Final Decisions for Designing the Car Article

I've decided to start planning for the production of this double page spread. This should give me a basis to start work on my design ideas.

Article Style
I've chosen to write a nostalgic style article on the 1997 Ford Fiesta from the point of view of a modern day enthusiast. This means it will have a similar demographic and purpose as something like Retro Car Magazine. I chose this style because a modern day review of an older car should come naturally. It is 14 years old after all. I thought this would be better than pretending it was new even though that did sound like a fun idea. A more realistic piece of writing should make for better content and subsequently a better double-page spread.

Content
The article will feature a review of how it drives, looks and feels but from a nostalgic point of view not overly critical like a consumer based magazine. Perhaps comparing it with modern cars (although my experience with driving new cars is limited). I want to include facts about the car as well as a brief history of the model, as the article will be looking back at this car as well.

Photography
Photography will most likely focus on the styling of the car as it is supposed to be portrayed in some kind of nostalgic light (possibly as far as being 'retro'). I want there to be a running theme throughout the imagery but I will decide exactly what this theme is at a later date. It might be beneficial to brainstorm some themes or go out and take photos of some locations and see what inspiration I can draw from them. I do feel I have the opportunity to be somewhat experimental with the photography as research has shown me there are many different ways to advertise a car in a magazine. But the photos should reflect what is being said about the car in the article. Narrowing down the theme will probably co-inside with writing the article which will, once finished, give me a broader picture of what I'm trying to communicate about this car.

Retro Car Magazine

This a feature from Retro Cars Magazine. A Group Test featuring four 80s supercars. I included this in my research because the layouts struck me as being really well designed and having great examples of car photography. This feature also shows examples of different ways to set imagery and type:

The first spread feature one large image that covers both pages with an introduction placed in a translucent box on one page. Firstly I really love the image they've used for the first page. It's really dynamic and eye-catching. I think it would definitely entice the reader in to reading on. The box with the introduction in it has been set in a way that doesn't conflict with the focus point of the imagery which is good. I'm not such a big fan of the style of drop-cap they've used to start the article. It's actually a light typeface instead of bold and overlaps with the rest of the article. I don't think doesn't do anything to aid legibility and personally I think it looks out of place.

This is the next page where the designers have chosen to set the type against a white background separate from the imagery. I like the way the silver of the BMW is balanced with the red of the road surface, it looks well composed.

This magazine features fact files like Autocar but the design is much cleaner and discrete in comparison. The fact files don't distract from the images they're placed on as they're semi-transparent and the point size is no bigger than that of the main article. I think this matches the general style of the magazine well. The designer has also aligned them to the same gutter as the article above which keeps the layout consistent, allows the design elements space to breathe and generally improves the overall design of the page.

This spread features a main image that cover one page and bleeds onto the other page. I've seen this style in magazines before. It makes for quite eye-catching pieces and doesn't look as rigid as having an image restricted to one page. I like the typeface they've used to write the pull quotes in. It's quite a bold, slightly condensed sans-serif typeface. San-serif looks good because it sits well on-top of photography and it very legible. The boldness of the typeface draws the readers eye to the pull quote, which is then supposed to entice the audience in to reading the full article. This typeface is also used for subheadings and in the fact files. I like the way they've set the pull quote in the corner, with a nice amount of spacing between the edge of the page like the fact files. It doesn't clash with the image and stays consistent with the article on the opposite page as it sits aligned to the same gutters.

I've just noticed that all images don't show the driver. Either the driver isn't present or they've framed the car in such a way that the driver is nothing more than a faint silhouette or blocked by the bodywork. This is interesting as I hadn't initially considered the presence of the driver when taking photos of cars. In comparison Autocar Weekly does show quite clearly people driving the cars when testing them. Showing the driver could suggest that the article is about the person's experience driving the car which would make sense for Autocar as road tests are about the reviewer's personal experience driving it. Whilst a car enthusiast magazine like Retro Car wouldn't use images of the driver because the article isn't about who's driving it, it's about the car itself. This is another thing to consider when shooting pictures of my car for the spread as the type of article I choose to create will affect this.

Trigger's Retro Road Tests

http://www.flickr.com/photos/triggerscarstuff/

Whilst research car brochures for my project I found this blog on Flikr that features tons of scans from old car brochures and magazines.

