Critique - Week 4

My publishers and I are getting started working on our new prototype, Thrifty Cook AKA Cupboard, or, as I like to call it, whisk + pantry. It's a play off Town & Country, which is a lighthearted jab that people in our target age group would appreciate. It also incorporates the two key elements of the magazine: saving money and cooking. In any case, here are my first drafts of the cover, a department, a feature spread and the color palette. Have at it.

This is the cover, which I liked a lot more when it was just the photo and the logo. I initially had tilted boxes behind the sell lines (like the box behind the logo, more or less), but they were clunky, so I eliminated them. Unfortunately, this required using outer glows on the sell lines for legibility, which I think detracts from the flat aesthetic of the logo. As I'm sure you know by now, I really like flat. My biggest struggle with this project has been picking typefaces that reflect the purpose of the magazine, which is essentially to save money on food by making it at home and making less. As such, I tried to go with a handmade feel without being overt. The tagline is handwritten, but the title of the magazine is just a blocky, slightly rounded serif. The initial type I chose for the sell lines was basically the same used in Real Simple's logo, but there was a disconnect between the logo and the sell line style. The new type isn't a dramatic departure from the original, but I do feel that it's a bit friendlier and less modern.

For my department page, I tried to carry over some of the paper-scrap aesthetic from the logo with the tilted color elements as well as the icon-style department header. Because the magazine is an offshoot from a cookbook and is meant to teach readers how to cook for one or two people rather than eight, I felt sections such as "Resized" would be helpful and easy content to produce. The notion is simple: Take an item from the original cookbook and cut down the portions and ingredient count. Instead of feeding 10, it will feed two, and instead of requiring eight ingredients it will only require five, or something like that.

The second story on the page, "Leftover Redux: The Virtues of the Baked Potato," displays a recurring visual style in the magazine. Again, the premise is that the readers will be cooking for one or two. The potato here is blown up much larger than it would typically be with the idea in mind that just because you're cooking small doesn't mean you have to eat small. That is to say, the quantity is smaller, but the taste is not.

This is a sample feature, and, shall we say, it's a very, very rough draft. I was rushing to complete this element, and it shows. The story would be about how cutting coupons is a thing of the past, and coupons have all gone digital. I actually do like the concept behind the illustration. It's clean, and it reads pretty well. That said, the spread is pretty underwhelming, and I'll have to put more work into a revision. In short, I like the illustration concept and the headline type treatment, but I don't think I'd read the story based on this design.

Last but not least, here is the color palette for whisk + pantry. I wanted to go with a muted set of colors because the magazine is targeted toward young people who live alone or with one other person and have limited funds. Let me explain (or sum up, whichever you prefer). This isn't to suggest that these people live dreary, drab and depressing lives. It is my assumption that many of the readers live in old apartments in big cities, and their living space would not be as opulent and luxurious as those readers who don't have to worry about what they spend on food (or cooking at home, if at all. They probably have butlers, right?).

Again, feel free to tear this apart. I think it's a good starting point, but it's far from a finished product.