In need of inspiration for a magazine cover!

eneyekay

eneyekay

Member
Hi guys, hope you can help me rid my creative block! I'm working on a cover at the moment for a local travel company, this is for their winter/xmas/spring 2009/10 brochure, they would like a wintery/christmassy image and a spring season image on the cover, and have a nice attractive way of dividing them... the company isn't particularly design-savvy, and tend to go for rather naff amateur work aimed at pensioners who like going on coach trips, but i still want to produce something at least half decent, so if anyone had any ideas, or has links to pics they could post in this thread that may help, that'd be awesome... basically any way of separating 2 images... here's a cover i've designed so far that they don't like, it includes all of the info to go on the cover, including their awful logo:

thanks in advance!!



WoodsXmasCover1.jpg
 
what don't they like about it? Just out of curiosity?
 
it's too forward thinking for them :p ... ionno, i try to move their design style forward every time i do a project for them, but i keep hitting brick walls... the boss is very stubborn and set in his ways... so they like rubbish design that looks like it's been created in MS Publisher... check out their logo as an example of this, it has to be in red which goes with virtually nothing, and makes your eyes bleed when put on cyan (or typically a nice sky image)... and looks like Microsoft Word Art.
 
A beautiful landscape which merges, via some Photoshop mad-skillz, from snow covered winter-wonderland to vibrant, bright spring. Kind of like a still of those amazing seasonal time-lapse shots in Planet Earth.

The more simple it is, the less your moron client gets to be picky about.
 
What sort of holidays do they cover? Or are they more coach travel people? If you could find a destination they go to.. a nice full page photo of the destination with the logo small in the middle ish with the dates in a nice clean thin type face would look nice IMHO :)
 
Cheers Matt, I had considered that, however I am slightly reluctant to spend the time on coming up with that kind of thing when they will prolly just dismiss it out of hand. I'm still working on the inside spreads at the moment, but I'm sure I'll end up giving that kind of thing a go.

Chris, they do all kinds, air tours to various places in europe to coach tours over the UK to cruises... they've not given me much to work with right now, so i dont know where they're planning to take the old folk to with this brochure... and as far as the logo goes... it HAS to be big and stuck right at the top because when the brochures are in a travel agents, they are staggered, and the boss like their nasty logo to stand out! Gah!
 
oh... ok... what a predicament :(

You could find a really nice photo of a plane flying high in the air with an air trail behind it.. (with a witty blazing the trail slogan or something like that :) or a boat sailing or something like that, something with loads of lovely light blue sky (with the blues fading etc). Put the logo at the top either in the middle or to the left with the dates in the top right in a nice thin font :)

another idea for you :) I can mock something up if you'd like matey :)
 
Are you designing the whole magazine then?

If it's for 'old folk' you may want to think about legibility of type. Setting headers in hairline sans isn't going to do your audience, and by extension you, any favours.
 
Think Saga and Brighton. Dumb any design element down to a minimum. This client will get confused by an design elements as he will see them as trivial and not relevant to his business, A Ronseal/ does what it says approach is the only way forward. I wouldn't get involved with the inside till the outer is agreed!

My main crit with the cover is I don't know what the product is? it could be air freshner or insurance. it doesn't say "Travel" it says Season. What is the clients product he's selling?
 
chrismitchell said:
oh... ok... what a predicament :(

You could find a really nice photo of a plane flying high in the air with an air trail behind it.. (with a witty blazing the trail slogan or something like that :) or a boat sailing or something like that, something with loads of lovely light blue sky (with the blues fading etc). Put the logo at the top either in the middle or to the left with the dates in the top right in a nice thin font :)

another idea for you :) I can mock something up if you'd like matey :)
Click to expand...



that's cool, but it HAS to encorporate 2 images ... winter/xmas and spring ... i think they'd like to stay away from planes and boats and have something more generic, as i've tried putting planes on before and they've been rejected... i won't miss these projects when i leave in 3 weeks :p ... but yea, they like BIG photos of nice locations.... eehhhhhh
 
matt said:
Are you designing the whole magazine then?

If it's for 'old folk' you may want to think about legibility of type. Setting headers in hairline sans isn't going to do your audience, and by extension you, any favours.
Click to expand...


yea, I'm in charge of the whole magazine... all 48 pages worth! BIG FUN! text attributes are fine and can always be changed later on, the main thing is getting the imagery down and general look atm. shame they don't have a strict corporate identity... that'd make things a lot easier!
 
sounds a lot like many of my ex-clients LOL do NOT miss them mate.. not one bit LOL

hmmm well you could do a half / half on the page... either vertically or horizontally and use the red from the logo to separate them :)

that way there is 2 images and they are large (ish) :)
 
used to love doing my magazines :D last one i did was for an estate agent (£1million houses etc) so very posh with big images etc :) LOADS of fun :D
 
Berry said:
Think Saga and Brighton. Dumb any design element down to a minimum. This client will get confused by an design elements as he will see them as trivial and not relevant to his business, A Ronseal/ does what it says approach is the only way forward. I wouldn't get involved with the inside till the outer is agreed!

My main crit with the cover is I don't know what the product is? it could be air freshner or insurance. it doesn't say "Travel" it says Season. What is the clients product he's selling?
Click to expand...


I definitely have to have a Ronseal approach, but their covers generally only show *pretty* locations. The Woods brand is well established in the local area, and the people who use it are generally old / retired, but they offer a lot of holidays that younger people would be interested in, so i'd like to design it for everyone and hopefully help their business out where I can. I don't think it should just be aimed at the nearly-deads.
 
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