Lorena's Portfolio
Image Centric Magazine Spread
The objective of the project was to create a two-page, image-driven magazine spread of a provided article called, “I Tried a 31-Day Declutter Challenge—Here's What Worked and What Definitely Didn’t,” written by Lisa Milbrand. The only text allowed to be used is the headline/article title, pull quotes, the bylines, and the page folios.
In the article, Milbrand talks about her experience trying to declutter her home. She started strong by cleaning easy-to-see places, but she soon fell behind because of busy everyday life, winter weather, and emotional attachment to some items. Even though she only finished a little more than half of her checklist, she plans to finish the rest of her house at a much slower, easier pace.
My idea was to put random clutter all over the pages, creating the illusion as if they were placed on the floor. It starts with quite a lot of clutter on the left side, and it gets progressively clearer on the right. This would represent the author’s experience of how she went from having a lot of clutter at home to slowly trying to get rid of things.
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I began by searching other designs that include a lot of elements and have a chaotic and disorganized aesthetic to get inspiration and create a basic sketch.
After drafting my idea on paper, I started preparing the images I wanted for the design. I took pictures of objects I have at home and images from Adobe Stock. These are some examples:
I started bringing the images into Photoshop. I used mask layers to remove the objects from the original background and placed them throughout the spread, playing with the sizes and rotation. Additionally, for each element, I used adjustment layers to modify the brightness, contrast, exposure, hue, and saturation to ensure they had an accurate and natural appearance that fits into the context. Lastly, I placed a shadow effect to create the impression that they were laying on the floor instead of just floating.
As for the typography, in the early design stages, I tried experimenting with writing the title using many different fonts to match the messiness of the clutter. However, I didn’t end up liking it; thus, I finally decided to use fonts with a handwritten look to fit the imperfection of the topic and add a sense of a personal touch as if the author wrote it by herself. Moreover, to keep viewers actively looking around, I placed the text across the pages while remaining careful to maintain a clear hierarchy that does not affect readability. The title is at the top-left corner—following the Western reading pattern—and it has a bigger font size to ensure immediate comprehension of the article. The sub-headline is placed at the end of the “clutter path” to create a comfortable reading path. The last sub-headline is at the bottom-right corner to create anticipation for the content on the next pages.
This was the first version that was posted to receive feed back from peers and the professor:
Peers suggested adding a texture to the background to make it clear that the objects are on the floor. In addition, they suggested reducing the size of the pan at the top right corner, so it doesn’t look abnormally large compared to nearby elements.
Similarly, the professor suggested adding more clutter that has a connection with objects on the right, so it really symbolizes the author trying to get organized. Furthermore, adding more crossover between the text and the objects.
This is the final version with the feedback implemented:
