Typography in Publishing

These tutorials are designed to be used as 'workshops' to teach you the practical skills you will need to create publishing products such as inside pages of magazines. Once you have completed them all you can plan and create a publishing product of your own.

Watch the video below or click on this link to see how the techniques you will learn are used in real magazines.

How to Type on a Path

Click ont his link to the video if your browser doesn't play it. You will learn how to type on a path. This technique is used a lot in publishing. Attempt all three techniques shown in the video:

Try and write on a square path.
Try and write on a circular path.
Try and write on a custom wiggly line path.

How to create a Grid Layout in Photopea

Click on this link to the video if your browser doesn't play it.

When you create publishing products such magazine inside pages, brochures etc, you will need to create a grid layout to ensure that the text, images and other assets are positioned exactly. This is extremely important for producing a quality final product. Uneven spaces between images and text boxes is very noticeable and looks amateurish. Let's make the audience notice your product for all the right reasons.

Watch the video above to learn how to create a grid layout.
Flick through a publishing product such as a magazine and recreate the grid pattern that you can see on at least three different pages.

Wrapping TExt Around an Object

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You will learn how to wrap text around an object. This is a common publishing technique used on the inside pages of magazines.

Save the images below to practice on, or find some of your own on Pixabay.
You can also use Loren Ipsum text to practice with.

How to create drop CAPS in Photopea

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Drop caps are used in certain types of publishing products. Such as the beginning of chapters in books. It is a decorative effect. Historically, very ornate and detailed drop caps where used. See if you can find some examples of these during your research into drop caps (number 1 below).

Spend a few minutes looking at 'Drop Cap' images on Google. Look at how big they are compared to the rest of the text and how the text wraps around it.
Watch the video above to learn how to create a drop cap effect using Photopea.
Practice creating your own drop caps. Use Lorem Ipsum dummy text to practice with.
Extension: now that you know how to create a drop cap, try and make one by combining some of your other Photopea skills and your creative imagination. For example, you could add a colour gradient to the drop cap, or clip an image to it using a clipping mask, or you could make a unique drop cap using shapes and wrap text around it. Have fun with this one!

Mid unit assessment

Using a magazine of your choice or one of the inside pages below recreate it using Photopea.
Recreate the layout of the page using dummy text and stock images.
Try and recreate it as accurately as possible using all the skills you have learnt (grid layout, writing on a path, wrapping text and clipping mask tool).

Conventions of Magazine Front Covers

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You will learn some the terminology associated with magazine front covers.

Then look at a selection of front magazines and see if you can correctly identify the following:

Masthead - title normally at the top of the magazine. Biggest text on the front cover and the most eye catching. Can sometimes be covered by the main image.
Coverlines - Lines of text on the front cover which allows the audience to see what sort of content will be inside the magazine.
Main coverlines - A prominent coverline about the main story or the cover image. Made prominent with creative use of font styles and sizes.
Puff and Pug - puff is an added extra to the magazine such as giving something away for free. The pug is a promotional offer that often looks like a sticker.
Skyline/Strip - normally across the bottom or top of he cover containing a list of what is featured within the magazine.
Barcode/information - such as the issue number, date, price. Appears in small font.
Tag Line - Normally found near/under the masthead.
Thumbnail images - small images that sometimes are used to support the text.

How to create a masthead using Photopea

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You will learn how to create a masthead in Photopea. Then using the images below or your own image, practice this technique.

You can also combine this task with the logos you created in this tutorial. You will need to use Select - Magic Cut to remove the background of your logo. Have a look at the 'Scene' masthead as an example below.

WAGOLL

Below are some examples of the types of Mastheads you will be able to create following this tutorial.

How to create a main cover line

Main coverlines - A prominent coverline about the main story or the cover image. Made prominent with creative use of font styles, colour and sizes. You could decide to complete this activity on your masthead image.

Firstly, decide on the text for your main cover line. It shouldn't be more than a few words. You can make this up. Or you can look at some real magazines and steal one of their coverlines to practice on. If you don't have a magazine to look at, Google 'magazine front covers'.
It is important to draw out a few ideas on paper before you begin to create your coverline. Create a bunch of thumbnail drawings of how the words will work together. Be creative with layout and postioning of each word. Some words can be made bigger than others. Some words can have different font styles and colours.
Now try and create your chosen thumbnail idea using Photopea. You should type each word in a new text layer so that you can move and rotate them seperately from each other. Export your finished main coverline as a JPEG and/or save as a PSD to your device.

WAGOLL

Below are some real examples of student's who created a main coverline for their magazine project:

How to create coverlines

Coverlines - Lines of text on the front cover which allows the audience to see what sort of content will be inside the magazine. Have a look at some front covers of magazines for inspiration. You could decide to complete this activity on your masthead image.

For this tutorial you need to have a variety of cover line text ready. These will be the main stories/articles within the magazine that will catch the readers attention and make them want to read it. Write down what your cover lines are before you start. Most cover lines have a sort of title and then a bit of text.
Next you will need a suitable cover image and masthead. Complete the masthead tutorial above first. If you have completed it you can use the masthead and image your created for this task.
Type each parts of the your cover line in a new text layer. Seperate out the title of your coverlines from the body of your cover line. So that you can change the title font, style and colour seperately to the rest of the cover line.
Now for the fun part! Try and look and see if you can postition the cover lines so that they 'wrap' around the shape of the main image. You will need a grid layout line running down both the left and the right hand side to ensure that you position the text box exactly in line. Make sure that the left hand side text is left aligned and the right hand side text is right aligned.
Finally, you can decide on a consistent style for your coverlines and apply this to all them or you can mix it up. Maybe practice doing both.

WAGOLL

The images below show some real past student attempts at creating coverlines. You can see that most of them chose a consistent font style, size and colour. This adds consistency to the coverlines and makes it look professional.

How to create a Puff/Pug

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Much debate regarding the exact definition of a Puff and Pug! But essentially, a Pug is a 'freebie' that magazine is giving away and a Puff is an expression of how good the magazine is. For example "World's best health magazine". They usually appear on the top left of magazine (although not always). They also quite often look like a sticker.

How to create a Feature strap/banner

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A feature strap/banner commonly appears across the bottom of a magazine front cover. Variations to this include a 'skyline' which is thin trip at the top of a magazine front cover. These can also appear down one side of magazine front cover. You can learn how to make all of them by watching the video above.

How to create a barcode

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Most paid for magazines and other publications will have a barcode. You can learn how to create a mock barcode following this tutorial.

Finished WAGOLL

Once you complete all the magazine front cover tutorials above you should be able to create something like the image below:

End of unit assessment

Using a magazine of your choice, find one that has a front cover that uses a variety of techniques.
Recreate the layout of the page using stock images. You can copy the coverlines for this activity.
Try and recreate it as accurately as possible using all the skills you have learnt (Masthead, cover lines, main cover lines, puff/pug, feature strip/strap/banner, barcode).

Congratualtions! You are now ready to begin an independent project creating a magazine of your own choice. Remember to choose carefully from the techniques you have been taught during this topic.

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