Newspaper // Day 6

Today our aim was to completely remake the front cover of our magazine in response to yesterday's crit feedback. This process started with the logo, which we felt needed to be finalized at this stage of the project. We were undecided on whether to base the logo on our prototype or to replace it with a nicely typeset logo. I worked on the former option, while look was focusing on producing something new.

After scanning the handdrawn logo and isolating it from the drawing in photoshop, I cleaned up the vector in illustratoe to create a cleaner version that didn't loose the thick marker appearance of the original. 

In the end, we decided that the realism of the paper had to exist somewhere. Serious branding would help to offset the joke articles and strengthen the idea of the brand as a proper newspaper, rather that a kind of zine. This was the final logo we decided to go forward with:

We felt that it was a strong and distinctive display face which was both elegant and minimal. The umlaut U made a distinctive mark that we could push forward into promotion and other elements of the paper. It would be ideal as an avatar for social networks.

 We went through many many revisions of the front page and came towards a final structure in the afternoo:

This was our final design of the day

We had trouble deciding what image to use to illustrate our article, experimenting with photographs and illustrations to see what fit best. In the end we decided to include an illustration as it gives the newspaper some additional character and creates a harmonious layout above the fold that will catch potential readers' attention. Here are some elements from the spread:

Here a

 

Header:

We kept this intentionally simple, using the same serif font as the body copy. Inside the newspaper issue 1 will be replaced with the 'U' logo.  Page numbers are printed in full.

 

Top bar:

In our protype this information was squashed into a block and looked too cramped.  By including a small bar, we help to frame the logo and clearly communicate what can be found in the magazine. 

Advert:

I worked on producing an advert that could fill the space in the bottom left of the cover. This was a realisation of an idea we had in the research stage of the sprint, in which the lottery advert would change from live like a VIP, to live like an MP. It fit the theme of the artcicle so it felt like a worthwhile idea to include.