Communication Design Fundamentals Project 5
Digital Magazine Feature
Project Introduction
The objective of this project will be to create a digital magazine layout for Architectural Digest. Using various components of a successful layout such as composition, typographic hierarchy, and color, I will be able to create three spreads of a feature article intended to appear in Architectural Digest. These spreads should be stories that fit within Architectural Digest’s existing ethos and content strategy.
Before starting the project, I conducted a short grid exercise to better understand how grids work and to see what are types of grids I can use for my layout.
Grid Exercise
11/13
Doing this grid exercise was great practice to understand what are some different types of grids that I could experiment with for the spreads that I’ll be working on. I found the exercise challenging at some points since it was hard to identify a consistent grid layout that matched each page so I had to continuously move the grids around to see how they could fit better. The grids that I saw were more traditional grids but for my digital magazine, I would like to try to experiment with some unconventional grid layouts.
Research
11/16
Content Development
To start off this project, I did some research on Google about Architectural Digest and what kind of content the magazine usually shows in both its print and digital versions. Architectural Digest is an American monthly magazine founded in 1920. Its primary subjects are interior design, landscaping, and external architecture. For my project, I decided to do an article about the interior and exterior of a specific house. Here are pieces of the content that I can include on the spreads as well as citations to show where they are from.
The 58 House (Designed by 85 Design)
There has been a wide range of house designing and building rules that exist many years ago in Vietnam and East Asia, particularly the Feng Shui rule. This sometimes made architects struggle with their design ideas. For instance, building the house of the wealthy or the front door and the headboard of the bed must be suitable for the owner’s ages. Moreover, the living room is always facing the main facade, which is the first place you have to go through when you want to enter the house, etc.
Interior Design
As we work for this project with investors, we have consented to just keep a little of the Asian Feng Shui principle in the design process. We mainly focus on our design principles or what we call science Feng Shui — a combination among natural science foundation, biometrics, psychology, climate, and environment. The 58 House might be weird for some people due to the contrary in organizing the space, which is against the traditional type. On the 1st floor, the facade is completely built closed. As soon as you step through the main door, there is a stair to the 2nd floor and we also take advantage of the under stairs spaces to decorate shelves.
The most important part of the house is the kitchen which is at the back along with a small garden. All activities in these spaces are connected to the garden by the mobility of sliding doors, creating the feeling as if these spaces are a unified and private one. Besides the kitchen, we also set a bedroom on the main site of the house on the 1st floor. This bedroom is for grandparents because they are elders, their priority is convenience in every daily activity. Their bedroom is also connected directly with the small garden which is their world. We assure not only the open and coolness but also safety from the outside factors.
Additionally, we placed a beautiful mahogany wooden staircase in the center of the house. There is a big window placed at the quarter-turn to view the backyard. Our mission by designing the L-shaped stairs was to have walking away from the main floor and to the upper floor a special experience dedicated to reflecting on one’s surroundings.
On the 2nd floor, there is a bedroom for the couple, a sharing bedroom for their children and a remaining bedroom used temporarily as a playing area, reading and relaxing for the family. The bedrooms are connected by bridge corridors, so parents can easily control the activities and studying of two children.
The layout of the bridge corridors really promote efficiency in the use, the connection of private and common space is very simple and extremely effective. The third room can also be changed to a study room. There is also a green space and playground for families on beautiful days or for romantic evenings of parents. When the children grow up, that redundant bedroom will become a private one for them. All the rooms are directly full of light and wind. We did the same with the toilet for it to receive the best of light, wind, and green as we know that those factors are really important in balancing nature. We studied extremely thoroughly about environmental elements that affect these areas, thus we installed sun louvers in both front and back sides to decrease the impact of summer heat and receive actively the light and wind.
The materiality printed in the house leads the general context to the uniqueness, enabling dialogue between the elements and discontinuing the spaces with delicacy.
