rddesign:

Pentagram design very corporate like designs for their magazine layouts, they mostly look like they are themed around business and tech. The fonts used are mostly sans serif and when they use a serif font it is usually on a contrasting background to make them stand out and they usually use serif fonts on headings. This hits the target demographic on the head.

The colour schemes used on these layouts is pretty muted with only a few hints of colour used on lines under headings and for block colours like the front cover of National Journal.

Muted and business like doesn’t mean boring however, with great use of space and font size variation keeping everything on the page eye-catching. I.D. especially has very interesting imagery and is allowed the space to breath and give the page character without filling the page completely.

When they break the newspaper like grid is when these designs start to shine with lots of character and variation on what could be a very bland layout. They push it enough to be interesting, but still formal and professional looking.

As great these designs are and how much I love this style of design, this is pretty much the opposite of what I want to create for this Gardeners’ World brief. I want to create something that feels natural and handmade, using things like illustration, rounded edges and rough fonts will help create the feel I am looking to create. I think the use of space could be something to explore however, as the insides of Gardeners’ World have lots of images, with small captions filling up the rest of the page.