by the author. Therefore, it is a good idea to relate the byline and text blocks spatially on the page.

Drop Caps Drop caps are enlarged first letters of the first word of the first sentence of the story. Sometimes drop caps sit into the text several or many lines deep. In other instances they sit on the baseline of the first line of the story. See examples of each below.

[Note from Genevieve - to use a variety of styles and credit the designers here].

Drop caps draw the reader's attention to the beginning of the story. They

can also be used to break up large grey blocks of text or when a you want to signal a new thought. Do not use drop caps at the top of columns of text after the opening line of the story. This is especially important on the jump/continued pages. A drop cap at the top of the first paragraph of the jump of the story tells the reader that this is a new story. That's not the message you want to convey. Use drop caps with the same consideration you give other graphic elements (meaning, don't use the same letter multiple times, don't use drop caps near the end of the story, and don't use too many drop caps on a page or a spread).

While most photos require a caption, some illustrations and information graphics do not. Illustrated drop cap

Pull Quotes Pull quotes are literally pieces of the text pulled from the story. If the editing is good, they are compelling bits of text that are used to stimulate interest in the editorial. From a visual perspective, they break up large chunks of text and create visual interest on the spread or page. [Note from Genevieve - create examples of pullquotes and caption styles, please offer several conservative solutions and several more elaborate solutions.]

The pull quote in this article brings attention to an interesting piece of copy. It also ties in the small image in the upper-right to the article.

Captions

Every photograph requires a caption. Captions describe the people, place, date, and events depicted in the photograph. Captions are often a variation of the text type—generally a smaller size in bold or italic (for example, if you are using 10 point for the text type, you might use 9 point for the caption), or occasionally small caps.

This basic caption describes the images above it and does not interfere with reading the main text.

If you want to be inventive with your captions, try pulling out a common element such as a date and setting it in a bolder typeface, a sans serif, small caps, and so on.

Credit Lines Credit lines identify the person responsible for the photographs or illustrations used in your layout. Credit lines always run in the same location on the page or spread—often in the lower right hand corner of the image or in the gutter of the spread. Credit lines often run in small caps or caps and lower case at 5 or 6-point. The typeface should be a variation of the text face. [Note from Genevieve - scan pages of mags to show credit information. Offer a variety of placement and typography.]

The credit line shown here is turned and placed in an out-of-the-way location.

An exception to this rule might arise if you are featuring images by a wellknown photographer or illustrator. Another exception might be if the story is a photo essay or series of illustrations by the same artist. In these instances, the credit line might print with the byline in the same size and typeface.

Compile Your Type Choices Your headline sets, body type, and all other type choices noted above should be compiled in a document for you to use as reference. Choose carefully, then save your document as a PDF for me to critique. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Compile a series of typography choices and settings to represent headlines, subheads, body text, bylines, drop caps, pull quotes, bylines, and credits for your magazine project. Demonstrate an ability to make attractive, readable type choices appropriate to a specific magazine audience. Use no more than three typefaces to convey all of the magazine's typography needs.

How to Post: Upload your type sample PDF to the Dropbox, and include some commentary about the choice you made and why you think they will work for your magazine. If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design | Typography and Templates

Magazine Templates Now that you've made your type choices, you can begin laying those choices into templates for the magazine you will create later in the course. You will create two series of templates from the grids you developed in Exercise One. One is A baseline grid keeps typography neat and clean for the department spreads and one on the page. [Note from Genevieve - to add more exciting opening graphic.] is for the feature story spreads. You will place your headline faces, subhead faces, text blocks, bylines, captions, pull quotes, and credit lines into your grids. Your aim is to create a combination of faces that is flexible enough to address a variety of subject matter within the context of a particular area of interest and a particular demographic. While you are experimenting with typography on the grid, try to imagine what subject matter you want to address and what demographic might be attracted to the style you are creating. Note: You will not design finished department and feature spreads now. Your job is to create general templates that include your typography and layout formulas for later use.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Create a variety of feature spread templates that contain typography samples and image placeholders. Create a variety of department spread templates that contain typography samples and image placeholders. Develop a baseline grid and present one feature template and one department template in which type snaps to the grid.

Magazine Feature Templates To create your feature spread templates, try many combinations of text faces and their variations (bold, italic, extended, et al), as well as display faces. Amass a collection of your sample feature opening spread grids with typography using layout formulas A, B, and C below. Click to enlarge the finished spread examples below.

Feature openers are typically very creative and exciting—and yet they still stick to the six-column grid.

Sample A shows an image on one side of the spread and the text on the other. In sample B, the image crosses the center gutter and ends somewhere on the facing page. The typography fits along side the image in the left over empty space. An image covers both pages in sample C. The typography sets into a calm space in the image. Use gray blocks to delineate image spaces. Choose several of your strongest samples to show me. Please tell me the area of interest the editorial addresses and who the target audience is.

Magazine Department Templates A department template is similar to a feature template with a few modifications:

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A department template carries a rubric.

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A department template has a hang line from which all text type drops unless displaced by the headline, subhead, and byline group or by an image.

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A department template often uses the same headline, subhead, byline, pull quote, caption, and credit style as the feature template but the sizes of the headline, subhead, and byline are proportionately smaller.

Rubrics Rubrics are the tag lines for department pages. Rubrics give the reader a quick way to determine what subject matter is contained in the pages under the rubric title. For example, Mademoiselle might offer a regularly running section entitled "accessories" or "makeup." The New Yorker offers a regular running section of fiction. [Note from Genevieve to consider adding more examples, different styles here?]

Check out fashion magazines for lots of department rubric examples: hair, makeup, fashion, jewelry, and so on.

Shown above is a sample of department spreads designed by Ifaat Qureshi. Note that the rubric style is consistent as are the headlines, subheads (in this case the department pages lack subheads in accordance with the editorial viewpoint), and bylines. [Note from Genevieve to show subheads from the same spread] In departments "the mood" and "the spot," you can see the hang line for the text type.

