I WANT to share with you something an aspiring designer needs to know. I had a casual chat with a magazine head who wanted to improve the design of his pages. It seemed to me that the head was not very proficient with the idea of designing, nor the designers who were making their pages had good colour sense. Sometimes it’s offending to see abrupt use of direct colours. It's better for magazines and supplements not use direct pinks and magentas and cyans. And some have been using age-old logos that look like government seals and stamps. In this post, you will find some solutions:
COLOURS: It's important not use DIRECT colours; a mix of TWO or THREE on the DARKER TONE is advisable. If you already have a colour palette made or a colour style prepared, just pick up your choicest colour. Spend some time to prepare a colour chart.
STORY LENGTH & DISPLAY: Two equal sized stories placed side by side everyday is most likely to spoil the display. It’s like a children’s design. Everyday, a page cannot look the same. In this case, working with varieties helps. One story (the lead) has to be at least bigger than another in preferably a 6 against 2 column display one day, and 5 against 3 another day.
PHOTOGRAPHS: Photographers are toiling on the field while a designer sits in an air-conditioned room spoiling their efforts by abruptly cutting pics and to rub a pinch of salt to their wound, by giving a byline. Cropping of photographs needs some technique. For readers too, an unmanaged cropping is offending. All designers should also have some sense of photography. Discuss with your photographers what kind of pictures will alleviate your page. The editor will not bar a designer from talking to the photographers. Good designers have always liaised with photographers and production department.
DESIGNING IN A HURRY: Again, keeping a colour palette ready and available at hand will definitely save the time. Maintaining a library of stock photographs also helps.
HORIZONTAL VS VERTICAL: Making best use of the page space, one can play with horizontal and vertical display even in intros, blurbs and headlines. Playing vertical against horizontal automatically improves a page.
LAST BUT NOT THE LEAST: Don’t take it seriously. Designing is fun. If you don’t enjoy designing, maybe it’s not your job.
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