Before designing my own publication for this project, I set about looking at newspapers from the previous academic year, so that I could find out what I did or did not want to include in mine. I read through four different newspapers/magazines to get a large array of positive and negative examples of the publication's structure, layout, and overall quality.
Tutors Illustration Magazine - Tim Martin
This was the first publication I researched, which included information and interviews about the tutors on this Illustration course, with examples of their work throughout.
One thing I liked about this magazine was the formatting of the text, which is in traditional double columns - occasionally broken up by a quote from the main text. I like this aspect because it is visually-appealing and the layout looks professional.
An aspect that I disliked was that some pages of the publication would be dedicated to a single large illustration. I feel as if this wastes a lot of space that could be put to better use. While it is nice to see full-page artwork, it takes me out of the text too largely.
One other thing that could also be seen as taking up too much space is the large text used for tutor introductions. I dislike this aspect because the target audience for this sort of publication does not warrant large text, and could at times feel unintentionally patronising to read.
Bad Circulation - Tom Maclean, Meg Tallis, Sophie Russell
This was the second publication I researched, which was a newspaper that took a look at a specific group of students in a more light-hearted manner.
One aspect of this newspaper I disliked was the title spacing. Though the size of the title itself was already an issue, the words are so large that the spacing is thrown off, and the artist names and section titles almost merge into one.
An aspect that I liked was the interactive games in the back few pages. I like this because it adds variety to what I could put in my newspaper, and adds a fun activity after a long read.
Ignite - Newsquest printing
The next newspaper I looked at was "Ignite," which included a much broader range of illustration news, art and interviews.
Something I liked from this publication was the preview contents page at the front of the newspaper. I liked this because it was unique from the other newspapers I had researched, and is a good idea of showing what each section will be about or stylistically look like.
I disliked the layout of a particular page because of its small font and the large white space that is left. This does not have visual appeal because the text could be too small to read for some people, and there is nothing covering the remaining page space.
So U Think You Can Art? - Jack Ashworth
This was the final publication, and had a unique graphical and formatting style, but also included information about a specific set of students.
One aspect that I disliked was the pages being loose, which means the newspaper could get jumbled up or lost. I dislike this because it is not professional and just makes the publication feel unfinished.
Something I did like about this newspaper was the grid-based formatting style used for the pages. This means several panels are used to separate the content of a page - giving it an almost comic book feel. I like this because it keeps the text and images organised, while giving the reader the freedom to read the sections in whichever order they want.
I feel that conducting this research was important for me to look at the different approaches to page layout, spacing, and what content could be included. This will assist me in deciding on these aspects of my own newspaper. However, I think that the content of these publications is not relevant to what I will be writing in mine, so they do not reflect the exact layout or formatting for what would be appropriate in terms of my creative focus.
