Page - The Editorial

I'm not sure why I completed the editorial last, as it is going to be the first page in my booklet but I feel I am able to write this content and present it much easier now that the rest of the booklet is complete.

I began by looking at several examples of editorials within publications similar to mine, this included those from an art magazine, university prospectus, Harpers Bazaar and Harpers Bazaar Art issue, NME and John Lewis magazine. All these magazines or booklets are issued directly to their target market, which is the case with The Coffee Journal; to be placed in various independent coffee shops for customers to pick up at will. I noted down various similarities between the editorials that will help me whilst designing my own. They all featured a large chunk of text, its content varying greatly but generally including the following; an introduction to what the magazine is or contains, things the editor loves this month/week, personal dilemmas, thoughts and feelings.

As usual with page designs I began by drafting up a few ideas in my sketchbook, but doing the majority of it on Photoshop; exciting and moving things around as and when I do it, choosing what looks right in the spur of the moment.

               
                                  

The images above are an example of how I played around with the title. Of course, the torn paper wasn't on the original design for the editorial, but I added this in as I went. I found it difficult to erase the texture of the original file which I found on Google, rather than tearing paper myself and scanning it. I managed to solve this issue however by duplicating the later and changing its properties to get a nicer colour and finish.

The stencil effect I found in the image above adds a handmade, printed feel to the piece which I like for the editorial. The pale pink contrasts well with the vibrant blue which is the most recognisable colour used throughout my booklet and accessories. 

It is essential that I get the colours of this page to correlate with the one opposite, which is why I designed this entire page looking at the inner cover. One of the reasons why I chose this cover was because there are so many colours in it, that it's extremely difficult to design an opposite page that doesn't match well. I picked a base colour, which was the turquoise, and worked around that by manipulating different elements until it was well suited.

Writing the text for this page was challenging as I was trying to compose an editorial for a hypothetical magazine. This magazine doesn't and will never exist, but I had to make the entire concept as believable as possible with this writing. I made sure to use the first person with the present tense, using a friendly and causal tone in order to make the reader feel welcome. Of course this was going to make or break a first impression to the journal, so the grammatical aspects and content of this first piece of writing are essential.