When the author is with the name of the department, it's called a "column." Columns are sometimes distinguished from departments

typographically by running the text type of the column rag right as opposed to justified.

Above is an example of a regularly running department in The New York Times Sunday Styles section. Note the section title, "Pulse," with the red underline. The word "pulse" is set in all caps Franklin Gothic, not caps and lower case Bookman like the headlines and text of the section.

Special guest authors or photographers usually get a large byline or credit, unlike unknown staffers.

Additionally, the author's name is with the section title beneath the red bar signaling a column. The rag right setting of the text signals the reader that the text is "opinion" rather than "fact." In "pulse" each short story has a Bookman headline and each text block begins with the first few words tracked out in Franklin Gothic. These textual elements help organize and set the text blocks apart from each other in a small space. The larger gutters and hairline rules relate the text blocks to the images they describe. I realize that these small details go unnoticed by the average or even above average reader. However, subliminally they are significant and can help you identify and organize the text.

Baseline grids can easily be created in the Preferences area of InDesign.

The New York Times Magazine runs columns by writers it deems worthy like "On Language," by William Safire. As you can see, the rubric contains the name of the author as well as the title of the section. Both elements are set in the same size, Franklin Gothic, red, all caps. However, "by William Safire" is a percentage of the full red color, which visually distinguishes the two editorial and typographic elements. Please create some sample department spread templates using all the elements discussed. Use gray blocks to delineate imagery. Choose several of your strongest samples to show me. Please tell me the area of interest the editorial addresses and who the target audience is.

Baseline Grids Once you have decided upon a text face and size and a basic formula for your feature and department spread templates, you can create a baseline grid for the entire publication. The baseline grid is a set of lines that fall on the baseline measurement of the text type. Below is an example:

[Note from Genevieve to consider adding prettier/different examples of grids here?] Many editorial designers take the extra time and effort to design the headline, subhead, and byline typography so that it falls on the baseline grid. This may mean using type sizes that are fractions of points. The New York Times, for instance, uses 9.2 pt type on 9.7 pts baseline to baseline. Therefore, the broadsheet baseline grid lines measure 9.7 points apart. A good reason to create a baseline grid and typography that snaps to the baseline grid is to maintain consistency and to insure a neat and clearly defined look throughout the publication. For example, all text blocks will align across baselines from column to column. Additionally, headline and subhead spatial relationships can be fixed. Placement of regularly running type elements like rubrics and folios can also be fixed. Fixing the typography to a baseline grid is particularly important if you are designing a prototype or redesigning a publication and handing it off to an editorial and design staff to execute. The baseline grid helps to insure that your design will be carried out exactly the way you planned it. Please design a baseline grid. Show me examples of a feature spread template and a department spread template wherein all the typography snaps to the baseline grid. Use gray blocks to delineate image placement.

Note: If you find these typography exercises tedious, you are not alone. However, even the most seasoned designers follow these steps in order to choose and choreograph the typography for a publication. Please try to get into a "zone" with tasks like setting and choosing typography. Your attention to the details of the typography is essential to designing a publication. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Design several strong feature spread templates for your magazine project that combine your layout grid, type choices, and image placeholders. Design several strong department spread templates for your magazine project that combine your layout grid, type choices, image placeholders, and rubrics. Present one feature spread and one department spread in which all typography is accurately snapped to a baseline grid.

How to Post: Submit PDFs to the Dropbox of your best feature spread and department spread templates. Include written comments about the target audience and the area of interest. Submit PDFs of one feature spread and one department spread where all typography snaps to a baseline grid. If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design | Publication logos

Publication Logos In the print media, publications are judged, at least superficially, by their covers. [non-newstand example here] Therefore, you'll want to design greatlooking covers as well as ones that suit the publication. This means determining what context the cover will be seen in. If the publication is non newsstand, you have a lot more flexibility to do a concept cover, whereas if the publication is newsstand, you'll need to compete with many other publications already on the newsstand. In this lesson, we'll explore principles for developing logos for your three publication projects. Whether you're designing a new publication or redesigning an existing one, the cover is an important consideration.

You'll find that the cover will require more collaboration with management and editors than the rest of the publication design or redesign. Please try to welcome the expertise of these professionals since they can bring information to the process you may not already know. Try to be open to thinking about the publication from their point of view. And, at least for a while, put your ego in abeyance. (Of course, you want to design interesting and noteworthy covers). Also take the opportunity to include the knowledge of those outside the design field when considering your cover options. Be inventive with their input. In this field, several heads are generally better than one.

In this lesson, you can expect to: Learn how publication logos are designed and redesigned. Learn some principles for developing a typographical logo. Look at examples of magazine, newsletter, and book cover typography. Learn one designer's approach to gathering inspiration for logo design.

Logo Design An Ever-Changing World A logo can be a flirt, a dance, a rodeo, or a stalwart presence.

[Note from Genevieve to reorganize logos and scale down Times logo. Maybe include Times T?] Look at the details of these logos. Each has a peculiarity that distinguishes it from just any typeface.

Dwell, for instance, looks deceptively simple. The corners on the lower insides of the "l"s and of the "d" are clipped at an angle. Also, the second "v" top of the "w" overlaps just a little too far. Esquire is a classic. Though it's been updated many times, it still looks like the original logo, at least to the average reader. Look how the "e"s are upper case and are different from each other. And, note how heavy the thicks are in comparison to the thins in the letter forms. Esquire's logo sits heavily on the page making a real presence, though its typeface is playful.

Magazine logos rarely contain symbols or images so as not to compete with the cover photos. Simple, expressive text usually does the job.

The New York Times logo is forever. There's not much to say about it except we know that it will always look this way. If it changes, we'll stop trusting the "paper of record." Publication logos are a world unto themselves. Serial publications may launch with a logo that will get outdated over time, particularly if the publication is successful and has a long run. If this is the case, a publication will generally update the design of the logo without making changes that are perceptible to the average reader. This is because readers identify publications with logos they are familiar with. It is important to understand that even the most open-minded reader will demand a consistent logo.

