Designing the New Zealand Feature

Here you will find the design process of my second and longest feature based around what to do in New Zealand on a budget.

Here are the scetch designs.

Here is the main design for this feature. This is how I want my page to look. I think that the images for this piece are really important so I wanted them to be the focus, as after all travel magazines are aspirational. I want it to be eye catching and exciting with a fair amount of colours.

With this idea in mind, of it being colourful and eye-catching I decided to do a mock up in powerpoint. 

Having done this I decided that the fifth image, did not keep in theme with the colourfulness of the page and decided to change it for this: 

Source

This is more suited to the page, I feel as it is a cultural reference, and is a part of the country's appeal. It is also something that hasn't been referenced in the image. I thought that this was a focused image and would be a nice addition to the page. Making that second DPS look like this: 

I feel this is an improvement. 

Having planned it as well as I can I then went on to design it on Indesign. 

However, unfortunately, I did not anticipate the fact that there was too much text for the space, because of this I had to rethink and used Country Life magazine's Discover feature to inspire me.

I really liked this design because it is clean and simple, and still provides enough images to interest the reader, which is what I wanted to do with this particular feature. Having decided this I made the decision to add an eighth page and extend the title page to a DPS.

I am please with the appearance of this page. I think that the extension of the first image allows the colour to be a main feature on the page, mirroring slightly the title page of the Country Life feature above. I also think it was a good idea to extend this image because I makes the page look a lot less crowded and cleaner than the previous and original design. Originally I had both the place title and the subheading above the paragraph but was unhappy with this and decided to place the city or place name to sit along side the paragraph. I think that this also add to the professionalism of the page. I change the colour of this title then to a greeny blue colour taken from the Tongariro Crossing Lake image on the fourth page. The font used for the main title, the stand first, the subheading and it's extra heading are all Helvetica Neue Ultra Light, I didn't want them to be heavy so I chose a light font that would allow the images to take precedence. The main body copy font is Bell MT size 10. Here, as you can see on the notes, I also want to move the photograph's author name to the inner margin as I think This will improve the page py de-cluttering that area of the page, I also want to include the body copy's author name into the stand first for the same reason, to make that area of the page cleaner. I also wish to add a slug, so that the feature will become known as the re-occuring "Travel Destination" piece. I also want to change the title as I feel that it does not jump out on the page. I think that the Helvetica font is too thin to work on this page. 

I similarly did the same with the subtitles of this DPS. I wanted there to be a consistency with fonts, colours and columns. For this particular DPS I was concerned about putting the titles in the margins but decided that this was the best place for them, as I didn't want to decrease the size of the image and so kept them to the right of the text. So that though they would, unlike the other titles be close to the edge of the page, they would not be infringing on the beauty of the images. Again, following the theme of the page above I want to decrease the size of the captions to make them stick out less and appear less like the body copy text. I also, again, want to place the image sources in the inner margins so that it is clear who took them and where the images were taken. Also, having done this print out I can see that the page number on the right page is really difficult to see and I think that I will try it in black next time to see if it comes out any clearer then. I also want to make the page so that both the widows in the text (stand alone words) are no longer singular, I think this would make the text look nicer because it wouldn't be so gappy. 

I really like this page because of the sidebar-like image of the Maori carving. I knew that it was really important to get a cultural image in the article and I'm pleased that I chose this one as it sits, I think really nicely on the page. I also think that the length of the image allows for the page to be clean and still interesting, I think that this carving's detail allows it to be just as interesting as the other images even though it is not as colourful. This is possibly my favourite image of the piece. Similarly I think that the whale tail is very powerful as it portrays the magnitude and beauty of not only the creatures, but the country too. The changes on this page are minimal. I want to again move the image sources to the inner margins to suit the above pages. I need to make the subheading "South Island" bolder using Helvetica light rather than ultralight so that it mirrors the first "North Island" heading and I want to tilt the Maori carving caption so that it lays on its side. I feel that this would be an improvement because it is too long a caption and by tilting it I can make the box wider so that the text will fit within it more comfortably. 

I knew that it would be important for me to include a picture of the famous Milford sound so I used that as the main image for this page, going out of the margins to make it the main feature. I also like the dynamics of the skydiving image and that the captions fill the large amount of space in the corner as there was not enough space for that of the final image on the DPS. Having said that, however, I feel that as well as decreasing the font size of the captions I also wish to space them further apart so that they look less like part of the body copy and more like captions. Similarly need to move the sources to the inner margin and make sure the final paragraph title lines up with the text using the base line grid method. 

Here are the final designs of my New Zealand Travel Destination feature. 

As you can see I added the slug and used the same font as the magazine title to really integrate the feature into the magazine. I also, after much thought, decided to tilt the place name of the Travel Destination on to its side. This way it is mirroring the other place name titles, being on the side and it allows the title to be bold and really jump out at the reader. I am really happy with this page and having moved the caption to the far left of the image I new feel that the text is given it's own space and it's encroached on by other pieces of text. I also bolded the writer's name so that the article makes it clear who has written the piece without having to have a "words by..." section. 

As you can see here, I decreased the size of the captions and moved the sources to the inner margin. I feel that this works better because it no longer takes the attention from the body copy or images by making the reader think they are part of the feature's content. I also moved the titles on the first of the double page spread because I thought that by moving them closer together I was removing the uneven spaces that separated them and made them look slightly out of place. I am really happy with the final design of this page because I feel that it captures the readers attention with the images, that complement each other nicely and give the page a really natural feel, I think that the cleanness of the page really emphasises the images.

I really like the simplicity of this page. I think that the detail of the first image really captures the reader and it makes the page look really detailed and still having the detail of the previous pages. I also like the way that the caption sits on its side because it makes the difference between the other pages while still making it professional and clean. Again the image sources were moved to the side margin and one of the titles were moved so that they alined with their paragraphs. 

Similarly here image sources were moved to the side, the caption's font size was decreased and the titles were realigned with their paragraphs. The Milford sound captions was moved off the image so that it didn't detract the attention from the view and the second two captions were spaced apart so that they looked more like the captions they are than like the body copy they aren't. I think that this DPS is a lot busier than the previous ones, perhaps that is because it has the most images but I think that it still suits the feature and doesn't have too much going on to detract from the features content. 

I am really pleased with the aesthetics of this feature. I think it works really well staying simple and yet providing the reader with lots of interesting images to look at. I tried to keep the word count down for this reason as I wanted it to be a very visual piece, and there is ten images for the twenty ideas. I think this is a good ratio because it allows the reader to become interested in the places enough to do some research and inspire them to visit the places themselves.