Task 8 – Font choices and flat plans

Shania Carter

The centre of the front page is text warped around the main image, which is set to the right of the page. The image is also covering the title of the publication, although to familiar readers the cover up of the letters may not matter so much. The way in which Jose Mourinho is sat indicates that he is wanting to lean in and have a conversation, much like an interview which is the ‘world exclusive’, the pose in which he is sat also makes his face confronted with yours, as he is not sat on the edge of the seat it doesn’t show that he is confronting but interested and relaxed. The text adjacent to the image enhances the fact that it is he that is talking. The quotes from Mourinho are short and bullet pointed which indicates that there is more to give away inside the magazine – which holds the interview. The bottom of the magazine is quite comical as it shows part of the face and the hair, to football fans this is understood as comical as the player Maraoune Fellaini is known for causing commotion with his big hair. The font colour choices work well together as they blend well on the background. I feel that the black shows dominance, however the red font is a main colour for the magazine, the white can also be represented as showing a positive connotation – the positive of using a white font could be to talk about the individual, the colour white can be the colour of new beginnings, this new beginnings could be resulting in a change of his playing career as he is known for causing trouble on the pitch. The colour red normally dictates a level of danger, from my own knowledge of football, the colour red in kits was used to show dominance and to overpower the other team in height, a couple of the associations of red are passion and desire, these two could mean a few things, firstly the passion and desire of the magazine is to create something suitable for all football fans which is current and driven by what the audience want to see, the other reasoning behind ‘passion’ and ‘desire’ is that the audience are passionate about football and have a desire to see underneath the players they see on their pitch in interviews and such like. The actual individual photographed is not associated with the red colour although his words are – other words annotated with the colour red show energy and determination which are two of the things a football manager needs.

This shows similarities to what I am going to be doing in production, an interview that is conducted by the fans. But firstly, the image is again on the right hand side of the page with a pull quote on the image rather than in a bit of space. The image looks better on the right hand side as there is a smaller photograph worked into the text, the smaller image fits in the text as there is some white space next to the fact file, however again some text is warped around the picture. In comparison to the previous main image, this one is more relaxed and shows Del Piero in a natural environment rather than a studio, one of the main reasons for this is because the questions have been asked by the fans rather than the interviewer so there really wasn’t much need for a photo shoot. From a glance, the questions asked by the fans are quite detailed and lengthy, this can help myself as I can look at these questions and decide on how to work mine. Some of the questions chosen to be put in the introduction are in black and white, as mentioned earlier with the dominance, I feel that the questions in black are the ones that are most significant especially the one about Heysel as that is a football tragedy, the image is not clear so it his hard to make out the specific questions.

The fact file is also something similar I want to include in my own production, it is full of the important facts about his career as he is a fairly prolific footballer. The questions that I want to ask are also to be based on Gerrard’s playing career although they also may be more personal as I am getting the fan’s opinions. By also thinking further about the colour scheme the red and white may also be representing England and because the magazine is an English publication. The colour scheme that I want to portray is red, white and yellow, the reasons for this is that red is the Liverpool associated colour, white brings in the England theme and yellow is also one of the Liverpool colour kits but on Liverpool F.C’s promotion the colour yellow is prominent. On the existing work here, one of the answers overlaps onto another page, I don’t want this to happen in my work as it breaks up the text too much and looks untidy. The date and website are at the bottom of the page which gives more space at the top for images and text – the image however doesn’t cover the full page and there is a bit of a gap between the white space and where the text starts, this works well as there isn’t enough space to include more text or fill it up with an image. The text to picture ratio is more text than pictures although this is what needed to be emphasized as the fans want to hear his answers in detail, which is what I am going to do but have the image clear enough to fill the full page along with the questions as it has a personal feel that way.

These two magazines are more relevant to my topic as they both feature Steven Gerrard. The top image is similar to the previous extract as it is a fan question and answer. The bottom extract is more Gerrard’s answers between an interviewer and himself. The images used have differences and similarities, the similarities of them both is that they are both posed and are very direct when looking into the camera, the differences between the two is obviously the age difference but also the bottom extract feels more personal as it is his words, the image is also more in your face and there seems to be sincerity in his eyes. The colour schemes also vary between a quite bright orange to a soft yellow. The orange colour seems to be the frontier of encouragement and success – Gerrard has been very successful in his career hence why this colour may have been used. From previous extracts we can see that the colour yellow has been used rarely throughout the magazine but has been used to highlight bits such as fact files or to win prizes – through assumption yellow is a summer colour and from the top extract it gives a feel that the magazine was published in the summer of the football season, this also indicates to the colour because the England internationals are played during the summer. On the extract with Jose Mourinho there is little text and context to what the interview entails – this is fairly similar to the two extracts here as the main points of the interview are bullet pointed or in short lists, which makes it easier and more interesting to bring the audience in. The top extract looks particularly at wanting the reader to be engulfed in the interview as it mentions death threats, this is quite a serious thing to feature on a magazine cover, however because Gerrard is underlined as a ‘real leader’ and this is an open interview from fans too, this seems less questionable. From the interview with Gerrard himself, there is a relatable pull quote, whereas there is no quote from Gerrard in the other extract as it is more about truths and lesser opinions. The font in both these instances are in upper and lower case with bold colors', there isn’t really an element of dominance as the images make up for the act of sincerity and sternness. There is less information on the top magazine or at least appears that way as in the bottom magazine Gerrard is surrounded by extracts that are featured in the magazine, the title and the sub-title also cuts off the top of the image which is a little different to the Mourinho feature as the title is partly cut off. The other visible similarity on the magazines is the yellow strip across the title which is hard to make out but I assume says something about the issue. Only one of the images takes up a huge part of the cover, rather than looking determined Gerrard looks more menacing as if to say he is going to achieve something rather than if he does it.

The font print for the extracts sourced have been bold sans serif. There is also no tracking between the letters but it is also not squished together. When looking at font choices I am going to look at bold sans serif, with the option of having tall letters as well as being uppercase

Bebas Neue

Steelfish

SF Movie Poster

Komorebi

Gnuolane

Babel Sans

Bitstream Vera Sans

I have opted for a bold and tall font for the title and as the title is all one word it makes sense to have no tracking on the letters and the tall letters don’t make the copy squashed together and hard to read. The fonts I have chosen for the main copy are similar in boldness, there is also a similar tallness which works well in contrast as it is a thick font and easy to read. The two fonts at the minute that I would prefer to use are ‘Steelfish’ and ‘Gnuolane’ there are little differences between the two but I am confident that they wont clash when preparing the text.

Title of magazine

Main Image

Pull Quote

Date, Magazine issue number and price.

Key points from interview

Information about another interview

Competitions and other news.

BACKGROUND IMAGE

Pull quote or Title

Text Text Text