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CD201 Design Research and Ideas Generation Week 08 April 14, 2010
REVISIT – CHOICE OF TYPEFACES
Back in semester one we talked about how many typefaces you would use in a proposal, magazine, book etc. Everyone will most likely give you different opinions but I think (my opinion) that as long as each typeface has a job and it sticks to that job you can have as many typefaces as you have jobs.
The different types of jobs could include; masthead, headings, sub heads, pull out quotes, pull out articles, body copy, pic descriptors, lead ins and so on. If you haven’t started thinking about these things then you might wanna start.
Keep in mind as well that some families of fonts are huge. If you are planning on using one of them bear in mind that a heavy version will appear drastically different to a thin version. These become separate fonts and should be used as separate fonts.
TITLES & LEAD-INSTitles and lead-ins effectively do the same thing, catch the readers
attention and reel them in. If you think of the title as the hook then you can think of the lead-in as the line(s) that connects the hook to the rod.
A title should grab the readers curiosity, halt them in their tracks and stop them from flicking to the next article. It can be a different font style from the body copy and should try to simulate the stories intention.
The two titles below try to do this. On the left we have Movement Magazine with an article talking about the size of the waves at a particular coral break. The title incorporates the height looking down, at the top of the falls, bringing a little danger and caution to the story. On the right, a story from Stab, looks at the trouble you can get in if you drop in on certain board-riders at the pipeline. The distressed beaten type, plus the words, leaves nothing to the imagination.
The titles can be consistent throughout the magazine if the theme is similar. The stories themselves will lose a little attention but the book as a whole will gain.
Peer Magazine, designed by Paul Fox, is a fashion and lifestyle monthly from London. Aimed at 18-30 year olds it has strong themes of typography and full bleed images. It also has a heavy focus on it’s titles and lead-ins with all of them being completely unique and suited to the article they introduce.
A lead-in (sometimes called a kicker) is used to draw the reader into the story. Sometimes jumping straight into the body copy after the title (and/or subhead) might still be too much for a reader. This is especially true on large, heavy text articles.
The lead-in can appear in a number of different ways but is normally in contrast somehow to the rest of the article. It may be a bolder weight, a different font, an alternative colour, a larger size – anything that will set it aside and provide an easier entry point for the reader.
This is precisely what we are trying to do, provide an easier entry point for the casual reader. They’ve read the headline, they were interested enough to read on but still aren’t sure whether they want to go all the way and read the whole article. In the lead-in we give them a sentence/paragraph of interesting intro to hook them in. Once they’ve read this they are going to have to read the rest (or so we hope.)
The re-design of Prestige House by SuperSuper often provides whole spreads for the title and lead-in. In other cases where the story doesn’t warrant that much attention they have developed a style that works with body copy.
Chris Ashworth regularly breaks all the rules with his layouts. These are some spreads from Raygun and it’s sister publication Blah, Blah, Blah.
STEP Magazine has two lead-ins with the 2nd being compiled of capitals. Caps are normally not easy to read over large areas.
RUSSH with your typical fashion shoot lead-in.
WIRED Magazine with a lavish lead-in spread.
Fast Company with a very long lead-in. They also incorporate extra lead-ins on the longer stories to keep the reader’s interest.
READ THIS OR DIE.If you’re creating a story that needs to be read, you have to attract attention. There are a few ways to do this; a great picture or graphic and a great headline certainly help. A well written sub-head is good because it amplifies what the headline offers. Pull quotes can be a great too. But what’s next most important is the lead-in paragraph. This should tantalise by giving the reader a taste of what’s to come and by offering an encouragement to read-on.
Here are a few lead-ins of varying types.Sam de Brito writes a column called ALL MEN ARE LIARS in the Sun-Herald. A recent column started thus:
“You know what acrylic nails are? False hopes for ugly chicks. Seriously, does any sane woman really think getting a lightning bolt or a few diamantes encrusted on a plastic fingernail is going to increase their attractiveness?”
A regular reader of his column will know that he attacks everything including the society wanker photographs that surround his column. He is provocative on purpose but he zeros in on human traits we all know and wonder about.