Variations like color (and even the summery cherry in the Martha Stewart Kids logo) maintain the impact of the original design while supporting the current issue. [Genevieve is reconsidering cover selections here]

Consider the logos of Time and Rolling Stone below. Both publications were launched decades ago (Time in 1923 and Rolling Stone in 1968) and have updated their logos many times. Look at the design of the launch logo versus the current logo. Though you may not have realized

that these logos were changed and updated, when you viewed them side by side it is easy to identify the differences.

1932 | 1984 | 2003. Illustration of Michael Jackson by Andy Warhol.

Notice that many magazines change the color of the logo color on every cover, but always maintain a consistent design and placement of the logo.

1974 | 1978 | 2000. Illustrations by Paul Davis. Photography by Annie Leibovitz and Martin Schoeller.

Logo Typography Logo typography often has little relation to the interior text and headline faces. Therefore, you do not have to choose or create a typeface that is directly related to the typographic choices you made for the interior of the publications. However, you do need to make the logo identifiable, readable, pleasing to the eye, appropriate to the subject matter, and most importantly, unique and interesting.

The traditional New York Times Magazine logo (left) and the bold "T" logo (right).

In the examples above, The New York Times made a bold and

unprecedented move and used a single large "T" for the special magazine sections. The regular logo is also on the cover, but is not nearly as prominent as the large "T." This logo immediately distinguishes the special magazine sections from the weekly magazine. One way to create a unique and interesting logo is to create the typography by hand or alter an existing typeface to make the letters fit together nicely. Since this is the only time the letters will appear at this size and prominence in the publication, it is important that the logo letters look good next to each other, meaning no large gaps or awkward spaces. This can be achieved in various ways. You may choose to draw the letters in such a way that they fit together nicely or alter letters and spacing to improve upon an existing font. If you change the scale of letters within the logo, be sure to correct the stem widths of the enlarged. If you do not do this, the larger letters will look uneven and unattractive. Ligatures and swatches and inlines and outlines are also options for use in your logo design. Bear in mind that your logo may also be used smaller inside the publication or on advertising materials. Therefore, it must also be able to reduce without losing readability or too much detail.

Design a logo in Illustrator or another vector program, then scale it to see how readable it is at a very small size. 1981 | 1999. Photography by Michael Childers (Ringo Starr) and David LaChapelle (Eminem)

Rolling Stone's logo for instance, has ligatures, inlines, and outlines, and the two words are positioned perfectly together.

In the earlier version shown above, you can see that the letters were created to look three-dimensional using angled shading. In the updated

version above, the rules have given way to a solid drop shadow making the logo appear stronger, bolder, and cleaner. Honestly, we all make many tries at logos before something good and strong emerges. [Genevieve is reconsidering guide tryouts here]

The more logo concepts you come up with for a project the better. It invariably takes many tries before a solid, effective identity emerges.

Designer Pia Rappaport created these many arrangements before settling on a simple and quite strong logo, below, for her magazine. It's a winner!

[Note from Genevieve - consider adding other solutions here? Excellent student work with permission would be great]

A logo should appear seamless, as if the letters are meant to look exactly the way they do. Your choice of what is appropriate in a logo design depends upon your topic and editorial style. Consider both things carefully before settling on one logo design. In other words, create many drawings, up to or more than one hundred, before comping out a few to see how they look. If given sufficient working time, almost any design can turn out beautifully, however it may not be appropriate to your publication. Try not to get attached to a particular design until you have comped out quite a few. In the exercise, you'll create several to show me. Alternates can be kept for future projects. Even if the title changes, the techniques learned and used on these projects will shorten your learning curve for future logo designs.

Exercise Create logo designs for your magazine, newsletter, and book projects. Discussion Share your thoughts and opinions with other students at the Discussions Board.

Editorial Design | Publication Logos

Logo Design In the lesson, you looked at a few publication logos and saw that they often require many iterations before they're good and strong enough for a cover logo.

[Note from Genevieve - new graphic here]

In this exercise, you will create a logo for each of the publications you've been working on: the magazine, the newsletter, and the book. Like all good designers, you'll create many versions, then analyze and polish your work to create final versions.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Sketch a series of logos for a magazine, newsletter, and book. Create at least five digital logos for each publication. After receiving instructor feedback, finalize one logo design for each publication.

Developing Your Logos Sources of Inspiration Probably the best way to begin the process of designing a logo is to sketch out numerous thumbnail versions in a notebook. Once you have amassed a number of viable but varied options for each of your three projects, render a few of the sketches in Photoshop or Illustrator. Tidy your logo drawings by using your skills in these programs. Be sure to use a large, high-resolution file if using Photoshop—you want your logo to work in a variety of sizes and situations. This is not a worry if using Illustrator—your vector file will scale as needed with no quality issues. Below is a collection of typical typographic treatments. Please add these to your visual vocabulary and try a few if you think they are appropriate. Remember that a typical typographic treatment will look different in the hands of another designer. Additionally, your editorial is going to be different than the one you are appropriating from, therefore you will never actually be "stealing" a design. You will always have to alter it in a way that is particular to your design sensibility. Click the images below for larger versions that you can print out.

Compile many logo samples for inspiration. Notice that magazine and newsletter logos are often simple while book logos can be complex.

CDs, product packages, and advertising are also great places to look for logo inspiration.

I keep a running catalogue of sample typographic solutions. I suggest you do the same. You will begin to see patterns. This should help you to understand that first, many designers use the same solutions tailored to suit their own purposes, and second, that you do not have to reinvent the wheel every time you sit down to do editorial design.

Polishing and Finalizing Your Designs For each project (magazine, newsletter, and book), create at least five digital versions of your logo ideas. Please pick a book title that actually exists—the others may be fictional. It can be helpful to work only in black and white, allowing you to focus just on the shape and overall impact of your logos—plus, you might vary colors later depending on the issue of a magazine.