Exterior Design
The main design concept is to create a house which has close relationship with nature and this is achieved by having a swimming-pool linking the house with the landscape and ultimately visual connections with the sea. The idea of connection is reinforced by having the basement level media-room with a u-shaped acrylic window which allows diffuse natural light in and also views out into the pool. The curved roofs, which symbolizing the sea waves, also emphasize the idea of the nearby sea. These are almost totally covered with thin bendable photovoltaic panels supplying enough energy to the house, while the remaining area is used as a green roof giving residents some outdoor leisure spaces.
Because of the prominent raised nature of the site and the prominent placing of the building overlooking the road we decided to make the building appear light and to ‘float’ with large cantilevers of thin elements to reduce the apparent mass of the building seen from the road. The site sits on the busy Cluny Road facing the entrance to the botanic gardens. From the road, the site sloped up steeply to a platform level many metres above road level. Vehicular access to the site was therefore difficult and was a major determinant on the design.
Like mentioned before, there is a outdoor garden after walking out from the kitchen. To make the most of the surrounding greenery, landscaped ponds and courtyards were created as focal loci, both to extend visual links to this borrowed landscape, and to separate the various wings of the house for the purpose of maintaining privacy.
Taking the Asian cues of extended family courtyard living further the structure is topped off with a sleek large roof with exaggerated overhangs, a 21st century update of vernacular roof forms, necessary protection against the more extreme weather patterns we are experiencing.
To keep the house cool in summer, apart from the sun louver system, there is also anti-heat roof measures. Large roof overhangs are introduced to shade the bedroom windows from the tropical sun. The front and rear of the building meanwhile, terrace back allowing each story to have visual or actual access to greenery.
Roof gardens are effective in helping to cool the building as well help retaining water at time of heavy rain. The intention was to try to allow each roof garden provided a base for the story above allowing the layered effect to make each story feel like it was a single storey dwelling sitting in a garden. To keep the house safe, we designed the security and alarm system by sensors and cameras.
The materiality printed in the house leads the general context to the uniqueness, enabling dialogue between the elements and discontinuing the spaces with delicacy. The 58 House is a modest and yet luxurious residential design which gives residents opportunities to live in harmony and comfortably with nature.
From: https://www.archdaily.com/943766/58-house-85-design & https://www.archdaily.com/68115/fish-house-guz-architects?ad_medium=widget&ad_name=category-houses-article-show
Moodboard
Before diving into the ideation stage, I wanted to construct a moodboard to get some inspiration on what type of feeling I want the audience to have while looking at these spreads.
Ideation
11/19
Sketches
To start thinking about how pieces of images and text content should be placed around the spreads, I sketched out ideas for different grid layouts. For the three spreads, I wanted to make each spread a different topic related to the architecture of the house; The three topics are interior design, exterior design, room design. I explored grids with two, three, and four columns and also explored images taking up the full page or only taking up a small amount of space to allow for more text to fit.
Typeface
At this time, I also wanted to think about what typeface I’ll be using for the magazine. Looking at existing Architectural Digest magazines, I saw that they use two typefaces: one for heading (serif typeface) and another for subheadings and body text (sans-serif typeface). On Adobe Fonts, I was able to find four typefaces (Louvette Banner, Acumin, Quiche Sans, and Habaro Contrast) that I thought would work well for the spreads. For the heading, I chose Louvette which has a robust form but is more fitting for short pieces of content. For subheadings and body text, I have the options: Acumin which is a versatile sans-serif typeface that is highly readable and legible, Quiche Sans which is a high-contrast, sans-serif typeface, and Haboro Contrast which is a geometric sans-serif typeface. Currently, I like the combination of Louvette Banner and Acumin.
1:1 Feedback Session
11/24
In today’s session, I had a 1:1 feedback session with Ji to talk about my sketch explorations and get some feedback before starting to digitize my ideas. Some of the important pieces of feedback I received were:
- For the first page of the spread, I should have a main title (for example: the title of the house that the article is about)
- I should look at the pieces of images I have and decided whether I should use them or not depending on my need for landscape vs vertical pictures
- Some of the grids that I sketched might not work too well but that might only be seen once I started digitizing and adding in the actual pieces of content
Digital Iteration 1
11/25
After the feedback session with Ji, I began digitizing my ideas for different layouts. I decided 1 spread would be dedicated to an overview of The 58 House as an introduction, another spread dedicated to interior design, and the last spread dedicated to the exterior design of the house. I looked at previous Architectural Digest spreads and traced some of the grids they used for some inspiration and combined those ideas with my layout ideas during the sketching phase. I experimented with 2, 3, and 4 column layouts. I also experimented with moving the images in different places on the page to see which layout was the most dynamic.
