The Start of my career.... What do you think?

Tim Knight

New Member
Ok, so long story short I picked up Adobe Indesign in Jan 12 and I had literally never even heard of it before then. The magazine was supposed to be for our members and we only expected 100 or so readers, but we ended up in six months getting 11,200 in total.

The designs have got better as I have gone along (or have they?!) and the latest templates are way better, what I would like to do is get comments on my old stuff, and then start to post the templates for my new designs and get feedback if that is ok with everyone here?

Amaze Magazine - March Edition

Amaze Magazine (April 2012)

May Edition

JULY Edition

August Edition - Amaze Magazine: Reloaded

And these were a few mini-mags I designed too (a smaller version of the magazine that people commissioned me to do)

Sherlock's Dead

Fikay Fashion

The next templates will follow once I have had a little feedback on these... And yes, I know they are awful lol!
 
A template from the new edition!

Needs a little tidying up, but shows the bare bones, you will see there is a set bar at the bottom of the page, and a guide at the top, and this follows throughout the entire magazine.

What would you add to it? What would you change? IGNORE THE TEXT none of it will make sense and one of the boxes isn't full with text and should be, it is just there to give me a rough idea on word count before I fill it in with the content, and the pictures are placeholders, its more the actual layout I am interested in.

I'm kinda after ongoing critique with this one....

Anyway here it is:

CONCEPT DESIGN
 
What is the magazine about again? Wasn't it technology and design and that sort of thing? If so, I'd say the original designs are way off the mark. They look like every other magazine, particularly the 1st 3 which instantly made me think of Vogue or some other womans magazine. The typography on all of them isn't great, and the overall designs of each just seems knocked together in an hour.

I'd sit down, and think about what the main beef of the magazine is going to be about and use imagery and typography that fits with it. Right now it doesn't and anyone looking for a technology based magazine would bypass this straight away.

I guess the new concept is better, because it doesn't have a woman on the front. But I'm still not sure I'd assume it was a magazine that featured articles and things on latest design and technology trends/talent etc...
 
particularly the 1st 3 which instantly made me think of Vogue or some other womans magazine.

exactly what i thought!

type is awful sorry, but it true dont use awful embossed/bevels on type is looks poor. and the rest of them i just didnt see anything that was like WOW its just a stock image with awful text thrown over the image. but as you said tho, they are slowly getting a bit better but are still off the mark tho.

sorry but true
 
What is the magazine about again? Wasn't it technology and design and that sort of thing? If so, I'd say the original designs are way off the mark. They look like every other magazine, particularly the 1st 3 which instantly made me think of Vogue or some other womans magazine. The typography on all of them isn't great, and the overall designs of each just seems knocked together in an hour.

I'd sit down, and think about what the main beef of the magazine is going to be about and use imagery and typography that fits with it. Right now it doesn't and anyone looking for a technology based magazine would bypass this straight away.

I guess the new concept is better, because it doesn't have a woman on the front. But I'm still not sure I'd assume it was a magazine that featured articles and things on latest design and technology trends/talent etc...

The first set of magazines 'Amaze' is for unknown creative-types - ie: writers, filmmakers, artists, musicians, that type of thing... The second post with the new layout is a tech magazine.

And don't worry, your comments are what I am looking for, the typography comment was great!

Essentially I have TWO brands:

Amaze Magazine - which will now be known as Modern Creative magazine

And ML Magazine - more on that another day ;)

Thank you Arrivals!
 
well if your going with the red look template, i would keep type clean and crisp. not overloaded and you will have to find a nice font for your cover, finding the right font will take time and research but it is well worth it in the end. look for a nice serif font and if you want text to stand out use bold or a colour
 
The first set of magazines 'Amaze' is for unknown creative-types - ie: writers, filmmakers, artists, musicians, that type of thing... The second post with the new layout is a tech magazine.

And don't worry, your comments are what I am looking for, the typography comment was great!

Essentially I have TWO brands:

Amaze Magazine - which will now be known as Modern Creative magazine

And ML Magazine - more on that another day ;)

Thank you Arrivals!

Sorry realised I had got that slightly wrong, I DO have two brands, but all templates seen here are for Modern Creative Magazine (formally known as Amaze Magazine) I haven't uploaded the tech magazine demos yet! Sorry haha! The second post with the new template is for Modern Creative....
 
Tim, Im going to be totally honest with you and say that its pretty awful. There is no structure, fonts are all over the place, it does my eyes in just looking at the various parts. Im sorry to be blunt but you really need some help getting to grips with this sort of design. Ive over 20 years experience in magazine design/layout and Im my own biggest critic sometimes, so please don't take it personally. You really should look at going to a professional for advice and maybe a structured design/templates/fonts in place and then maybe taking it over from them. Look at rival or magazines in your category, see what they are doing or not doing. Decent fonts are a BIG must and if you are moving into the design arena, you must do your research, there are loss of decent beginners guides online that should help. Maybe even take a course or get some tutoring? If you really enjoy doing this, then don't give up, but please, take on board some of the advice you will get from the more experienced designers on here. I wish you the best of luck.
 
Tim, Im going to be totally honest with you and say that its pretty awful. There is no structure, fonts are all over the place, it does my eyes in just looking at the various parts. Im sorry to be blunt but you really need some help getting to grips with this sort of design. Ive over 20 years experience in magazine design/layout and Im my own biggest critic sometimes, so please don't take it personally. You really should look at going to a professional for advice and maybe a structured design/templates/fonts in place and then maybe taking it over from them. Look at rival or magazines in your category, see what they are doing or not doing. Decent fonts are a BIG must and if you are moving into the design arena, you must do your research, there are loss of decent beginners guides online that should help. Maybe even take a course or get some tutoring? If you really enjoy doing this, then don't give up, but please, take on board some of the advice you will get from the more experienced designers on here. I wish you the best of luck.

Oh I plan to lap up every bit of advice I get, and as it goes I am way ahead of ya! I have someone coming onboard from this very forum! So I don't take offence at all, it will be really great to say to everyone 'This is where I started, this is where I am, this is thanks to xyz' and you will all see some amazing things (pun intended), because how could you not with such a great community of forum members on here willing to help out!
 
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