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 :)