Digital Iteration 2
11/30
After digitizing my ideas in Indesign, I started adding in the images to the placeholders so that I could get a better idea of which layout worked the best. Having all the content helped me visualize the spreads as a whole better and I was able to make adjustments to each spread. For example, I switched the layout that I initially had for exterior design to interior design since I wanted to include three images for interior design. I switched the initial interior design spread to exterior design since I had two main images I wanted to use for the exterior design spread.
Group Feedback Session
12/1
Today’s feedback session was very helpful to hear feedback from my peers and ask what could be improved for the spreads to be more consistent with AD’s visual style as well as overall improvements. Some of the pieces of feedback I got were:
- Could use the use of typographic variables such as weight or italics to make the overall hierarchy of the spreads stronger
- For example, it might be helpful to make the quote italicized to have it stand out more. Another thing that I could try is to bring in the heading typeface to the quote.
- It’s important to maintain consistent leading between paragraphs on each spread
Digital Iteration 3
12/2
After the feedback session, I continued iterating on the three spreads. Some of the main changes that I made were first, I changed the typeface of the pull quotes to Louvette instead of Acumin. I chose Louvette Italic to add further emphasis to the quotes and help the reader differentiate the quotes from the rest of the body text. For the pull quote in spread 3, I also made it center-aligned the make the page look more balanced. Additionally, I also fixed the leading between each line in the body text so that it was the same for every spread. Lastly, I fixed the spacing between the images and the body text to be the same distance in each spread.
1:1 Feedback Session
12/3
Today’s feedback session was really helpful to hear some of Anna’s thoughts on places where I can refine the spreads. Some of the main pieces of feedback I received were:
- Could explore more sans-serif typefaces for the body text that are narrower to avoid the empty spaces between each word since I’m working with justified type
- Spacing between the letters makes the text hard to read at times — could adjust kerning between words or use hyphenation to avoid those big spaces
- Could experiment with a light blue or green for the pull quotes and also try to go back to Louvette Regular instead of italics
Digital Iteration 4
12/4
From Anna’s feedback in the last session, I was able to refine the three spreads. The main changes that I made were first, I experimented with narrower typefaces. I decided to go with Minion Pro, a serif typeface, which is a slight pivot from the previous sans-serif typeface, Acumin. I decided to choose Minion because I went back to look at more AD spreads and saw that they do utilize serif typefaces in their body text and Minion is a nice, readable typeface. Another change that I made was experiment more with adding color to the pull quotes. I tried some variations of green and blue and ended up choosing a light blue (which was pulled from the color in the kitchen photograph). I also decided to change the pull quotes’ typeface back to match the body text since Louvette made the quotes a little hard to read. Lastly, after choosing a narrower typeface, I also adjusted the kerning for specific lines where “extra paths/rivers” formed and utilized hyphenation to make the body text easier to read for the audience.
