The Brief 

Select one of the designs from your research and try copying the layout and design as closely as possible using dummy text.  Measure the margins and column widths.  If you don’t have the exact typeface, get as near as you can.  If you are copying a page that includes photographs, just leave 10% tinted boxes to indicate their position.

Is the type serif or sans-serif?  Is the text ragged or justified?  Are the spaces after paragraphs, or are new paragraphs indented?  How many columns are there to a page?

What happens when you alter the fonts, change the alignment, or adjust the leading or tracking?

Choosing a layout

Paging through my magazines, I stumbled upon this beautiful layout.  It is simple yet exciting and captured my attention.  The body text reads easily, and I don’t need to search for the next paragraph, which is the case when reading certain magazines.

The designer used the same typeface family for the heading, subtext, subheadings and body text, which works well for this specific magazine creating a peaceful and flowing reading experience. 

Beatrice Warde, a British typographer and writer is known for her influential essay “The Crystal Goblet”.  The essay was first delivered as a speech, called “Printing should Be Invisible”, given to the British Typographers’ Guild at the St Bride Institute in London, on 7 October 1930.  In this essay and speech, Warde argues that good typography should be like a crystal goblet that presents the content in a clear and unobtrusive way rather than drawing attention to itself. (Wikipedia, 2023)

I agree with her philosophy as a transparent and functional element when applying it to enhance the tone and style of a project such as Breathe magazine.  However, nothing is ever black and white in art and design, and there might be projects in which her philosophy could be somewhat limiting. 

Breathe Magazine is one of the cases where Warde’s philosophy is very relevant and I love how effective it is!  

Finding the typeface

The typeface of the article was surprisingly easy to track down.  I uploaded a sample to the “What the Font” website and it instantly recognised the font.  The font is an Adobe font called Calluna and has eight font styles, and Calluna Sans has ten font styles.

Calluna is a serif typeface designed by Dutch designer Jos Buivenga and released in 2009 through the Exljbris font foundry.  Jeremiah Shoaf from Typewolf recons Calluna has interesting characteristics that set it apart from other serif fonts, such as the slope of the serifs on the descenders of the “p” and “q”. (Shoaf, Typewolf, 2023)

The editorial designer used Calluna serif paired with Calluna sans-serif.  The heading is Calluna Light (serif) at 28pt with a tracking of 10.  The subtext is Calluna Semibold Italic (serif) at 12pt with no tracking.  The subheadings are Calluna Sans Semibold  (sans-serif) at 10pt with no tracking, and the body text is Calluna Regular (serif) at 8pt with a tracking of 10.  Leading at 130% is 10,4 for the body text at 8 points.

Analysing the layout and making a copy

The editorial is called “A story is born” and has approximately five-and-a-half paragraphs per page.  A new paragraph with a subheading is separated by a 5mm space, but the paragraphs without subheadings are indented. The illustration is scalloped along the top of the page, and the text is divided into two columns per page with a 10mm gutter.  The body text is aligned to the left, and the leading is approx.—130% of the text size.  I tested the leading in my software by considering the number of lines per paragraph.  I have drawn a text box around each paragraph to establish the margins and other spacings and will attempt to copy this article as precisely as possible in Adobe InDesign.

I am happy with the outcome and feel I have matched the original editorial layout as closely as possible.  I am not using the article’s actual wording, which means that the paragraphs will not look precisely the same.  The typeface matching is spot-on, and the Calluna typeface can easily become one of my favourites.

Reflecting on this exercise

• This exercise forced me to observe details very closely.  I have found myself going back and forth to the original magazine editorial just to find out I have missed certain details, such as the alignment. , e.g. The text looked justified, but once I aligned the text on my copy, I immediately noticed that it was not justified but aligned to the left.
• Pasting/placing text into text boxes can be challenging.  I had to read the Adobe InDesign manual to get it right and to understand “links” between text boxes.  
• I had to uncheck “hyphenated”, which changed my entire layout, and then I had the leading incorrect and changed that, just to see how everything was out of proportion once again.
• Going forward, I will pay more attention to these subtle yet essential details that construct a more readable and polished layout.

Works Cited

Wikipedia. (2023, April 4). Wikipedia. Retrieved from Beatrice Warde: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Warde

Shoaf, J. (2023, April 24). Calluna. Retrieved from Typewolf: https://www.typewolf.com/calluna#:~:text=Calluna%20is%20a%20serif%20typeface,of%20the%20p%20and%20q.

Shoaf, J. (2023, April 24). Typewolf. Retrieved from Calluna: https://www.typewolf.com/calluna