OUGD603 EXTENDED PRACTICE - ARMED FORCES PUBLICATION - THE CITY TALKING RESEARCH

Front Cover. Simple. Includes article features on the front like traditional glossy magazines.

First page. Introducing the magazine. 3 column grid doesn't fit the rules of grid and line lengths in ease of reading. Goes more for the aesthetic approach. Pros and cons of this. Looks 'pretty', however may prove to be more tiring to read throughout the publication as the eyes have to work harder.

Spread stating the start of an area chapter. I don't think this layout works as the word is split across the bind, and the style of bind this is means the pages don't lie flat therefore the word ends up with large parts of letterforms being hard to read. The simplicity of the chapter spread works very nicely though.

Great layout aesthetically for person interview start spread. The use of a quote from the person as a headline works really well, however because the persons name is so small is could be easy to miss who the interview is actually with. Again the same width columns of text are used, which results in a hard to read line length. Also there seems to be a lot more emphasis on imagery, with the photographs taking up so much space on the spread. Perhaps this is to make an interview appear longer than it actually is. 

Another example person interview opening spread. There could be more text on this page, but it's hard to tell due to the change of layout. The photographs still take priority on the layout though. The quote is also smaller in point size too to maximise the effect the opening photograph has. Also possibly because the quote is considerably longer than in the previous example. A versal (larger letterform) marks the start of the interview, which creates a strong start point for the article.

The quote often overlaps the photography, so the photographs must be chosen carefully to ensure the text is still legible and readable. In this case the body copy also overlaps with the photograph, which can dramatically alter readability, however here it overlaps with a relatively plain part of the photographs so it doesn't hinder too much.

Something I've noticed in this magazine is that there is scarce amounts of body copy in the opening spread, perhaps not to daunt the reader too much, ease them into reading the article and not bombard them with information and text.

Example of spread for interview content. There's fairly more body copy on this spread than the openers, but still not drastic amounts. The photography in my opinion still takes the focus, with the text fitting around it. Not sure the text overlapping with the imagery works great for legibility.

Much ore traditional and constrained layout, however considerably tell text.

Really minimal body copy. The focus is evidently on the photography than the interview content.

Evaluation
It's been really interesting to take a close look at this magazine as on first inspection I thought it would be a great framework for the Armed Forces publication, however from analysing it I can assess that the focus is definitely on the imagery, and the legibility of the articles comes second. This can be told by the determination of number of columns and column widths being chosen for aesthetic purposes, and the use of body copy overlapping photography, which will impend readability no matter what the photograph. The use of not much body copy on the initial spread does work really effectively though, and perhaps this is something I should try and amend in my Armed Forces publication not to scare readers too much by the amount of body copy.