Magazines blend good stories with great design. Not only does the content have to be interesting, but the layout must be visually appealing to set the mood and enhance the story. Following good typography and photography principles are crucial to create a beautiful spread, such as the following.
This original two-page magazine spread comes from the October–November 2023 issue of Country Living magazine, pages 94–95. It features large photos of a family lakeside campground. Two photos take up most of the spread, and small sections of text describe the illustrations.
Typography Design
There are two main blurbs of text, each employing contrast to increase the visual appeal of the section.
The first section includes a quote from the article’s interviewee, along with her name. The quote itself is an italicized modern serif font. The modern serif is recognizable by two distinct characteristics. First, there are noticeable thick to thin transitions in the strokes of the characters. Second, these transitions are stressed on a verticle axis, unlike the diagonal axis of oldstyle serif fonts. The color is black and the italics give it a soft, natural look.
Compare this to the quote attributions, “–HOMEOWNER MEGAN MARSH.’’ The color changes from black to green, and the letters are much smaller. The letters are in all caps rather than sentence case. A monoweight, very vertical san serif font replaces the natural-looking italicized serif font. These contrasts create a clear separation between the quote and the attribution, and add to the aesthetics of the design.
The second blurb’s typography contains only slightly less contrast. The all-caps title is in a warm yellow, which stands out from the photos’ cooler colors and grabs the reader’s attention. Beneath this, the paragraph text is in sentence case and a smaller font. The black color calls less attention to itself, but repeats the color of the decorative arrows above the title. While both the title and paragraph use a san serif font, the colors, cases, and sizes create enough contrast to be distinct. The emphasis is obviously the title, with the paragraph text acting as its support and drawing little attention to itself.
Photography Techniques
The photographer for this spread used a large depth-of-field and emphasized the rule of thirds, particularly in the smaller picture of the canoe and lake. Nothing in the foreground or background is blurred. The reader sees the image as if he or she was looking at the scene in person. The horizon is along the lower line, and the canoes feature prominently along the left-hand line. The canoes to the side show the best use of the rule of thirds: an obvious subject that doesn’t obstruct a beautiful background.
Could I replicate the effect of this image? I made an attempt, focusing on maintaining a large depth-of-field and using the rule of thirds. Here are my three attempts:
Photo 1: Utilizing large depth-of-field and placing the subject (the bench) in the lower-right intersection.
Photo 2: Utilizing a large depth-of-field, the tree line along the upper line, and the subject (the canoe) in the lower-left intersection.
Photo 3: Utilizing a large depth-of-field, the waterline along the lower line, and the subject (the tree trunk) along the left line.
After editing the images to match the colors of the original, I placed each in the spread to see how they look. The subject and composition of the photos mimicked the original photo well enough to work in the original spread.
Conclusion
This magazine’s spread uses those important design principles to create a visually appealing story. The typography contrasts emphasizes the most important text to guide the reader, and the photo composition makes for beautiful illustrations. Learning from such examples helps designers mimic the quality of the spread, letting the design tell the story just as much as the words themselves.