Task 5 – Magazine Grid Critique
What typefaces were used? How do they relate to the function/message?
Three typefaces were used across the magazine article, each being San serif. San serif font used to relate to message of the magazine being about clean and classic cars.
What is the hierarchical structure and what were the markers used?
Use of scale hierarchy on the car images across the pages, as they are the main focus of the pages. Supporting text or images related to the cars (Such as the few images viewing specific parts of the gold car) are smaller in scale to allow the viewer to
What kind of grid was used (single-column, multi-column, modular, baseline, other)?
Magazine pages used elements of vertical column grids to layout most of the information on the pages. Columns with small images and text, as well as text by itself at the bottom of the page below images. Most images are spread across 2-3 vertical columns on the pages. However, for some pages such as page 73 (the black background page) has different scaled vertical columns to fit in the information. Almost looking like a modular grid. However, they may have used a 3x6 or even a 3x9 vertical grid to layout some specific parts of text a bit wider, whilst keeping the same grid format across all the pages.
What elements determined the grid structure?
The use of ‘boxy’ snapshots of cars and wide shots of cars led to the use of vertical columns grids across the pages as they took up most of the page as they are the most important focus. Especially seen in the ‘Snap shots’ page where they have all the car images displayed almost 2/3 of the page like a type of gallery for viewing the cars. Then having the supporting text info related to the car’s underneath.
How do you think the design works overall? What could be improved?
Good use of the typefaces across the pages to represent the identity of message of the magazine, as well as being clean enough to look at in both a plain background colour and in front of an image (White text caption displayed under the ‘Metal Guru’ page contrasting well with both the blue-sky colour, and the gold colour of the car in each image that surrounds the text). Use of different coloured font usage on the black page looks a bit off having a small portion of gold descriptive text in the middle of the page whilst being surrounded by white coloured descriptive text that has a better contrast to the black background. I would keep it consistent with the text column to the right where they use gold for highlighted/key text (Car parts) and the use of white description text to keep the page clean and consistent to read.
