Project 4: Magazine Design | Paterson

Story Decision:
I chose to design my magazine cover and spread for a story about the films of Tim Burton. I know I wanted to write about this whimsical director because he has great visuals attached to his name. I had a little bit of trouble finding an article that I thought could use most of the great images that go along with Burton. I have the supplementary book that was sold in response to the MOMA exhibit that has been on display in New York City since November. I know the exhibit is coming to an end in a few weeks so I thought this article would be a nice ending to its run in the museum.

The article spoke of all of Tim Burton’s past films through detailed analysis about his characters and plot lines. I specifically chose this article because of the focus on his characters and I think a magazine directed to characters, both fiction and nonfiction would be a great read (I’d love for this magazine to exist). Because the book was meant to supplement the exhibit, it contains many scanned copies of his original sketches for the films that are discussed in the article. I decided to use these sketches as the primary focus of visuals in the spread because I think they encompass Tim Burton’s character as well as the characters he was developing.

Typeface:
I wanted the headline to really relate to Tim Burton more than anything, so I used his actual written name and I found a download of the title font for Nightmare Before Christmas, called ‘Burton’s Nightmare.’ I carried that font to the cover lines on the cover page of the magazine. I also used the ‘T’ from Burton’s name in the pull quote. I used ITC Galliard Std Bold for the descriptions of the cover lines because it contrasts the tall height of the nameplate, Birch Std. I carried the nameplate typeface to the folios inside the spread. For the deck head I used ITC Garamond Std Book Italic because it contrasts the preface of the article, which is written in the body typeface, Bembo Std. I chose Bembo Std for the body type because it is fun, but legible for the reader. My pull quote is also in Bembo Std, but I wrote the quotation marks to mimic Tim Burton’s handwriting in the headline. The bylines are Frutiger LT Std because it is a sans serif that is subtle but different. I carried Frutiger to the italicized captions because the sans serif contrasts the serif of the body type.

Source & File Size of Visuals:
I found the cover photograph and back cover ad on Google images, but I could not find it by googling ‘Tim Burton’ again. The original photo size is 492 x 700 pixels. I scanned all of the images from Tim Burton, that are inside both spreads, including the Jack Skellington stuffed animal on the first spread, which is 4105 x 3300 pixels. The name in the headline is 1173 x 486 pixels. The Nightmare storyboard is 1432 x 946 pixels, both the Joker and Batman sketches are 942 x 1260 pixels, the Mars Attacks! watercolor is 964 x 1172 pixels, and the Sweeney Todd sketch is 809 x 1167 pixels. The bottom Stainboy image is 1512 x 1082 pixels and the top image is 499 x 726 pixels.

Color:
All of the graphics of my spreads are black and white because those patterns are the most recognizable of Burton’s aesthetic personality. The only color I played with was the reddish-orange of the storyboard from Nightmare Before Christmas. The CMYK values for this color are: C=8%, M=73%, Y=76% and K=1%. I pulled the color for the nameplate and date of the magazine from the photo of Tim Burton; its CMYK values are: C=35%, M=26%, Y=45% and K=1%.