Choosing a Magazine

Being an indecisive nut, choosing a magazine (for my assignment) was so difficult! This is why sometimes complete freedom can be a pain however I won't take that for granted because I'm sure I'll miss the freedom when I really start working.

    

For a while I was tossing between Elephant magazine and Apartamento. I was actually surprised to find that Elephant magazine didn't really have its own website despite having quite a solid identity - it was basically a segment of their publisher's website outlining past issues and previews of current issue. I've never actually had a proper read of the magazine but always loved the designs shown in lectures and searches on the internet. It's a disappointment though whenever I get my hands on it - the glossy cover and glossy pages just doesn't do it for me! Especially with the lovely binding and thickness of it, you'd think they'd want the magazine to feel more like a book. Quite honestly that disappointment repelled me from choosing it even though the visual features of Elephant magazine would've been nice to work with.

Elephant Magazine Issue #5 Contents page: Always loved the design of their contents pages

Elephant Magazine Issue #3 Contents Page: Even though the designs changes with every issue there's alway something distinctly Elephant about them.

But I ended up choosing Apartamento as I thought that it would be nice to work with the interiors, people and lifestyle spectrum of magazines. I was actually reluctant to choose this magazine in the first place because it seemed like apartamento prides itself for having such a strong presence as print (I hear magnation complained of having too many readers nagging them for it) that I felt I shouldn't impose on making their online identity such a big thing as the value of apartamento lies in the fact that people are eager to get it into their hands; it's the personal relationship readers have beyond the screen that makes this magazine magical in the first place. However that said, I also noticed that Apartamento runs a fair bit of events and projects (again strong offline appeal), and sure it's featured on their website and updated on their Facebook, but considering there's this nice sense of community happening I felt that their online presence could significantly enhance this. 

Currently this is their website. When I first saw it I felt quite disappointed. I found that it felt rather empty and 'dead' (no hints of liveliness). It does its job by providing information on the maga with elements of promotion here and there but nothing more than that. Also I didn't really understand the whole centre-alignment and why the colour blue (and the red) was used; it felt so harsh for the natural aura I got from the magazine. Perhaps it was their intention for the website to feel as "homemade" as possible? 

As part of the research process I ended up taking a trip down to Newtown's Magnation to buy the magazine. This gave me a good insight to where the magazine is placed next to (competitors) and also gave me a good excuse to add more magazines to my collection (haha just kidding). I think it was crucial to understand the tactile nature and its identity as print before plunging into designing their website - obviously because you need to understand and experience the magazine in order to know what needs to be communicated. But other important questions I asked myself were: "What can I add to the readers experience of the magazine?" and "how can web extend the magazine's relationship to readers". Establishing a good sense of community and relationship with its readers by extending interactions beyond the contents of their magazine was something I felt the more successful websites did and this is from looking at my own encounters of being a reader - they were the sites I kept going back to (therefore keeping my attachment to the magazine).

Apartamento Magazine - a niche in the interiors range of magazine focusing on the natural everyday interiors of people in its rawest form - no styling no design dictate.

Some features of Apartamento I noted:

• Unique small format fits perfectly in hand
• Same sort of feel as Dumbo Feather magazine on its focus on people, 'mook' format (half magazine half book) and subdued colours.
• Use of the Clearface font for folios, footers, headings and masthead.
• Futura used for body copy and contents (centred aligned)(now I understand why such feature was so prominent in the navigation of their website)
• Underlined titles in red (this also explains the links on the website)
• Images in full-bleed and if cropped would have a border. Image captions in red.
• Font colours sometimes went crazy. 
• Also features illustrations (some in mono-colour).
• Pages were usually colour in a subdue pastel
• A black and white pattern featured on the spine