Miro Board Feedback
12/5
After adjusting my layouts and content from Anna’s feedback, I wanted another round of feedback. I posted my layouts onto a Miro board so that Anna and Ji could give some feedback on my latest iteration. Some of the main pieces of feedback I received was:
- Instead of adding color to the quote, maybe I could make the pull quote in the style of a quoted text and only add color to the vertical bar
- In terms of the color of the quoted text, the blue I chose could be more of a teal color
- It’s important to watch our for widows that might make the content look a little messy
- In the third spread, adjust the layout to match the second spread and make sure that the margins around the photo are the same as the other spreads
Digital Iteration 5
12/7
After looking at the feedback I got on the Miro Board, I worked on refining each spread. Some of the main changes that I made were:
- Adjusting the margins of each spread so that the grid matched on every spread
- In the third spread, I aligned the images to the text so that the spread would look more balanced overall. I also brought the picture on page 6 downwards so that the quote would align to the bottom line of the left column of the text
- Changed the quotes back to black but made them into a quoted text style and chose a teal color (grabbed from the pool color) to use for the vertical block
- Made sure that there were no widows so that the text looks clean and organized
- I reduced the leading by 0.5pt and made the body text the same size on all the spreads
1:1 Feedback
12/8
Since this was our last class before the final critique session, we had another round of 1:1s, and mine was with Anna. This session was super helpful to get some feedback about the improvements I made. The main pieces of feedback that I got were:
- I could use the same spacing between “The 58 House” title and the byline as the other spreads
- For the rectangle to the left of the quotes, I could experiment with 1. decreasing the width of the rectangle, 2. change the rectangle to be horizontal above the quote, or 3. have a shorter length rectangle below the quote
- For the quote, I should keep it set a bit in still though to differentiate the pull quotes from the body text
Digital Iteration 6
12/7
After the feedback session, I worked on using the same spacing below the “The 58 House” title and the byline as the other two spreads. For the Interior Design and Exterior Design spread, I tried out the three options Anna and I discussed. The thinner bar did relieve some tension with the vertical stair photo. The horizontal bar below the pull quote also makes the overall spread more balanced.
Email Feedback
12/7
After trying out the different options for the pull quote, I emailed Anna to get some final feedback about which application of the bar next to the pull quote works the best. She mentioned that either the horizontal bar or the thinner vertical bar worked. She also said that I could try to hang the quote and we met for a few minutes to go over how to do that.
Final Design
12/9
In the final design, the main changes that I made from the last iteration were I decided to go with a horizontal bar below the quote to balance the placement of the quote with the images on the page and I also used hung the quote so that the pull quote section looked neater.
The main design decisions that I made for the final design spread were first, I decided to go with a traditional three-column grid because from my research, I saw that many of AD’s magazine spreads also use traditional three or four-column grids. I also used the same margin around the pictures and on each spread so that there was a consistent look to each spread. Since AD’s articles are mainly focused on the beauty of different houses or buildings, I wanted the pictures in my spreads to speak for themselves. Therefore, the images take up a good amount of space on each spread so that the reader can enjoy the beautiful imagery as they are reading the magazine. In terms of color, AD doesn’t incorporate a lot of colors other than in titles or their front covers, so I decided to just only bring in a subtle teal color (that was taken from the color of the pool) for the bars underneath the quotes to unify the black text and colorful images. In terms of typeface, I used Louvette as the title typeface and Minion Pro as the body text. I chose Louvette since it is a sharp, stylish, modern serif that matches the style of AD’s current logo/title typefaces. I used Minion Pro since it has more of an old-style, serif look that matches the typeface that AD uses for its body text.
View the spread and bibliography on Issuu: https://issuu.com/mmchencmu/docs/magazine
Final Critique
12/10
Today’s final critique session was really great to hear classmates’ perspectives on my spreads and their thoughts about how my publication aligns with AD’s current ethos and brand. It was also great to see how other people’s spreads evolved from the beginning of the project to now and to see how people decided to implement their spreads in relation to the overall brand of the publication they chose. Some of the feedback I got today was:
- The spreads do seem to align with AD’s brand and the structure of the spread is clean/easy to read
- The division of Interior vs Exterior spread helped the audience read through and understand more about the design of “The 58 House”
Reflection
12/11
Overall, through this project, I was able to learn a lot about magazine design and how useful and efficient using grids can be, how to create a design that aligns with a brand’s existing ethos and content strategy, and how to effectively use images and text together to tell a complete story. My favorite part of this project was that we had the freedom to choose a publication that interests us and create a digital magazine around that topic. I was excited about choosing Architectural Digest since I spend a lot of my free time watching AD’s YouTube videos and also reading about interior and exterior designs of different types of homes. When I came across an article about “The 58 House” which is located in Vietnam and the architects’ use of Feng Shui in the house, I thought it would be a great topic to use for my magazine spreads. Through this project, I was also able to strengthen my InDesign skills by trying out different grids in the earlier iterations and practicing utilizing typographic variables such as kerning, leading, and tracking to create a readable and organized spread.
