Studio Brief 3 - Mock-up Layout Design

Below are the mock-ups of the layout I have chosen to go with, complete with image and text. The first image below showcases the grid system that I have used. The grid i used was a very basic 4x4 grid structure with a 3mm gutter. The reason I chose a stripped back grid was due to not having many elements on the page. This grid functioned sufficient enough to suit what i was after. If i went for a golden ration or a Van de Graff canon it could overcomplicated my modern aesthetic. There isn't no point in over thinking and being clever with your grid system if you can find a simplistic way of achieving the same result. Plus my layout would be the same throughout.

For a contemporary feel I positioned the imaged around 10% onto the other side of the page. This feature in a visual sense would fill up more space and will allow for the photos to do the talking. I want the Berlin lifestyle and culture to appeal to the target audience, It's also visually attractive and will keep the user engaged. However, in order to not make the images to overpowering and in your face, the zoom in bar with the white fill will break this up and allow the users subconscious mind to feel at ease.  The typeface is courier, a monotype, this matches into the style and theme of a contemporary scene that is a representation of the creative scene in Berlin. Monospace typeface connects more with the audience, in large quantities of text it may become not as fluid in terms of readability but in short paragraphs it feels more personal, almost like the layout of each page was a postcard from Berlin.

In terms of page size, at this moment I'm thinking of A4. A4 is an effective size for what I want to achieve. The layout it's self still has a lot of white space, so it doesn't need more space for text or other features. Also it would allow me to save a lot on printing costs. At this moment this book could have 52 pages, so at A3 it wouldn't be a viable option if i was to commercially print this publication on my current budget.

The only downside to this layout is the restriction of image use. Right now the layout isn't fluid enough for me to adapt to certain scenarios if something went wrong. For example if my budget runs out and I have to scale my book down to a certain amount of pages but still have to fit in all the images and text. This would be extremely time consuming as I would have to reinvent my layout to adapt, which the current layout wouldn't be able to achieve. Failing to do this quick enough could see my publication turned down by printers for taking to long, missing deadlines, and not setting a professional standard to effectively production a finished publication.