A feature on the new Pixar comedy “UP” in Spectrum by Garry Maddox started:
“As a flagbearer for a new era in cinema, Carl Fredricksen could hardly be more unlikely. He’s a 78 year old curmudgeon who uses a walking frame, wears a tweedy old suit and eats dinner at 3.30pm.”
This is very much a puff piece to promote a new movie but the lead-in makes you smile. Good enough reason to read on.
This is by Elizabeth Farrelly who wrote a story on heroism in the Herald.
“ A wooden cross and stone cairn stand together in the desert, a short drive from William Creek, South Australia, a town without tarmac, population 10. Roadside memorials are as common now in the outback as everywhere else but this one stops you. The words are few, black-on-white, red earth, blue sky: “Caroline Grossmueller, 11 Dec 1988. Perished.”
This sets up an ominous feeling. “wooden cross” and “stone cairn” sound unsettling especially when encountered in the outback. A brief but powerful description of a godforsaken place with a population of 10. And then a humble sign magnified by the intensity of the vast earth and huge sky with a foreign name and the unusual word “Perished” Not dead but “perished” – what’s this about? “Perished” sounds worse that just dying. Farrelly writes in a clipped way too, encouraging the reader not to rush, to stop and ponder what she’s saying.
The New Yorker is famed for long, well researched stories. This is by Paul Goldberger about science & jazz and a father & son.
“When Harold Varmus, the president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre gives a lecture, he usually talks to a scientific audience about health, or government policy, or the discovery that won him the Nobel Prize in 1989 – the protoncogene, which enhanced our understanding of cancer. But last week he filled the auditorium at the Guggenheim Museum two nights in a row for a presentation entitled “Genes & Jazz,” in which he offered a primer on cell biology, all to the accompaniment of a jazz quintet under the direction of his son Jacob, a thirty five year old trumpeter and composer.”
This leads in to a very typical short piece into for the magazine. It has a relaxed & slightly quirky feeling about it which goes with the magazine’s style. It might be the big city but it has a very human scale.
In contrast to this, a story in New York magazine which is also a weekly publication reveals a very different house style.
“The economy is crap all over, but why does New York feel so much gloomier than the rest of the country? Escape the banking hot-house of New York for a spell and you’ll discover something weird; People in the rest of the country, whatever their own problems might be, aren’t as perpetually freaked out as we are here.”
Lots of swear words and a general feeling of New Yorkers as suffering even though this is where the whole melt-down began. Once again though, the lead in provides a need-to-read.
In Men’s Health, Mikel Jollett writes about the closeness between man and the ape.
“Being alone with a monkey is very strange. They do very human things – yawn, stretch and scratch. You feel like you’re with a distant cousin or a smaller, more basic, more lovable version of yourself. Evolution is an easy concept to accept when it’s just you and a monkey.”
Stories in this magazine are short and must grab the attention-conflicted male reader. This lead in does.
NEXT WEEKWe want to see a packaged InDesign document and marvel at your delicate but intelligent selection of grid and choice of typefaces. Ideally we’d like to see a opening spread that shows a lead-in and a title. The rest of the body copy can be dummy text (not Loren Ipsum – never use this) for now – you can swap it with the real text once you’ve written it.
INSPIRATION & EXTRASEach week I throw up things I find that relate to what we’ve been discussing or working on that week. Sometimes it might be things that relate to your major assessment and sometimes just stuff I thought was worth seeing. If you find something you think we should be showing or something we just have to see let us know in class or throw an email over to me at [email protected] and I’ll get it up here or on the Bluniinspiration site.
PREVIOUS EXAMPLES – AFTER DARK
___________________________________________________________PREVIOUS EXAMPLES – MINT
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PREVIOUS EXAMPLES – GATEWAY
___________________________________________________________WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS……put in a vertical garden. Below Green Park, London and Caixa Forum in Madrid. These are becoming more and more popular but still awe inspiring. Potentially a good choice if you have a big, blank, ugly wall.