You should have a total of about 15 logos for the first phase of this project. Submit your logos in groups—all of your magazine logos in one GIF or JPEG file, all of your newsletter logos in another, and so on. Save the groups (not your originals!) at 72 dpi and in RGB color mode. Make sure they are no more than 500 pixels wide. When you submit them for review, your instructor will help you choose the best versions to polish further into final versions. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Create logo designs for these genres of publications: magazine, newsletter, book. Send both your working sketches and your finishes (it's interesting to see your process as well as the finished product). Demonstrate an ability to create simple, unique, type-based logo designs that communicate the attitude of each publication. Refine and finalize one logo for each publication type, demonstrating strong attention to detail.

How to Post: Upload your groups of book, newsletter, and magazine logos (a total of around 15 images on three files) using the Dropbox. Be sure to label the files accordingly and use the specifications above. The artwork can be posted as JPEGs or PDFs as appropriate. If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design| Magazine Design

Magazine Design In the next three hands-on exercises you will use much of what you have already learned and prepared in the first three exercises to hone each piece into a finished product.

Recall what you've learned about grids as you develop your magazine designs. [Note from Genevieve - new graphic here]

In this lesson you will create a magazine.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Learn how a machete is used to structure a publication. Design an effective and attractive cover page and table of contents for a magazine. Create three feature spreads including openers and jumps based on your template. Create four department spreads.

Magazine Story Using a Machete Below is a machete of the magazine you will be producing. A machete is a map of a publication in thumbnail size. The machete is updated as editors and designers make changes to the pacing of the publication or decide to pull stories and run others. The machete below maps eleven spreads and a cover for your publication. I would like you to create at least this many pages for your magazine. More are welcome. The arrows indicate that the story crosses the spread. A period at the end of the arrow indicates that the story finishes on that spread.

We are not going to include advertisements along with the editorial material. While some instructors feel that ads are a reality and therefore students should have to deal with them in their magazine projects, I feel that ads distract from your design. Avoid low-

Therefore, let's leave them out of this project.

resolution "swipes" for your projects. These are not clear or professional enough to show clients or potential employers.

* A note about designing advertising and editorial simultaneously: While in some professional circumstances, it may be necessary to design advertising for a particular editorial piece, a small magazine for instance, designing advertising is in direct conflict with the mission of editorial design. Editorial designers work with "editorial," not advertising. Hopefully, we work with good journalism, meaning fair and unbiased writing. Honestly, no journalism is free from a viewpoint, and hence is always contextual—meaning it must be evaluated based on the context it’s written from. For instance, an American newspaper may publish a story describing the same incident as a Korean newspaper, but the two retellings can sound very different. In spite of this inevitable problem, journalism "sells" an objective viewpoint, while advertising sells a particular product with no claims to objectivity. Additionally, please do not use book jackets or CD covers as art because these images promote products. If you wish to show a newly released CD or book, use an image of the artist or author (not the one on the album cover or book cover) instead of promoting the actual product. It is perfectly OK to endorse an artist or writer, but not to "sell" products. Similarly for spa type products or automobiles. If you feel that you want to show a product, do so in a way that is subservient to the text and other images in the story.

Sourcing Content Identify your topic and target audience. Please write out a description of both your target audience and your magazine topic. Be as clear and precise as possible. The more detailed and specific you are, the better able you will be to design a suitable magazine. Note: Be certain that you can easily find imagery for the topic you choose. Imagery downloaded from the Web is not large enough for your needs since you will be printing this project at actual size for your portfolio. Additionally, if you use well-known imagery, any art director looking at your editorial piece is going to recognize the image and wonder how well would you have been able to design if you hadn't used such wonderful imagery. Therefore, I suggest you use your own illustrations or photography, use imagery created by a friend or colleague, or scan imagery from books. The ability to choose good swipe and crop it in interesting ways is a large part of the job of a good designer or art director. You must be discerning about choosing imagery. The imagery must be strong and suit the style and topic of your magazine.

Opening Spread Begin designing your first feature opening spread. For now, think of this feature as your cover feature—meaning that the image you use on the cover will relate to this story. Do not repeat imagery. You can however, use a similar image to the cover image for the feature spread opening image.

Choose a layout (A, B, C, or a variation thereof—see sketch below) that best shows off your lead image.

Remember to work within the grid you designed.

Feature spread headlines may deviate from the template typography you've chosen. Depending on the story and style of your magazine, this may be a time to explore creative typographic solutions.

Feature opener layouts can be considered small posters and should be designed as such for maximum impact. While many feature layouts look quite different, they are often variations of layouts A, B, and C above. Layout A has an image on one side and the headline, subhead, byline, and possibly a text start on the facing page. The image in layout B crosses the center gutter and falls into the facing page. The headline group is arranged in the remaining space. The headline group in layout C in set into the image or printed as a drop out or an overprint. Below are a few examples. Look for the formulas I have suggested. Try to assign each layout a formula: that is, A, B, or C.

Hand drawn or created typography is popular now. Photographed typography can also be quite interesting. Once you have designed your layout according to your template, break free and experiment with headline typefaces. Martha Stewart Kids Creative Director: Gael Towey Design Director: Deb Bishop

The New York Times Magazine Creative Director: Janet Froelich Art Director: David Sebbah

GQ Design Director: Fred Woodward Designers: Paul Martinez, Matthew Lenning, Ken DeLago, Sara Vinas, Gillian Goodman, Hudd Bayard

Esquire Design Director: John Korpics Designers: Chris Martinez, Dragos Lemmel, Kim Forsberg

Details Design Director: Rockwell Harwood

Outside Creative Director: Hannah McCaughey

Revolver Art Director: Andy Omel

When you have chosen and put in your image, design the headline, subhead, byline, and text blocks using the magazine grid you made in Lesson One.

