TYPE inspiration

I was taking my font choice inspiration from cookbooks of the 50s, being that I am doing a rockabilly/ indie/ urban outfitters style cooking magazine. Does anyone have an ideas about how to do this, but make it fresh? There were some questions about my font choices for my department section-- next post down. Thanks!

Department Template

I can't figure out how to make a jpeg or PDF that shows my grid, but it's a 6 column grid, margins are .5 top, .6667 bottom, and .6028 inside and outside. gutter between columns is .1667. I'm basically looked at the cookbook I grew up with, the Betty Crocker Cookbook, for loose font inspiration:

headlines:
QuigleyWiggly, title case, or Bodoni poster compressed, all caps

subheads:
Bodoni poster, title case

body text:
Bodoni book, 8/10

recipe body text:
Franklin gothic book 8/10

ingredients:
Franklin gothic demi condensed 8/10

credits:
5 point franklin gothic book, in the gutter

byline:
none-- we're staff writers.

Hangline:
I do have one, for the main part of the page, but I am allowing my recipes to go above, with their boxes bleeding right off the top of the page. I looked at a lot of cooking mags, and i didn't see many with discernable hanglines. maybe in general they are busier than other genres of magazines?

Rubric:
It's a bitmap tiff that can be any colour, of gingham. And another bitmap tiff, again, can change colour, of a vintage lookin' lady holding a pie. the font is that QuigleyWiggly, which i am not settled on.

Here's a stab at a department, using the grid I set up.

ummmm... first feature "fixes" ????

to avoid working on my contract job, i attempted to fix up my first feature spread, and took a stab at a second. i know... the grid. i'll do that soon :)

feature one:




and a second feature, about finding a good slice of diner pie:

feature spread number one

So, I am coming down with the flu as we speak, teeth chattering and bundled in a parka. I tried most of today to work on one concept-- my pie and diner feature. It just wasn't working. I know the elements I want to use, but can't seem to fit them together on the page. It's too bad, because I know it nails my target audience-- hopefully I can get it together for next time. I then went back to the drawing board, after cursing life for a few moments, and came up with this as my opener to a feature on cakes, and specifically the Graystone Bakery.

I wish maybe I had done the template assignment first. Because I'm really not %100 on my fonts, rubric, or grid, but I tried to work those out on the fly. I'm too sick to do more, so I'm putting this up to make myself go to bed. Here goes:

Contents List

Hi there. OK, so we have come to the conclusion that I will be designing this magazine for 18-30-somethings with an eye for style and a semi-disposable income, who want to read about cooking from a rockabilly/ indie/ hipster point of view. And that's a mouthful...
Anyway, for a title I'm kicking around:

1. Dynamo Snackbar, or maybe just
2. Snackbar
   

It's gonna have a lot of pop culture, film and music references in its headlines and department names, I'm pretty sure.

DEPARTMENT PAGES (in order of what ends up looking good):

• Pop Life- (Prince) a section about food in pop culture:
  left page with a recipe from a band-- looking at pork loin from the decemberists, or a fish dish from kings of convenience. also on this page, liz taylor circa butterfield eight hangover cure: cheeseburger and stawberry milkshake, with either a smoothie, or a hamburger recipe, and a good film still.
  right page is a tribute to candy, with some kind of type treatment of the beatles, savoy truffle, and a sidebar with recipe for an elvis PB, marshmellow and banana sandwich, or some other sweet concoction.
  
  
• Have a Drink on Me - (ACDC) a section about beverages:
  left page with a factual article on coffee, and a segement about energy drinks, or maybe ice cream sodas, depends on available imagery.
  right page has a part about southern style sweet tea, and a section on classic cocktails
  
  
• TV Dinners - (ZZ top) a section about eating in, name could change:
  left page with a product layout-- retro kitchen
  right page with a section "The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie" about giving a dinner party, or place settings or something... and a sidebar: "call any vegetable" with a good veggie dish to serve your guests.
  
  

FEATURES (again, in order of what ends up looking good):

• Diners/ looking for a great piece of pie. SIDEBAR RECIPE: pie.
• Better than Takeout. Food and recipe spreads-- good ways to make pizza, fried chicken, chinese food or something at home.
  
• For Goodness Sakes, take a Look at Those Cakes. Cake recipes/ photos. story about a bakery.
  

END PAGE:

• Theme is fortune cookies.

In doing this class I am hoping to produce something commercial looking, for my portfolio, but still fun, if only in theme. So, sadly, it might not look all fancy with a lot of white space, and hardly any type. I also REALLY need to learn how to best cram a million things onto one page-- otherwise known as hierarchy, which is not my strong point, yet. I've found as a junior designer I am always given the front of book-- which where I've worked so far has been like solving an endless jigsaw puzzle-- very difficult. I'm going to practice that in this magazine.

:)

Display Type

OK, so i set about 56 fonts at display sizes.
Favorites so far:

Bookman
Caslon
Gil Sans Light
Neutra Display
Helvetica Neue
Miller Display, Italic
Cochin Bold, Italic
Stymie Light
Giza Nine Three
Lubalin Graph

Questions:
1) I do wonder though, whether these are right for my target audience: 18-30-somethings with an eye for style and a semi-disposable income, who want to read a rockabilly/ indie/ hipster cooking magazine. Hmmm...

