Week 2: Research + Rough Due Dates

Today is the second day of the second week in our honors class. Mr. Julien told us that the client (Joyce E. Lavery) will be here today at noon to answer any questions we have. Next week (week 3) Mr. Julien wants us to have initial layouts, a grid, style guide and color printouts/roughs to show in class. During Week 4 the client is going to come back and see our progress. By then we should have print outs of the feature article and table of contents. Mr. Julien really stressed that this magazine is going to be upscale and not like the regular food magazines we are used to seeing.

Research: Since we have a culinary department here at our school, I decided to start at our library and take a look at the magazines that they had. I looked at magazines such as Cater Source Magazine, Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living, Cook Light, Chef Magazine and Culinary Trends. Here is what I thought of each:

Cater Source Magazine: Very clean but type is way too big. Standard grid but need more variation. Very elegant style and simple with color.

Gourmet: The Magazine of Good Living: My favorite magazine out of all of them. Very good photography! Cover is simple and logo-type is very elegant (script typeface). Titles are all caps, very modern and a lot of grotesque sans serif typefaces. A lot of type over photos that are on the page with a white border (very clean!). This magazine reminds me a lot of Real Simple magazine (one of my favorite magazines for type/design). A lot of contrast with colors.

Cooking Light: Not too exciting, too much going on, can't really tell what's an advertisement and what's an article. Very basic grid.

Food Safety: Thin magazine- reminds me of Dc Chefs but looks cheaper- reminds me of a Safe way Magazine ("check out line magazine"). Type is way too big, reminds me of National Geographic but without photos, very boring!

Chef: Very big in size, typical spreads with a lot of body copy, boring type & cheap paper.

Culinary Trends: Good use of photography, asymmetrically balanced and both the headline type and pull out quotes needs work (to stand out more). Good use of photography in their grid.