Lorem Ipsum is dummy text with more-or-less normal distribution of letters that makes it look like readable English. It has been used for many years and some desktop publishing packages now use it as their default model text.
If you don’t have it already, go to http://www.lipsum.com and generate as much as you need.
Now select one of the designs from your research that you like and think works. Using the dummy text, try and copy the layout and design as closely as possible. You will need to measure the margins and column widths. If you don’t have the exact typeface get as near as you can. If you are copying a page that includes photographs just leave 10% tinted boxes to indicate their position.
Is the type serif or sans serif? Is the text set ragged or justified? Are there spaces after paragraphs or are new paragraphs indented? How many columns are there to a page?
What happens when you alter the fonts, change the alignment, adjust the leading or tracking?
I have access to more than 3000 magazine titles through RBdigital. I had a look at couple of them and chose an article from Woman & Home magazine.
Then used Adobe capture to detect the fonts that have been used on this article.
I was able to install the fonts, I was looking for apart from Memo Banner, which I couldn’t find the free version. So I went to my second choice which was Lust.
Then I took the page to InDesign and set the view to actual size to be able to use the ruler to make the measurements for the margins and gutter.
After that I set up InDesign based on those measurements.
Self reflection
It was a nice experience in terms of analysing magazine layouts, typefaces, hierarchies and the balance between the type and other elements on the page.
I did try to choose the closest fonts, which was available to me to make my design as close as possible to the original design.
InDesign is quite new to me, with this exercise I had the opportunity to improve my knowledge and deep dive into this software.
Maryam: OCA Graphic Design 