Using the Feature Template Though we have made a template for this magazine in the previous lessons, and so have created a formula for the headline face and size, in the main feature stories you may change the headline typography to suit the mood of the story. Keep in mind your initial vision for the magazine and remember that it must still hold together as a whole. A beginning designer often goes wild with headline choices thereby rendering the initial template null and void. Try not to do this. For each feature story opener, design the typography for the headline after you choose and temporarily place the image. Try to capture the mood and tone of the story as you have conceived it. Also, use the image as a starting place for choosing typography. Try to keep some editorial elements from your template design. Note: Do not change the text type within the magazine except for special bits of text like sidebars and annotations. A feature jump is the remainder of the feature including most of the text. You may add more than one jump (continued) spread to the feature stories if you wish. A fashion story for instance, may run six to eight spreads. You may use images on the jump pages. These images should not duplicate the opening image, but rather give the reader more visual information about the story. [Note from Genevieve to show design jump spreads in various styles for various types of publications here].

Feature jumps are more text heavy than the opening spreads, but still need imagery and pull quotes to keep the reader's attention.

A feature opener with two feature jump pages

Try using simpler images and headlines in your department spreads. Departments typically don't merit the same impact as feature stories.

Jump spreads by Pia Rappaport carry elements of the feature opener spread onto subsequent pages.

Department Spreads You are responsible for at least four department spreads (three in the beginning and one endpage department), based on your department template.

This department spread by Fernanda Cardoso features a short article, a series of images, and a simple headline.

Cover and Table of Contents The cover and table of contents should be tackled last, once all of your stories and departments are in place and in order. [Note from Genevieve to consider showing a different TOC here].

Pia Rappaport's table of contents clearly distinguishes the departments (top) and feature stories (bottom).

Assignment Notes Design all the spreads indicated in the machete. As mentioned earlier, more spreads are welcome. Please stick to designing spreads, though on the job you will probably need to design single pages that fall next to advertising. To showcase your design skills, leave out the advertising. Please upload intermittently as you finish a story, series of stories, a department, or series of departments, so that I can give you feedback on your progress. Save them as PDFs for easy viewing. When you've completed the magazine, please upload a complete PDF for me to critique. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Clearly define your magazine's target audience and source image content accordingly, utilizing your illustrations and photography if possible. Design a sample magazine including cover, table of contents, at least three department spreads, at least three feature articles, and one endpage department spread. Use the templates, typography, and logo design you have created previously as a starting point for this magazine project, modifying them as appropriate. Demonstrate the ability to work within typical magazine guidelines to create a professional and attractive portfolio piece.

How to Post: As you finish some components of your magazine, upload PDFs to the Dropbox for feedback to help you along. When your entire magazine is complete, upload it to the Dropbox as multi-page PDF. Be sure to include your written description of your magazine and audience. If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design | Newsletter Design

Newsletter Design Read all about it! In this lesson you will create a newsletter. Now that you have designed a sampler magazine, this may not seem like a daunting proposition. Typically published by skeleton staffs at mediumsize companies and organizations, the newsletter is a grassroots publishing format that owes its editorial style and layout conventions to its larger cousin, the Newspapers and newsletters, close cousins in the design family. [Note from Genevieve - new graphic here traditional daily newspaper. prettier, Fred Woodward example?] For visual inspiration, we'll examine newspapers and newsletters in this lesson. A newsletter design is a great project for a relatively inexperienced designer because it's more likely that you'll be needed to design one, even if you're not in a design position. If you like editorial design, you can show off your skills with newsletter design and move up from there. That said, newsletter design has become quite sophisticated. The most experienced and talented designers are creating newsletter design.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Scan a newspaper page and visually block each story to get a grasp of story organization. Design the front page of a newsletter including the masthead, three story starts, and a "what's inside" feature. Design inner spreads to effectively contain each story. Create a party notes page and end story to finish off the newsletter.

Newsletter Design Components of a Newsletter You are going to design an eight-page newsletter. Please see the machete below for a layout of the pages to be designed.

The mastead of a newsletter contains the logo and may also include the date, edition, and other basic information.

Design the front page of the newsletter, starting with the logo you created in Exercise Three, often called a "masthead." The front page should also include three story starts. Include a small "what's inside" unit so the reader knows how to easily navigate your newsletter. (See The New York Times art directed sections below for examples.) The "what's inside" material can be nicely tooled so that it becomes an attractive graphic element. Aim to do this with your inside info list. For this exercise, use the six-column grid in 3 columns or variations thereof.

This"what's inside" section in The New York Times indicates the major articles found in the section, and does so with graphic impact. [Note from Genevieve to consider substituting a more appropriate What's Inside example]

Design the lead story with a headline and a subhead. Design the lesser two stories with headlines but no subheads. Use only simple "continued on" and "continued from" lines for the jump stories. Use no less than 2 inches of text over two columns for story starts and no less than 3 inches in one column of a story start. You may choose to make one of the stories a department or column. If this is the case, remember to create a rubric for it and to set it rag right.

Each story needs an image. Since this is a newsletter, the images you choose should be those typically seen in newsletters, meaning snaps or the equivalent.

Organizing a Newsletter Indicate the hierarchy of the stories by using typographical elements including the size of the headlines, department rubrics, and rag right versus justified text. Below are examples of a newsletter entitled "Springboard," designed by Paul Guayante for DDB Worldwide. Click to see a larger version.

Take care to keep editorial and advertising design clearly separated... in your mind and on the page.

As you can see, this newsletter is wonderfully designed, bearing many of the elements we discussed and then some. Paul's use of the grid is excellent. He created a hierarchy among the stories by designing the most important ones in two of four columns using justified text. The notes pages are designed in four columns of rag right text, giving this section a lively and airy feeling. Additionally, Paul's use of the large sans serif face as a design element creates an elegant look.

In a newsletter, as in a newspaper, entire stories often appear on a single page, therefore it is important to keep them well-defined.