These are some scans from the 1987 Ford Escort brochure. Although the text is in german you can see how image heavy the design is. I also noticed the cars aren't photographed in-situ, giving the impression you're looking at them as if in the showroom. I noticed they've balanced out the long shots of the car with lots of close-ups on the opposite page and they've kept to a clear grid when laying out the images. I also noticed that the type and imagery is kept separate and doesn't overlap. I imagine this is so as not to interfere with the visual impact created by these images.

Also the 3 images on the right-hand page feature one car looking away, one sideways and one looking towards. Not only does this give the reader an all-round view of the car but it's also a good example of how the designer has again created a good balance between the 3 images together. There isn't much text in these spreads just fairly short paragraphs describing each trim level. I would say this shows the importance of visual impact when advertising a car in brochure rather than information.

The main purpose of a brochure then is to make the car look as desirable as possible, showing off the range of models the consumer can choose and highlighting all best features the car has to the reader.

Design a Layout for a Ford Brochure?

It never dawned on me that I could design a double page spread for a car brochure rather than from a magazine. I think this is an interesting concept as my car already has a brochure for it but is from 1997.

I think it would be interesting to compare the original brochure with one of Fords current 2011 brochures as this would give me a good insight into how layout design has developed over the years between two publications that have the same purpose. I also think I could have a lot of fun with this concept as the ways you can advertise a car are quite vast.

For the purposes of this project I'm going to find a 1997 edition of the Fiesta brochure as well the current Fiesta brochure and compare them based on their design styles, dimensions and content.

Autocar Weekly

For some comparative research I decided to look at another car magazine I own, 'Autocar'. Autocar is a consumer based car magazine. It features extensive road tests of new cars primarily as well as news on upcoming models and general consumer advice.

This the standard layout Autocar uses for it's road tests. They use a set style and colour scheme for most of their road tests and usually feature the same things such as Pros and Cons, a fact file, a rating and a final verdict. What I noticed straightaway is that these spreads are quite busy in their design. Every space has some kind of information about the car in it. This makes sense as a magazine that focuses on consumer advice has to show that they are being thorough and critical with their testing, so a busy layout would suggest that they have packed out their article with as much information about the car that the consumer could possibly want.

This magazine is printed on paper that you would usually find in mass produced magazines. Quite thin paper makes up the bulk whilst the cover is printed on a slightly heavier gloss paper. This enables the creaters of this magazine to sell it at a competitive price as there are lots of other car magazines like this on the market. It also means they can print more pages, and more pages means more information, more info means the consumer feels like they've gotten their moneys worth. And since this magazine has to appeal to a wide audience of people it can't be seen as being too much of a luxury that people won't want to buy it every week. This contrasts with the Audi magazine I looked at earlier which is released in seasons not weekly or monthly. There is clearly a balance that must be struck between cost of production and frequency of issues. Audi can probably afford to print their magazine on higher quality paper because it's released so infrequently compared to Autocar which need to produce thousands every week. 

Production costs aren't a problem that faces me directly since I'm designing one-off spreads however it might be a good idea to consider how the type of magazine I'm designing my spread for affects how it's layed out and printed. For this I need to decided who my spread (and subsequently the magazine) is marketed at and how frequently it would be released if it went into production.

Autocar reviews are usually layed out with one or two main images with various smaller images around them, usually showing close-up shots of the car. Unlike Audi and Car magazine the designers don't set the body type over any images. The images and type exist in their own spaces. Autocar layouts are very grid based. They feature 4 columns per page and the images usually line up with the columns but not always. However the images always fill the page horizontally if they don't align with the columns.

The colour scheme is limited and not particularly prominent. White background with black text and red or yellow used to highlight important words or graphics. It's basic but does the job well I feel since the spreads are very image heavy which makes them look quite colourful already. The use of bold type to create subheadings and highlight key facts is a simple way of creating a clear typographic hierarchy that works in my opinion.

The typefaces are fairly consistant throughout. All the body-type and subheadings are in the same serif typeface and the headings are in a more sharp looking san-serif typeface. The serif typeface they use is quite soft looking, similar to Georgia, which easy to read and familiar looking. This would be suitable for a mass-market magazine aimed at a wider audience. The san-serif typeface has an edgier feel to it. More dynamic looking but not massively. Still easy to read and most likely good at catching audience attention.

