Thoughts on imagery in magazines

In reference to Brittney’s post below, I wanted to give my insights about the class on Monday when we visited the library and looked at different magazines.  I was really interested in the way the magazine used imagery for the stories they where publishing.  Magazines like COLORS and GOOD used the imagery throughout the story to help complement the text.  I read an issue of COLORS that was about aids and they used clever ways of showing facts without showing info-graphics.  They explained how sleeping with someone without a condom could lead to an STD because they might have slept with 2-3 other people unprotected then they might have slept with another 2-3 people, and so on.  After 4-5 pages of explaining that, they filled a whole page with images to show the scale. 

As for a typeface or logo I liked, I really enjoyed the GOOD logo.  It was simple and bold.  I think for 585 Magazine, we need a font that shows both numbers and letters boldly.  I think having 585 like GOOD would be effective.  But is it pushing the bar?  Our designer can figure this out!

Chris Langer - Week 5

Mediastorm - http://www.mediastorm.com

One of the reasons why I picked this website for this blog was the social media is integrated so well into the site.  I really like seeing the content on the website then scrolling down and seeing a wide majority of sharing your ideas.  You can comment on it, share it, repost it, and see more information about the project.  I think this is really effective for sharing stories.  Social media is essential for us to get started.  It is the easiest and quickest way to get visitors on the website.  

Reportage by Getty - http://www.reportage-bygettyimages.com/

I came across this website a year ago and wanted to bring it back up again for this class.  I really enjoyed seeing all of the Getty photographers work in one place.  It also has a very simple design and simple navigation.  I am also a big fan of the scrolling horizontal gallery on each page to see the pictures.  I am usually not a fan of horizontal scrolling but like how it is used in this website.  I think this website helps show the power of simple navigation and emphasis on the imagery.

Field Trip to the Library

Today we traveled to the library where CIAS librarian Kari Horowitz who pulled together a collection of magazine from all over. We saw tiny rectangular flip book styled books from Visionaire to larger poster sized magazines from Manipulator.

Things that we liked about the older magazines were their use of negative/ white space and how important a role photographs played over ads. Flair gave us the idea of moving from one page to the next by combining cut-outs from pages to be a part of the next page.

Somethings to think about were how do we move from a tactile action of flipping through the physical pages to an iPad? Maybe shaking the iPad would shuffle our projects?

Magazines We Looked At:
Visionaire
Look
Life
Flair
Colors
Manipulator
Good
Harpers
Dazed and Confused

-Brittney

Blogging and social networking

A friend sent me the link to illobook which is creating a social network using blogs, I wonder if we could do something like this? I spoke today about using the interactivity component to try and create or strengthen the community, especially the community that you all want to reach which is other students and programs, What do you think?

Tear It Down

Tear It Down is an organization created by Amnesty International to remove detainees from Guantanamo Bay. The website creates a tone very well with the photos, design and audio. It is easy to navigate, but there isn't a lot of content, only tons of links to do other things related to the website. The tone and the design are great, so something to consider to frame our content.

Adventure Country

I thought this was a fun take on an interactive map. It's almost all extras and not a lot of content, but it's fun and makes the viewer stay longer. There are a lot of silly business cards, but I was thinking we could do a special thanks page with a map like this and include business cards of places we're working with or where the blog posts are in Rochester. It also uses audio as a background while interacting with the site.

CNN NewsPulse and POSI+TIVE Magazine

       I looked at CNN NewsPulse first and found that while the site didn't look visually interest or pretty for that matter; I did like the "show me" column. It broke down the different topics that people would want to use to refine a search as well as helps to remove stories that the viewer doesn't want to see/read. The images that combined with the story are a nice way to break up all the text and white space. Similarly to what Kelly said of 1000 Words website I find that CNN too is very simple. I think it's clean organization and easy navigation are it's positive.

    Next came the opposite to CNN, POSI+TIVE Magazine. The pros of this website are it's color scheme, the combination of photos, text, and video on one page, and it's modular design. The grey and white colors aren't to over bearing on the eye and don't over-power photographs. The ability to have three different types of communication/journalistics mediums is a big plus. The viewer can have a wide array of things to view, which I believe is important to have as not only a way to broadcast our projects but to also keep viewers coming back to the site.
  
   I do and don't like the modular design. I think it's a unique and creative way to organize a page and to keep things organized but with POSI+TIVE Magazine you have to scroll for what seems like a long time. I scrolled all the way to the bottom but I'm not sure how many people would be willing to do that.

-Brittney

Video Portrait has made the big time

Marie Claire Cover