Meeting, 2nd May, FOX magazine concept

 

Update

Magazine

It was good today to get an update of the work everyone has been doing and plans to do. For the art section that I am in charge of I have interviewed at 2 galleries (including Rankin's gallery!) and spoken to one artist. 

I saw this building in Kentish Town the other day - you can't really see it that well from the photograph but it is such an interesting building so I plan to contact the person that lives there to potentially visit and take photos / interview for an architecture piece.

Broadcast

Broadcast is going really well. Tom and I are meeting there on Saturday to interview John and some other people who work there. Next week I will book an edit suite once we know which group we are in (A or B) to start logging and capturing the footage we already have. 

FOX

Image 1

Image 2

Image 3

We have a name for our magazine!! Playing on the idea of an urban and rural fox, this is to be the name of the mag. These images are photos I took at Rankin's gallery (Image 1) and a gallery called  Leighton Space (Images 2 and 3) that I played around with on photoshop. This motif of the fox would run throughout the magazine (literally) - it would be at the start of each new section and lead you through to the next one. 

Visual Identity

I have made a mood board of ideas for the magazine's visual identity - photos of which are below. To encorporate the idea of urban vs rural, graphic, slick images could be used to embody 'urban' with sketchy, more organic feeling visuals being used to give a 'rural' feel.

 

I know Alexia mentioned texture, but rather than physical texture (too much faff and at a high risk of looking either gimmicky or cheap) I think we should focus on visual texture - layers and interesting typography. Zadrian made a good point to think about - How would an animal write? What would its hand writing look like?

Images to have a faded look (see more on printing further down the blog...)

Sketches to be included however they should be used in a professional way - perhaps contrasted against a more minimal layout so it doesn't become too busy and scrap booky.

These Charley Harper images give an idea of the simple graphic style that could be used in contrast to the more rustic hand drawn / written elements.

Image 4

 Printing 

The magazine itself will be printed on newspaper paper, so in essence it will be a newspaper but with magazine layout and content. Newspapers are of the people and this is the feel of our magazine. It is cheap but purposefully so. 

However, to make it more upmarket the newspaper will come folded in half and slotted inside a front cover or magazine jacket. This will be made of a heavier card (see 'I love you' magazine) that will have some sort of tab into which the newspaper can be slipped and secured. This will be a folded piece of card (as will the newspaper so there will be no bindings in our magazine) that will double up as a poster. 

Front covers 

The front cover of the magazine jacket will be some sort of brick wall with graffiti with FOX in bold lettering. When you open the jacket you will see the newspaper printed magazine - when you take this out the front cover will be completely plain but with the silhouette of a fox (see Image 4 but imagine in silhouette) with the back silhouette of the fox on the back of the magazine. 

When you take the newspaper / mag out you will be able to see the other side of the magazine jacket. On this will be printed masthead, contributors, editors letters etc in an interesting graphic way (possibly as posters pasted on to the brick wall)

So to summarise this our concept:

FOX

- you get city foxes and country foxes - in the same way Kentish Town is a mix of urban and rural

- this is a magazine to be of the people, about people and with a community feel - hence the newspaper

- like a fox wandering around a city the magazine will follow its journey about town to give it a flow and a direction

- if there was a heirachy of animals a fox would be a working man with ambition - in the same way this magazine is for normal people, about people but with a spark - interesting art, fashion etc but also with a 'street' vibe (think Bluston's fashion and Zadrian's piece)

Libby