I also noticed they start all their articles with a drop-cap that extends 6 lines. I imagine this is useful for a busy layout design as it quickly tells the reader where the article begins so they don't get confused or start reading from the wrong part. There are other design elements that help guide the reader I noticed, such as small arrows at the end of a column to indicate the article continues on the next page.

Overall Autocar isn't as creative or unique in the way it's designed but then it doesn't have to be, because it's a commercial magazine focusing on information more than design, not unlike a newspaper. Personally I'd like to be more experimental with my design but I like the idea of incorporating interesting bits of information about the cars like Autocar does with fact files and using pros and cons. I know now that my target audience will significantly affect how my design turns out as well the content my article includes.

Audi Magazine

For this project I thought it would be a good idea to look at some existing magazines that feature similar topics to the ones I'll be using. This should allow me to get an idea of the conventions and common practices of layout design in this field as well as develop my own design ideas and inspiration.

These are some spreads from an issue of Audi magazine that I own and have scanned in to analyse. I picked out the articles I found particularly interesting or that I thought were relevant to my project.

 

These pages have a similar simplistic style as 'Car'. I really like the bold imagery and these spreads are printed in gloss which makes the colours look really vibrant. The magazine as a whole has a feel of high quality which is reflected in the style of photography and layout they use. Audi magazine makes use of white space and doesn't create layouts that are cluttered, rather the opposite.

 

Audi magazine only features san-serif typefaces. Interestingly they use a variety of different typefaces for different parts of the article. e.g. - the header, which appears to be a condensed version of the main body typeface, differs from the introduction, which is all uppercase and in italics. The quotes and introductions they use are also in a light grey rather than the black that is used for the header and main article. Surprisingly I think they actually work well together even though inconsistencies usually look out of place. The style of typeface seems to match the Audi brand and it sits well next to the images of their cars.

Clearly Audi magazine is marketed at existing or potential Audi customers. Audi markets it's cars as being high performance, luxurious and quality products. This magazine reflects those aspirations as the mixture of gloss and matt finishes project an air of quality about the magazine. The shots they use of their cars are impressive and are clearly designed to sell the cars in their best light, thus it could be said that this magazine is more of a marketing tool for the company rather than a critical consumer based car mag.

There is also a strong focus on the journeys that lead to the creation of their cars and a lot of their articles use imagery to suggest a 'feel' about their cars, much like advertising posters. Whether it be placing their cars in certain situations which suggests the type of scene they want their cars to be associated with, or by including shots of impressive or thought provoking imagery, without the cars, which suggests a mood or feeling around the design of the car being linked with the product itself (or just the brand as a whole).

At the back of the magazine is the 'Technik' section which unlike the rest of the magazine features articles that detail lots of fact and consumer based information about their cars like price, availability, mpg etc. These spreads also feature diagrams, fact boxes and infographics. As the title of the section suggests this is a more technical detailing of their products.

What's interesting is the way they've designed this section. It's styled like the rough notes from a notepad or blueprints. The colour scheme is limited to black, the creamy colour of the paper and red, and the images are all black and white. Furthermore for this section they've used paper with less weight and that has a slightly rougher texture to it, similar to say newspaper. All these design choices create an eye-catching and unique looking article which clearly communicates a different purpose than the rest of the magazine.

The design follows the theme of tech specs and information so that all the elements (the articles, the diagrams, and the imagery) work well together and maintain consistency in the design. I also feel that the eye-catching design of these pages helps make potentially dull information more interesting to read. The infographics they've included definitely make some of the data more interesting to me as a reader, as there is alot of it. I particularly like the use of red to highlight certain blocks of information. It adds some life to the design in a simple way and breaks up the busy layout of text, images and diagrams.

Overall I really like Audi magazine. It's a professional well thought out piece of design that looks and feels like a quality product, and I think these factors really help Audi to maintain their brand and sell their cars in a similar light. It also has some creative flare which makes for some really interesting spreads. This magazine has given me lots of inspiration for designing my spread about cars as well as helping me understand how cars are displayed and reviewed in these types of magazines. There's quite a few design techniques I have found whilst analyzing this publication that I will be considering at the design stage of my own.