This is for a book commemorating the first year of the Baltic art gallery in Newcastle being open. It's got a very clear and rigid two-column system, creating a balance between text and photograph on each individual page. It also appears to be divided into two rows, where the type ends on the recto side, the photo and sub-header end on the verso side and the type begins. It works because there's plenty of negative space around the text and photographs to allow them to breathe and the type and photographs aren't competing for attention.
I like this because of the way the illustrations interact with the type. It's clearly a modular grid with 2 columns, and 4 rows, though at various points the text and or/illustration is allowed to fill two rows, creating a bit of a dynamic feel within what otherwise is a very well ordered and rigid structure.
This is Vice magazine, throughout the magazine the structure changes from 1 to 2 to 3 columns, often balanced against a full page of photographs. I really like the way the 1 central column works, surrounded by white space. There's a minimalism to it that, to me, creates a really sophisticated feeling, where you become aware that this is an arts and culture magazine, not simply something trying to cram as much information as it can in.
This was created by Norm & Berg, and whilst it doesn't look at grids particularly, I thought I'd include it in this post because it's minimalism and creative choices in typography really showcase it as an art book/magazine that has a lot of creative freedom. I want to ensure that my book isn't too bogged down in the information and is allowed to be visually expressive too!
This is a spread from Newwork Magazine. I love how simple and spacious it is, the grid system seems a little irregular, with the square being off centre. I don't really have much to add, it is really the aesthetic of the piece more than it's structure that drew me to it.
Both of these spreads are the work of Amelia Roberts. They're quite dynamic because not only do they have columns that run a long horizontally but on the recto pages there's also a column on the edge of the page that runs vertically, meaning the type runs down the page not across it. This is a nice way of breaking up information and creating a hierarchy. This vertical text is clearly not part of the main body and is to be read separately, it's positioning and angle involve having to alter the way the magazine is read, ensuring that these are probably read last. I also love the symmetry in the bottom spread, it's quite an unusual way to layout work and when putting a spread across two pages, there shouldn't be anything very important in the very centre of the image or it might get lost in the binding and folding process. I also like how the top spread is balanced using the tool of brightly coloured triangles to anchor the space together into something unified.
I chose this for a few reasons. Firstly it has a very clear 3 column grid that it sues simply and effectively. Second the type for the headers is very unusual and is the kind of thing that I've been looking at in regards to the typeface brief that I set David Gasi. Again as a publication, despite being more packed than the other art magazines and books I looked at, this exudes culture and art.
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