OUGD504 - Type in Context - Eye Magazine London Letters

Eye magazine's volume 23. 

Featured in the the magazine is London Letters, an article photographed and written by Philip Sayer. The project is not very different from our brief, photographing lettering in a specific area that is printed in a publication in this case London. The context and stories behind each letters really varies and all are engaging to the reader, this is key to make sure each letter is intriguing. As the magazine's target audience is creatives, graphic designers and type enthusiasts the way this article and all the features in the magazine are designed has to intrigue this audience. The article is split into two separate sections, firstly the full bleed A-Z images displayed in a smaller spread on gloss secondly the descriptions of each of the letters on full sized pages on matt. As shown below.

The photography of each of the letters has been composted and collected with a lot of thought and care. Each letters composition shows the type clearly but gives a clue about the wider context. Being from London when I first read this article I tried to spot if I knew any of the type's locations and was interested to see what each was. This format of showing the images then the descriptions after is an effective way of making the photos more intriguing trying out this format will be beneficial for my own publication. 

As each letter is shown in pairs the different styles of the type, composition and size on the page often contrasts with one another making the viewer constantly compare one another.
Some images however feel more similar when shown in pairs. This M and N for example the colour tones of the image are alike and the type seems to work together. If I want to display my images in this way in pairs then how each images works along side its pair is an important consideration. 

 
 The splitting up of the images and the descriptions into two sections means the type is admired twice. Firstly alone and without much context only the image itself, then secondly with more context in the description and a wider overview of the area shown using another image. This design feature works very effectively for this publication and should be a consideration for my own. 

 The language of the descriptions is very useful to look at as my publication will need to be described in a similar style. The descriptions are fairly short but give amazing overview of the context the history and any kind of story behind it, including facts, dates and information on the designer of the type when possible. The descriptions also include the letter large in this case T, the exact location - Tate Mordern Bankside and also the post code SE1 9TG so in theory the reader could find and 'collect' images of each of the type themselves.

As this feature has many similarities to my own brief it has been really constructive to look at the way it has been put together in a printed publication. The way the images are displayed, described and designed really gets the most out of the images and is relevant and interesting to the target audience. As this design is so successful it will be useful to refer back to it in my workings.