Please note all the typographic details on Paul's pages. In a four-column grid, he distinguishes a more important story by using two columns of text over three columns, leaving the fourth for an information graphic. He also gracefully works into the pages blocks of larger text type indicating that a particular story begins with the larger text and continues into the body text. Since good imagery is scarce in newsletters, Paul has inventively used basic icons or large typography to give the pages "color." Design all eight pages in modules or blocks of text and images. Meaning, keep the text and images for each story contained in imaginary boxes. In the example below, I have outlined the story blocks in red on one of Paul's spreads. Click to see it larger:

Please do this same exercise with a page from The New York Times or other quality newspaper. Scan it (tile it if you need to and then reassemble) and outline the story blocks for me. Choose an inside full page (broadsheet) with no advertising from one of the art directed sections.

Assembling a Newsletter Newsletters are often done in-house and are therefore less expensive than magazines to produce. They generally use 11" x 17" paper or a ratio thereof, and are folded or saddle stitched (stapled in the center). [Note from Genevieve to consider adding great-looking newsletter samples prior to the sketches. Note to Genevieve - I happen to like these drawings - messy but clear and creative - but it's your call if you don't like them.]

Above are a few sketches, called "thumbnail sketches," for the masthead page of a newsletter. Note that stories are "blocked in", meaning that the text and image(s) for each story create a section on the page that is either square or rectangular. Please use this blocked in style for your newsletter. Traditionally, newspapers and newsletters use a layout style called "dog leg," wherein the story wraps in a single column to the side of another story block.

[Note from Genevieve to size this graphic smaller]

While this is acceptable design practice, for our purposes it is confusing. Therefore, let's stay with blocked in multi-story pages. Notice that I have avoided "bumping headlines" by putting an image above its headline if a story runs adjacent to another story. In the last thumbnail sketch shown above, I have anticipated a cover that might require more than one story under a main headline. In this case, I am allowing for a story that might be about "employees of the year." Each story would begin with an image of the employee, followed by a subhead about that employee, and a story or story start. If you need to "bump heads" in extraordinary circumstances such as this where all the stories need to be on the same hierarchical level, then it may be useful to use an overall headline, and to make the columns a bit narrower, dividing them with hairline or half point rule.

The Assignment Please design an eight page newsletter using 8 1/2" x 11" as your single page size. Use the newsletter grid you designed in Lesson One and the logo you designed in Lesson Three (unless you feel strongly that it needs to be redesigned). Create a hierarchy of headline sizes for the entire newsletter as you did for

your magazine template in Lesson Two. Three different headline sizes should be sufficient for most editorial material. Depending upon editorial preference, some secondary headlines will not take subheads. Most stories still take bylines or tag lines (the author's name or initials is em-dashed at the end of the story). Choose a text type that conveys well the editorial viewpoint of the newsletter. On the masthead (logo) page, the most important story is generally placed in the upper right hand corner. Use this formula for this exercise. Design a cover that will take a few stories or story starts as shown in the sketches above. [Note from Genevieve - to consider adding examples that show these requests]

Include departments and/or columns in your editorial lineup. These can be designed slightly differently from "news" material. They should have a rubric above the headline and, if a column, possibly the author's name as part of the rubric. You might consider running the text blocks flush left, rag right as opposed to justified for news material. Consider the "personality" of your typefaces. Do they match the personality of the publication?

Please also design and use a baseline grid such as the one you designed for your magazine template in Lesson Two. The puzzle pieces of blocked pages should fit nicely together and lead the reader's eye from the most important stories to the least. If you organize your editorial material according to importance, using larger headlines and deck (subhead) sets for more important stories along with choosing premium placement for these stories, and designing proportionately smaller headlines and deck sets for lesser stories, your newsletter design should come together fairly quickly and be easily accessible to the average reader. Clean and consistent usage of margins and gutters is a must for editorial design and should be observed here similarly as in magazine design. The New York Times Design Director Tom Bodkin does an excellent job of designing a variety of news and opinion headlines, numerous rubrics, by lines, and text options. Have a look at the designers' sections of the Times (weekly sections Science Times, Dining In, House and Home, Style, and Escapes, as well as the Sunday sections Week in Review, Arts and Leisure, Book Review, Styles) for rubric ideas, bylines, and justified versus rag text blocks.

The New York Times, Sunday Arts and Leisure Section

The New York Times, Sunday Inside the News Section

The New York Times, Sunday Business Section

Note layout design while you are perusing The New York Times for typographic design ideas. Since newsletters often use snapshots or "found art," please use this type of imagery. In order to compensate for art that does not make the page sing, your grid must be clean and well designed and your typography must be carefully chosen. Layout is very important. See sketches below for examples of ways to make the most of average art or many small but not very interesting images on an inside spread. [Note from Genevieve to consider substituting these sketches with real samples of jump pages]

As you can see, I've grouped the images together so that even uninteresting images make one large focal point on the page. If it is possible to group the images, this might be a good option. You will find award winning newspaper design including publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Allentown Call, and more in the Society of Newspaper Designer's Annuals. These annuals are useful to buy and have available for reference. Create or swipe headlines that tell the reader something about the content of the story you're designing. If a subhead seems superfluous, don't use one. The fourth spread of your newsletter will be "party notes." Party notes are a set of images with long captions or small text blocks. Refer to The New York Times to see how their party pages are designed. [Note from Genevieve to add a scan of a sample "party notes" page from the Times here.]

Often there are many small images with long captions. There is also a rubric indicating that "party notes" is a regularly running section. Notice how the Times will set celebrities' names in small Franklin Gothic caps to make them stand out from the rest of the text. The reader can easily peruse the page to see at a glance who is on the party page. Party pages can be a lot of fun to design. But, they are little puzzles that need considerable attention in order to be designed in interesting ways.

Above, I have designed a basic image box (gray) and copy block (white with black outline) example so that you get the idea. I created the example on a six-column grid. In the below image, I outlined the six columns in red so that you can see the grid.

