Reviewing Editorial Magazines -Laura Curtis.

I will begin by discussing some examples of good editorial design.

CLASH is a British music and fashion magazine. I really like the editorial aesthetic and design within the magazine.
The layout of these spreads is clear and pleasing to the eye.

Image 1- shows examples of CLASH front covers. I particularly like the simplicity of only including the title and name of the person featured on the cover (e.g Ed Sheeran, Jack White and Rex Orange County). The use of colour within these covers is strong and captures the attention of its audience.

I like the use of colour especially in the second example shown above.
The use of the yellow highlighter brush stroke behind the title “THE JAM" in contrast with the black and white photography is successful.

The 3rd spread has a good use of white space meaning it is not too overpowering or crowded. The pages are not messy and it is easy to read, follow and understand.

2 other examples of successful editorial magazines are Huck and Icon.

Huck is a London based bi-monthly magazine, it’s first issue was published in 2006. It discusses topics of music, politics and places from all over the world.

ICON is a is a British design and architecture magazine established in 2003 by publishing director Daren Newton.

In comparison to what i consider successful editorial magazines i will now show an example of design i think is poor.

‘Writing’ Magazine.

This is the UK’s no.1 best selling writers magazine, giving people tips on how to become an author, write stories, blogs, essays etc.

Personally I really dislike the layout and design of these magazine covers. They are very over-crowded, full of information all on the cover! Let alone the contents of the magazine itself.

There is no consistent colour or font throughout any of the covers shown above. Different fonts, text sizes /alternating between capitalised& lower case letters, colours and shapes are used, making it unpleasant to look at and even difficult to follow. Unlike the clean cut, neat covers of CLASH Magazine which I consider successful.