The document discusses font choices and layout designs for magazines featuring interviews with football players. It analyzes magazines that interview Jose Mourinho and Steven Gerrard, noting similarities and differences in their designs. Key similarities included images of the players looking directly at the camera, and bullet pointed highlights of their interviews. Differences included the color schemes and whether the images took up the full page. The document also discusses font choices for its own magazine design, selecting bold sans serif fonts like 'Steelfish' and 'Gnuolane' that are tall and easy to read.

1. Task 8 – Font choices and flat
plans
Shania Carter

2. The centre of the front page is text warped around the main image,
which is set to the right of the page. The image is also covering the
title of the publication, although to familiar readers the cover up of
the letters may not matter so much. The way in which Jose
Mourinho is sat indicates that he is wanting to lean in and have a
conversation, much like an interview which is the ‘world exclusive’,
the pose in which he is sat also makes his face confronted with
yours, as he is not sat on the edge of the seat it doesn’t show that
he is confronting but interested and relaxed. The text adjacent to
the image enhances the fact that it is he that is talking. The quotes
from Mourinho are short and bullet pointed which indicates that
there is more to give away inside the magazine – which holds the
interview. The bottom of the magazine is quite comical as it shows
part of the face and the hair, to football fans this is understood as
comical as the player Maraoune Fellaini is known for causing
commotion with his big hair. The font colour choices work well
together as they blend well on the background. I feel that the black
shows dominance, however the red font is a main colour for the
magazine, the white can also be represented as showing a positive
connotation – the positive of using a white font could be to talk
about the individual, the colour white can be the colour of new
beginnings, this new beginnings could be resulting in a change of
his playing career as he is known for causing trouble on the pitch.
The colour red normally dictates a level of danger, from my own
knowledge of football, the colour red in kits was used to show
dominance and to overpower the other team in height, a couple of
the associations of red are passion and desire, these two could
mean a few things, firstly the passion and desire of the magazine is
to create something suitable for all football fans which is current
and driven by what the audience want to see, the other reasoning
behind ‘passion’ and ‘desire’ is that the audience are passionate
about football and have a desire to see underneath the players they
see on their pitch in interviews and such like. The actual individual
photographed is not associated with the red colour although his
words are – other words annotated with the colour red show
energy and determination which are two of the things a football
manager needs.

3. This shows similarities to what I am
going to be doing in production, an
interview that is conducted by the
fans. But firstly, the image is again on
the right hand side of the page with a
pull quote on the image rather than in
a bit of space. The image looks better
on the right hand side as there is a
smaller photograph worked into the
text, the smaller image fits in the text
as there is some white space next to
the fact file, however again some text
is warped around the picture. In
comparison to the previous main
image, this one is more relaxed and
shows Del Piero in a natural
environment rather than a studio, one
of the main reasons for this is because
the questions have been asked by the
fans rather than the interviewer so
there really wasn’t much need for a
photo shoot. From a glance, the
questions asked by the fans are quite
detailed and lengthy, this can help
myself as I can look at these questions
and decide on how to work mine.
Some of the questions chosen to be
put in the introduction are in black and
white, as mentioned earlier with the
dominance, I feel that the questions in
black are the ones that are most
significant especially the one about
Heysel as that is a football tragedy, the
image is not clear so it his hard to
make out the specific questions.
The fact file is also something similar I want to include in my own production, it is full of the important facts about
his career as he is a fairly prolific footballer. The questions that I want to ask are also to be based on Gerrard’s
playing career although they also may be more personal as I am getting the fan’s opinions. By also thinking further
about the colour scheme the red and white may also be representing England and because the magazine is an
English publication. The colour scheme that I want to portray is red, white and yellow, the reasons for this is that
red is the Liverpool associated colour, white brings in the England theme and yellow is also one of the Liverpool
colour kits but on Liverpool F.C’s promotion the colour yellow is prominent. On the existing work here, one of the
answers overlaps onto another page, I don’t want this to happen in my work as it breaks up the text too much and
looks untidy. The date and website are at the bottom of the page which gives more space at the top for images
and text – the image however doesn’t cover the full page and there is a bit of a gap between the white space and
where the text starts, this works well as there isn’t enough space to include more text or fill it up with an image.
The text to picture ratio is more text than pictures although this is what needed to be emphasized as the fans
want to hear his answers in detail, which is what I am going to do but have the image clear enough to fill the full
page along with the questions as it has a personal feel that way.

4. These two magazines are more relevant to my topic as they both feature Steven Gerrard.
The top image is similar to the previous extract as it is a fan question and answer. The
bottom extract is more Gerrard’s answers between an interviewer and himself. The
images used have differences and similarities, the similarities of them both is that they
are both posed and are very direct when looking into the camera, the differences
between the two is obviously the age difference but also the bottom extract feels more
personal as it is his words, the image is also more in your face and there seems to be
sincerity in his eyes. The colour schemes also vary between a quite bright orange to a
soft yellow. The orange colour seems to be the frontier of encouragement and success –
Gerrard has been very successful in his career hence why this colour may have been
used. From previous extracts we can see that the colour yellow has been used rarely
throughout the magazine but has been used to highlight bits such as fact files or to win
prizes – through assumption yellow is a summer colour and from the top extract it gives a
feel that the magazine was published in the summer of the football season, this also
indicates to the colour because the England internationals are played during the summer.
On the extract with Jose Mourinho there is little text and context to what the interview
entails – this is fairly similar to the two extracts here as the main points of the interview
are bullet pointed or in short lists, which makes it easier and more interesting to bring
the audience in. The top extract looks particularly at wanting the reader to be engulfed in
the interview as it mentions death threats, this is quite a serious thing to feature on a
magazine cover, however because Gerrard is underlined as a ‘real leader’ and this is an
open interview from fans too, this seems less questionable. From the interview with
Gerrard himself, there is a relatable pull quote, whereas there is no quote from Gerrard
in the other extract as it is more about truths and lesser opinions. The font in both these
instances are in upper and lower case with bold colors', there isn’t really an element of
dominance as the images make up for the act of sincerity and sternness. There is less
information on the top magazine or at least appears that way as in the bottom magazine
Gerrard is surrounded by extracts that are featured in the magazine, the title and the
sub-title also cuts off the top of the image which is a little different to the Mourinho
feature as the title is partly cut off. The other visible similarity on the magazines is the
yellow strip across the title which is hard to make out but I assume says something about
the issue. Only one of the images takes up a huge part of the cover, rather than looking
determined Gerrard looks more menacing as if to say he is going to achieve something
rather than if he does it.

5. The font print for the extracts sourced have been
bold sans serif. There is also no tracking between
the letters but it is also not squished together.
When looking at font choices I am going to look at
bold sans serif, with the option of having tall letters
as well as being uppercase
Bebas Neue
Steelfish
SF Movie Poster
Komorebi
Gnuolane
Babel Sans
Bitstream Vera Sans
I have opted for a bold and tall font for the title
and as the title is all one word it makes sense to
have no tracking on the letters and the tall letters
don’t make the copy squashed together and hard
to read. The fonts I have chosen for the main
copy are similar in boldness, there is also a
similar tallness which works well in contrast as it
is a thick font and easy to read. The two fonts at
the minute that I would prefer to use are
‘Steelfish’ and ‘Gnuolane’ there are little
differences between the two but I am confident
that they wont clash when preparing the text.

7. Title of magazine
Main Image
Pull Quote
Date, Magazine issue
number and price.
Key points from
interview
Information about another interview
Competitions
and other news.

8. BACKGROUND IMAGE
Pull quote or Title
Text Text Text