To begin, gather a stack of party type images. On your six-column grid size and lay the images in where they look most interesting. Once you have a poetic balance of images on the spread—none too small or too large, but with as much contrast in size as you are able, lay in the captions near the images. Again, create modular blocks of image and caption so that the reader is clear where to look for the caption to a particular image. Please post your newsletter for me to see. Save it as a multi-page PDF. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Design a complete newsletter including a front page with three story starts, three multiple story spreads, a party notes spread, and an end story spread. Create a layout (in "blocked" format) with typography choices that address your target audience. Be sure to remember to establish a hierarchy of headlines and subheads in order to direct the reader's attention from the most important story on the spread to the least. Create a newsletter design worthy of a portfolio piece.

How to Post: Upload your blocked-out newspaper scan and your finished newsletter PDF to the Dropbox along with brief comments about your work. Your scanned newspaper project should be posted as a JPEG and at 72 dpi and appropriately sized (at least 500 pixels wide). If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.

Editorial Design| Book Design

Book Design For your final project, you will apply your editorial design skills to the key parts of various genres of books. In this exercise, you're responsible for the cover design, preface, copyright pages, classic and experimental chapter starts, text spreads, an epilogue, a notes page, page, a bibliography, and an index. Sounds like a lot... and it is! Book In this project, work on your signature style. design is demanding, but I think you'll find this process rewarding and add a nice finishing piece to your editorial design projects.

In this exercise, you're expected to: Develop two covers for the same book, one demonstrating your personal style and one trying a new style. Develop a book cover for your final book project, using the logo from Exercise Three. Design a title spread, copyright spread, preface page, epilogue page, notes page, and index page for the book. Design two different chapter opener spreads demonstrating traditional and experimental styles. Design specialized text spreads.

By the Book Designing a book for general reading is generally fairly repetitive except for the cover and chapter head pages. Therefore, in order to cover a variety of book types, this exercise will include several book elements that may never occur together. Those are: a cover, a preface to a book, a chapter head page, and an annotated spread layout. For all pages except the cover, please use the book template you designed in Lesson Two. Please remember the folio line. In book design, the folio line can run at the top of the page, the bottom, or be split between the two.

Cover Design Novel jacket design is an area of graphic design that allows for developing a signature style. Most designers are interested in developing a signature style. This means developing a personal aesthetic and learning how to use it to solve editorial design problems. Let's look at the oeuvre of book jacket designer, Rodrigo Corral. I've organized a selection of his work into several categories. This isn't to

say that his range is limited to these categories or that none of these pieces exceed the categories I've put them in. I'm making it simple in order to make the point that designers have "formulas" that are successful and to which they return often. This comprises the basis of a "signature style." Click the image below for a large version.

When a designer's work is broken down into categories like the ones I've shown you, it makes the work look less complex. Certainly, you should not think this is the case.

Experimenting With Style Study the work of other designers to help inspire and shape your personal style.

Now try to forget the formulas you've just seen and have look at your own work in this way. What are the formulas or conceits that you return to again and again? Make small JPEGs of your work and categorize it like I've categorized Rodrigo Corral's. Assign names to the categories even if your labels don't do the work justice. Take a step back and have a look at what you've done. Which conceits do you like and which don't you like? Choose one and create a book cover based on something you already know how to do. Use a title that you've read. Then pick an idea that is completely foreign to your work, and create a book cover based on it. Again, choose a title that you've read. Submit both designs you've created and tell me which is based on a familiar formula and which is based on something you "appropriated" or swiped from another designer, art director, or artist. Appropriating from another source and making it your own is what we do as designers. This is simply part of the creative process. The general rule is that you must change the swipe by 75% in order to call it yours.

Some book designs for inspiration: [Note from Genevieve to consider adding and crediting other nicer layouts. These could be other student or professional book cover designs, including typographic designs as well as image driven designs. Source mentioned was Diana]

When you work in a genre that is not your specialty, take extra time to familiarize yourself

with the text and audience.

Books are often available in more than one design, each targeting a different audience.

Author: Khaled Hosseini (top), Author: William Borroughs (middle), Author: W. Somerset Maugham (bottom). Designer: Paula Echavarria (top), Designer: Chris Malec (middle), Designer: Lisa Hawke (bottom)

Getting Started Now you are ready to design the front cover of your final book project. For this you will need to read the book or do a good job with the Cliff's Notes or film version. However, nothing compares to reading the original text. You will need to own a copy of the book so you can send me scans of the old version to compare to your new version. Please use the book title you designed a logo for in Lesson Three. You may redesign the logo if needed. Choose or create a cover image that suits the story. Be careful not to give away too much of the story, but rather tease the reader into wanting to buy and read the book. Do some extra research on books in the same genre to see what types of images are used. Choose or create an image that feels current in mood, style, and/or coloration, even if the story is dated. Redesigns of older books often

update the look of the cover and book design in order to draw a new audience. Be careful to consider your target audience for book design, as in other forms of editorial design. Above are examples from now professional ex-students. Note the personality of each designer and how they each chose a writer that suited their aesthetic sensibility. Of course, choosing your author isn't always possible. However, for your portfolio it is a wise decision since you design better those things that you enjoy. Note: Remember that the art direction of your swipe determines, to a large extent, the strength of your cover design. Please upload your front cover design for me to critique.

Book Template Make layouts of eleven spreads along with a cover. [Note from Genevieve to consider expanding this section intro]

See the machete below as guideline:

Small caps are often set at a size smaller than the main body text so they don't look too emphatic or out of place.

Title and Preface Spreads Some of your spreads will only have copy on one side—the title spread and preface spread, for instance. Look at examples of these pages in books and copy one of each. Redesign the typography so that it is pleasing to you. Show me both the original book page and your rendition. You will need to design a baseline grid for the template as soon as you decide the typeface and leading for the text of the book. Choose a text face and size that is easily readable in large blocks, meaning one that has a fairly large and open x-height. Suggestions for typefaces are: Century Expanded, Caslon Regular, Bembo, and Cloister. But don't stop there.

Use a rag right text block for the preface, justified text blocks for story text, and rag right text blocks for the annotations.