2) I also do not know the golden rules, if there are any, about combining body and display text. Where I work, we use two body fonts, one serif and one sans, and then we use three display, one slab serif, one serif, and one script. Oh, and we sometimes use one of the body fonts, franklin gothic, for headings.

If I were to choose a slab for display, should I put a sans for body? And what if I wanted to use both a sans and a serif for body text, in different places. What kind of display/ headline fonts would work out best?

Thanks :)

Demographics, Statistics, Target Audience, etc...

I think that if you were to read the following paragraphs, and insert the word COOKING pretty much everywhere it says GARDEN, you'd hit the feel of the magazine I'm going to do for our editorial design class-- that is, a magazine about food, cooking, and accompanying subjects-- right on the head. Let's try:

Philly-based hipster haven Urban Outfitters just announced plans to open Terrain, a gardening store for the modern set. Urban purchased J. Franklin Styer Nurseries, with a goal to "transform the local garden center into an experience that celebrates the beauty and abundance of nature while offering an eclectic mix of garden-inspired products tailored for the contemporary customer."

We're not quite sure what that means, exactly (lime green garden hoes alongside rakes with interchangeable animal-print handles?) but we do know it's just in time to capitalize on the gardening furor that's taken hold of Gen X and Y-ers in recent years. Although the company hasn't announced what demographic they are hoping to reach with this new venture, one might guess that it's similar to that of their flagship stores, Urban Outfitters and Anthropologie (18-30-somethings with an eye for style and a semi-disposable income).

And, although I don't really like the way it sounds, "18-30-somethings with an eye for style and a semi-disposable income" is likely an apt way of putting my target audience into words. Oh, and they're probably women. Men cook, they certainly do. In fact, they're, with few exceptions, the rockstars of cooking right now. But I have the feeling they don't often sit down with a cooking magazine. Am I wrong?

I did say something telling though-- "Rockstars of Cooking." For some reason in culture these days, you can imagine rock music and cooking going together. Along with the upswing of activities such as "stitch and bitch," pie baking parties, and gardening, cooking has entered the "hipster" household. Shows such as Ace of Cakes and Diners, Drive-ins and Dives are being hosted by punk and rockabilly types and go to prove my theory. I think a rockabilly/ indie/ hipster cooking magazine might just have a place in this world.

MORE ON DEMOGRAPHICS:
When it comes to this subject, I like to think about people, and not just numbers. So, let's look at the women on Ace of Cakes:






So, there we have them, college grads, 24- 32, women, artsy, ironic, who like to cook.

And, indeed, if we could put a face to our reader, it might be Mary Alice.


Let's finish this post with a Letter from the editor:
(and i openly steal this from a cool cooking blog, but it goes to represent what I would put, if we were designing a letter from the editor page)

The kitchen can be a scary place. I know. I've been in the trenches. Your kitchen is filled with hot things, sharp things and other potential accidents. Further, it can suck up some time. Yet I feel that women (and men) of all ages are doing their own selves a huge disservice by not cooking -- especially young women who aren't developing the cooking skills they will need for a lifetime of healthy, good eating. There is an obesity crisis in this country, and many other women are unhappy with their weight. I think by getting ourselves back to basics, we will be better equipped in the years to come with an arsenal of good recipes and a genuine, developed enjoyment of cooking. Not all these recipes are quick and easy, though I feel like most of them are, but they're all do-able by someone like me (a 26-year-old newlywed who works three jobs and is finishing her MA degree). By injecting a little of my own self-deprecating humor and some youthful exuberance into the kitchen, I hope that you all will leave with a positive mindset and a willingness to try something, anything, sometime. You're worth it! In any case, I'm glad you stopped by!

THE END (you thought I'd never get there, right?)

New York Times, DINING IN

found a bit more info to scribble on the actual paper today... ran out of time on the jpeg!

text type assignment

Well, it's way too late for a school night, but here I am, setting text blocks of many fonts before I have to wake up at 8am and go to my job where I kern text blocks (of one font) all day in my little cubicle. Seriously though, this has been interesting. I think I've found a few typefaces I'm considering for body copy, although I'm looking forward to seeing everyone else's and getting even more ideas (and then, yes, narrowing it down).

I started reading Stacey King's "Magazine Design that Works" and she talks about the obvious, and yet previously unknown to me "4 F's" being 1) Format 2) Formula 3) Frame and 4) Function. I think once I (hurry up and) nail those down, the font choices will become clearer to me.

SO FAR I LIKE:
Neutra Text
Interstate
Modern 20
Chaparrel
Mrs Eaves
Helvetica Condensed
Filosofia
Gil Sans

But, I have a few questions.
1) What the heck are some fonts that are considered "in style" right now? I should be able to figure this out, I know, but it does seem daunting.

2) I guess what I wonder is, are some fonts seriously dated? Will using some be a horrible faux pas in a portfolio?

3) And, on another tangent, can one set slab serifs as body copy? If so, which ones?

Goodnight!