Magazine Talk

Magazine Talk: Advanced Photoshop

Last week we had a talk with a lady called Stacey, who works for the magazine 'Advanced Photoshop'.

Stacey designs the front covers for the magazine, displays the features in a creative manor and also does the layout for the entire magazine. Above are some of her covers, the third image is one that I found extremely inspiring, Stacey has done that image entirely on her own using Photoshop, and the woman on the cover is infact made up of words, even the eyes and mouth!, for the darker areas the font is made smaller to act as shading, and the more spaced out areas are larger fonts. This cover actually won an award and damn straight too! It's amazingggggggg. I need to get my photoshop skills up to scratch..

Stacey gave us some tips or our own magazine layouts (which we are currently working on) and these were-

• Make sure that text is tight, straight and together- make sure spaces are equal.
• Fresh and Clean pages- nothing too busy and cluttered.
• Look at competitors constantly for ideas and inspirations, and what they are doing.
• Using large images that take up whole pages ensure customers flicking through the magazine to stop and look. (Flicking through the magazine from back to front)
• Make sure that text you use works with the images used- not to be separate.
• Make sure you have a clear concept to work on.

I thought these tips were good key pointers and will take them into consideration for this current mock magazine layout, and will then use it for my professional project.

Stacey also mentioned that if you want to work in a magazine industry they do prefer experience rather than qualifications, which I have found to be a key topic throughout this course, so make the most of the options and opportunities you have. I am hoping to do a placement next year/this summer that will help me with my career choices in the future- Magazine work, styling, Visual Merchandising. So I need to get looking.... :)