A Note About the Assignment Though the conventions of book design do not include all I am about to ask you to do, I request these exercises in order to give you a chance to set and design a number of different pieces of text together on a book page. Note: Please include a brief synopsis of your proposed target audience for each segment of the assignment.

Most books don't contain all of the features your project book will.

Preface Set the preface text several sizes larger than the book text. Run in a line or three words of small caps at the beginning of the preface. The size of the small caps should be slightly smaller than the text size. This is because caps look larger than upper and lower case letters. Therefore, an adjustment needs to be made in order to make the caps look "right" next to the text.

Use drop caps carefully so as not to imply the start of a new chapter when there isn't one.

Run the preface the full six of six columns on a right hand page. Drop the start of the preface down about half or a third into the opening page. Set the word "preface" above the text block. Be sure to consider the size, style, and placement carefully. Design a chapter head to place between the word "preface" and the preface text. Choose the wording from an existing headline or make one up. Set the head several sizes larger than the preface text size. Kern the letters if needed. Often there is no headline for a book preface, but for our purposes, to play with typography on a page, I would like you to design one. Don't forget to design the folio line. Please upload your preface page for me to look at. Tool all your typographic material intimately. Make sure that each detail is attended to. Please post the pages you copied and your makeovers for me to see.

Copyright and Contents Pages These pages will face each other. This often occurs in books of collected stories or poetry and academic books. Copy a copyright page and a content page from a book. Design the pages across from each other. What design conventions do you notice on the pages you are copying that help clarify the material for the viewer?

Chapter Opener If you wish, you can experiment with designing a mid book chapter opener that finishes one chapter on the left side and begins another on the right side. Seldom do chapter finishes fill the page from top to bottom. Therefore, please leave about two thirds to one half of the page empty on the chapter finish. Across from these, design your traditional chapter opener and your experimental chapter opener. Refer back to the machete to help keep the order straight. Set a page of text type for the opening page of the chapter. Design a headline and number style for the chapter. You may use numerals or letters. Decide if you want to include the word "chapter." If so, set it in caps or small caps. Space the elements nicely (meaning not too close and not too far away) in relation to each other. Design a folio different from the one you designed for the preface page.

The chapter opener on the left takes a classic approach, while the one on the right is modern and experimental.

Though there is a general convention for designing books, certain aesthetic choices can reveal the personality of the designer. In the above two examples, I've shown you a typical design and a more experimental one. Though I highly recommend experimenting with new ways of designing conventional pieces, I suggest that you practice the basics, get those down really well, and then move on to more exciting ideas. Please upload a basic design and a more experimental one for me to look at.

Text Spreads You are going to create two text spreads. One will have a subhead, the other will have a drop cap. Design the spreads using different text type so that you begin to have a facility with a few text faces. Refer to the blocks of copy you set to choose an appropriate typeface. If nothing appeals to you, set more text blocks. These spreads should have copy that runs from top to bottom of the pages within the margins.

Subheads Break about a third of the way down the first page of the spread to put in a subhead. Design the subhead so that it fits well with the text type you have chosen and also looks good. Often a bold version of the text type is used for the subheads. Try this as well as other options. Additionally, try making the subhead cap and lower case as well as all caps. Decide if you want to leave a linespace above the subhead. Generally, this is a good idea.

Drop Caps Put a drop cap on the second page of the spread at about half way down the page. Note that drop caps only begin at the top of the page when the story starts. Otherwise, they sink into the column of text so as not to imply to the viewer that this is a new story or new chapter. Decide if you like the drop cap sunk completely into the text or if you like it sitting up a line or so. Mostly, drop caps after the first one are sunk into the text, but try the options and see what you think. Also, experiment with different styles of drop caps. Drop caps are a design element that have the capacity to leave the designer's mark on the book. Remember to leave a linespace (or more depending on where you place the drop cap) above the drop cap. Otherwise, it will look too crowded.

The Annotated Alice: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, Illustrations by John Tenniel, Annotated Text Spread

Set a spread of text type using four of six inner columns on each page. Reserve the outer two columns on each page for annotations. Set the text blocks of annotations rag right. Set the annotations several sizes smaller than the text size, but no smaller than 7 point. Place the annotations sporadically in the outer two columns of six on each side of the spread. Obviously, if we were doing a real book, the annotations would relate to the text and would not be placed sporadically. In addition to annotated text, you may elect to use illustration in these columns in addition to the annotated text. If you decide to do this, be sure you choose illustrations that make sense with the text type you have designed. If you become partial to an illustration style after you design the text type, assuming that the illustration style is appropriate for the book you've chosen, you may need to reconsider and redesign the text type to fit with the illustrations. Upload the spread for me to critique.

Notes and Bibliography Pages There are various conventions that academics use to style notes and bibliographies. For styling of the bibliography and notes in this course, please use A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Chicago Guides to Writing, Editing, and Publishing) by Kate L. Turabian. This paperback book is available in most large bookstores and online. I know this is tedious, folks. But, no one will ever correct your notes and bibliographies again!

Your Finished Book After you've received some critiques on the individual sections you've submitted, finalize your book and save it as a multi-page PDF. I look forward to seeing your work!

Grading Criteria: What your instructor expects you to do: Design two different cover designs for a book, one that is consistent with your current personal style and one that is inspired by another designer. Design a book including a cover, title spread, opener spread, preface, chapters, notes/bibliography spread, and index. Chapter spreads must demonstrate a traditional chapter opener, an experimental chapter opener, a standard text spread, an annotated text spread, and a text spread with subhead. Choose and set all typography so that it is both appealing and appropriately readable for the target audience of the book. Create a book design worthy of a portfolio piece.

How to Post: Throughout the exercise, upload pages and spreads of your book, along with JPEG scans (72 dpi and appropriately sized) of the original. Include a brief synopsis of your proposed target audience for each segment of the assignment. When your book is complete, upload the final multi-page PDF for critique along with some comments about your work. If you have a question before sending your exercises for grading, use the Send Mail area to contact your instructor.