When creating my Grid design I started off by selecting a grid style that would be consistent across my pages.

I knew I wanted to have a two column design as this is a simple but aesthetic choice which also maximises the amount of text space available. However, I wanted a bit more freedom with the placement of my text and graphics, thus, I decided to go for a 6 width gid design.

I began researching for the topic, looking at some magazine articles and other publications that I inspired me in my design choices. I included a few of these in my mood board (shown below). Also in my mood board is the texts I decided to use. These include three Serif-fonts for the headers and focal text as well as 1 sans-serif font for the body text to help develop a contrast and create hierarchy. I chose these specific texts because I wanted a clean and modern design in which, this style of mixing serif and sans-serif is a popular trend.

When beginning the design, I started off by narrowing the margins on the page slightly as I knew I have a large amount of tent to fit on the two A4 pages and I wanted to be able to include some graphics also. I sourced a variety of options for the graphics in this design - I knew I wanted simplistic yet relevant images with green blue and orange themes to create a slight contrast but still maintaining an aesthetic  colour scheme.

Starting off, I realised my hopes for a clean minimalistic design with a lot of whitespace was not going to work with the amount of text that had to fit on the page. I did an iteration of the design with just the Eating section across the middle spread (as shown below) but this was not practical as I had much more text to fit. I was also hoping to divide the text up into four sections: the intro, eating, exercise and rest and allocate one page (i.e. an A6 page size) to each of these sections. However, the Eating section proved to consist of too much text for this idea to work out - I had to move some of this section onto the same page as one of the other sections unfortunately. However, I simply moved it to the front page and ensured the hierarchy made it prominent that it was a different section and that it continued over the page.

I purposely kept all the header fonts the same across the various levels (Vogue for the main title, Mermaid for any sub-headers and fin display for any break out paragraphs/text. The sizing of each of these is also consistent. I also utilised some blocks of colour behind/around the headings in a dark green to create some contrast/hierarchy. I half-highlighted some of the break out text to make it more noticeable and draw in the viewers eye.

Overall working with the challenge of condensing the text to fit in this design as well as working with grid systems was interesting and a test of my skills. I thoroughly enjoyed the challenge and I think the design came out quite well.

I chose these 6 pages from a magazine publication (see annotated pages bw.

This magazine hosts a mirid of typefaces (see graphic of page 4 with coloured circles) - page 4 has at least 5-6 typefaces including some variation within typefaces (i.e.e bolding). This creates a slightly chaotic feel when viewers notice this. They have mainly utilized sans-serif typefaces but have also included serif type - this can be used effectively however they have created an imbalance with their application. There is an inconsistency to in what circumstances and how they utilise specific types which also emphasises these imbalances. From afar, the design looks professional but this positive outlook is largely upheld by the effective photo choices.

Looking at the first few pages without making any grid lines, I was positive that the structure was a simple two column design. However, upon closer inspection it is clear that there is a lot more to this design than meets the eye. I conducted a thorough grid inspection of each of the six pages looking for commonalities.

I discovered that 1&2 had similar simple grids that appear as a mostly dual column design. Spread 3 is where things changed up. Spread three depicts a three column design that more accurately fits to a 6x6 grid design. As you can see, I have overlayed this on top and a number of the lines intersect (although it is not a perfect fit). This was a key indicator that the designer may not have stuck to a uniform grid structure in the design of these magazine pages. This page also evidenced the use of Baseline text which was continued in spread 4 with all body pieces of text being aligned across the spread. The discontinuity was continued as the baseline text is not consistent across the document as spread 6 does not feature this. Spread 5 consists of what appears to be another 6 grid design however it does not fit exactly whilst spread 6 fits a 5 grid design better based on the text box in the bottom left not fitting a 2 or 3 column design.

There is some basic continuity between the pages of the document with the first half of  spread 4 being the same layout as the first pages of spreads 1 and 2. Although the document switches between a two and three column grid with some other design choices breaking this trend, they consistently use the same series of grid designs to develop an interesting but mostly uniform design.

Overall this design is slightly messy and could be thoroughly improved with more effective application of text. They should limit their amount of typefaces, especially when used all in a row such as displayed in the text analysis of spread 4. A more consistent grid design - even through use of a 5x5, 6x6 or 7x7 grid for some leniency in design choices - would create a more structured and professional look that is more visually pleasing for viewers.