Final Project: Type module

Graham gave us one final task to round off the module. The task was to create two A3 spreads with the copy and images and create differing layouts. One of which would be featured in an academic journal, and the other would feature in a graphic design magazine.

I have learnt a great deal about how about hierarchy, layout, colour as well which typefaces are suited to the audience and the tone you want to create. All of that boils down to these final layouts, and to be honest it makes my decision making much more informed even if it is a lot to think about. As I use typography more and more, I believe I will be able to come to decisions much quicker than I did before and I will know what I have done is appropriate (no negative leading, a sense of hierarchy, appropriate margins, gutters and the appropriate typeface and pt size).

Here is the layout I created for an academic journal. Because the article has a lot of copy I decided to get rid of the paragraph breaks and use 3character indents for every new paragraph. This allows me to use the space more effectively and knock up both the point size and leading for better readability. I have gone for just a two column grid layout on this as the copy is the focus but to ensure I could fit all the copy on the pages I needed to break it up into a collumned structure.


I used a sans serif typeface to make it easier to read and I used a typeface with a fairly small x height. The introduction has a tiny bit more leading to ease the reader in before getting stuck into the main body sections.

The images are deemed insignificant for this article so I referenced them at the bottom and made the images as small as possible as not to detract from the text. On this article I included a photo of the writer as I thought he fit with the ideology of the target audience. He looks quite intellectual as well.

The next spread for a graphic design magazine is presented in a much more light hearted fashion, which was a challenge because of the large amount of copy there was. I wanted the pages to look less busy than the previous one and fill some of that space with the imagery.


In the end I had allow the imagery to bleed off the pages as it would not have fit. The main thing was to make the article look interesting to read and judging by the first spread, I did that.

I went for a sans serif typeface as not to get the reader thinking this article would be too interlectual and to fit in with the rest of the pages in this makebelieve magazine. The type is a little larger than the last spread and I wanted to split the paragraphs again, but there was not enough room to do so. Instead I increased the leading as much as I could to allow the reader to scan the copy.

I also split up the paragraphs by inserting the images in certain places to spur the reader on to read further. The images would be deemed more important in this article.

I have also included a range of spreads I worked on and then moved on because they were not working for me.