Not A Second Time

The last month has involved getting to grips with InDesign and felt very much like Groundhog Day - it was this time last year I was grappling with Illustrator and Photoshop. I was relieved to get on with the first exercise, 'Magazine Pages'. I chose the FT's weekend magazine - it's one I'm familiar with and I like the layout, typography and illustrations used.

Creating a two page spread was fun - and, although I'm new to the program, I was relieved and surprised how much easier it was laying out pages in InDesign compared with the more familiar Photoshop/Illustrator. I developed one of the pages further, altering the typography and layout of the weekend supplement to appeal to a more traditional conservative audience and an trendier, younger left-liberal audience. I tried to limit the variations to these criteria as I was interested to see how subtle differences can completely change the feel of a page.

Although I tried to avoid preconceptions I seemed to end up with very 'Daily Telegraph' and 'Guardian' designs respectively. I think this shows how much design 'speaks' to a certain audience and how difficult it is to break away from these cultural signposts and languages.