Alterations . . .

After my meeting with Jess at Velvet magazine last week I have been making some changes in regard to the layout of the publication experimenting with some of the suggestions that she made.

* I have decreased the font size on all of the pages with the main body text now down to a size 9 instead of 10.

* The main body of text, sub titles and reference text now all have their own font type so that it is easy for the reader to distinguish each feature from one another, it also makes the page more visually interesting, and I’m pleased with the end result.

* The images on the recipe pages have been increased in size dramatically, communicating to the reader what the end product will/should look like, and is now the main focus of the page, whereas before many of these images were the same size as the ingredient imagery.

* To decrease the number of pages I have shortened the Rachael Dinnage interview so that it now only covers one page, the same as the other two interviews in the same feature. Brining the total number of pages (including the front and back cover) in the publication to 100.

* To make different sections on a page even more distinguishable Jess suggested adding in more of the dotted boxes to break up the page layout and create some segregation at the same time, something I have done on the project pages, as well as getting rid of some of the text and imagery to create more white space.

* I’ve also shortened the Make Do and Mend article so that there is more white space and the page now looks a lot less crowded.

I trialled many of the suggestions that Jess made during our meeting however some were not quite so successful, adding in three column text boxes did not work on the pages, making the text look squashed. I also played around with the text on the shoot pages to little success, the closer I moved it to the image the more it detracted from it, and I want the image to be the main focus and then the text.

I have sent the pdf version of the publication off for the last time for Jess to have a final look through, as I’ve made all of the necessary changes and all of the content minus the land girls shoot is now in the spreads.