Initially, when we were briefed about our magazine cover theme, I thought it's going to be easy and quick, I would not take time at all. But I was pretty wrong.

On our 2nd week of Graduate Diploma in Creative Technologies in Media Design School (Auckland), we have to create a magazine cover which will be based on the brief given by our Professor Christoph Jannin (It's a french name and the pronunciation is jjjhhhhhannee). The brief was : 

Brief

Magazine Name : Museo 

It's Purpose : It promotes the fine arts in museum all around the world, exceptional exhibitions, focus on contemporary or historic international artists, artwork restoration, heritage conservation.

It's Theme : Special issue about Art Nouveau. To create on focused article about an artist.

Magazine Cover Specs: 

• Full A4
• Identifiable header / logo
• Baseline
• 3 article announcements ( exhibition, discipline, masterpiece)
• 1 x highlight (the artist' article)
• Code bar
• Issue date
• Price

Understanding Art Nouveau is a big thing in itself. And then to work on it, design something which compliments it or expresses it is a quite difficult task. Christoph explained the meaning of Art Nouveau and told us about many artists who invented Art Nouveau style painting, ceramics, glass work, furniture design. 

Art Nouveau is a style of decorative art, architecture, and design prominent in western Europe and the USA from about 1890 until the First World War and characterised by intricate linear designs and flowing curves based on natural forms. (Reference : https://www.google.co.nz/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=what%20is%20art%20nouveau)

Research Process

I started researching on the next day about all the artists who belong to this invention and came out with many brilliant yet extra ordinary artists in this world. Alphonse Mucha, Gustav Klimt, Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Arthur Heygate Mackmurdo, Emile Galle, etc. 

It's difficult to pinpoint that whose work is better, who is good at what. 

So finally after a lot of research I was locked with Vincent Van Gogh (30 March 1853 – 29 July 1890), the famous Dutch post-impressionist painter in 19th century who had influenced 20th Century art after his death. He was virtually poor and unknown throughout his life and he had mental illness too.

His output includes portraits, self portraits, landscapes, still lives, olive trees and cypresses, wheat fields and sunflowers. Critics largely ignored his work until after his presumed suicide in 1890. His shortened life, highly expressive and spontaneous use of vivid colours, broad oil brushstrokes and emotive subject matter, mean he is recognisable both in the modern public imagination by his first name as the quintessential misunderstood genius and by art historians as a supreme and pivotal aestheticist. (Reference : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh)

                                              A self portrait painted by Vincent Van Gogh

After the research, we were asked to do Mind Mapping. I believe that it's a great process to generate ideas and creating somethings which has got some meaning into it. Since I am Designer, I am supposed to have reasons or meaning behind every design, for that matter even it's a stroke or a line. 

Mind Mapping

So I did mind mapping which looks like:

Ya I know it looks horrible. But that's how I got an idea about how I am going to design my magazine cover. 

Mood Board :

I took 3-4 paintings of Vincent Van Gogh which includes one of his most famous painting "The Starry Night". During his last days of his life he had a dream and inspiring by that dream he painted "The Starry Night". Apart from this, I chose the following paintings which reflect the Vincent's work entirely. These paintings have beauty, serenity, imagination and of course all them are impression painting. 

                                                          "Self-Portrait" by Vincent Van Gogh

"The Starry Night" by Vincent Van Gogh

"Bedroom in Arles, 1888" by Vincent Van Gogh

"Starry Night in Rhone" by Vincent Van Gogh

  "The World of Truth" by Vincent Van Gogh

In my cover I wanted to take all his paintings and show a short story of his life, I wanted to maintain his Impression Art and influence people from his art. Vincent Van Gogh is slightly different from other artists of Art Nouveau because of his style of work. When I started designing I made this: 

Layout 1

And it was a BIG NO NO!! 

After several tries I reached to the Double Exposure concept where I could take 2-3 paintings of him and create it. Which looks like this : 

Layout 2

I know it's still looking worst but the work is in progress and I think I will come out with something good.

Colours :  Choosing colours is a difficult task because every colour says something or expresses some feelings. The colours that I will go are Blue, Green and Yellow not because I love these colours but the reason being is that these 3 colours are mostly used by Vincent Van Gogh. 

Font :  I suppose that according to the magazine theme the Font style has to be sleek, classy yet compliments the entire cover layout. Choosing the fancy, stylish, decorative font style could be dangerous for my entire layout. Sans Serif is the option that I would choose for my Title and the subheading. And the same will be followed by rest of the content. 

Final Museo Magazine Layout Process

After working on the layout, I came up with this : 

I think this looks good enough. Apparently, Christoph asked to create 2-3 more options with different layouts and not stick to only one layout. I agreed!

The other styles that I chose was Typography and the other one is a simple editing with his painting at the background and his self-portrait painting at the front.

Those layouts are as below : 

         

 

This layout took time as the Vincent Van Gogh' face is made up of sketch and his paintings' names. After completing this layout, it looked more of like a news magazine because of too much content over it. I liked the layout but was not correct for an Art Magazine. 

Hence, I chose my first option only.  

 

After putting all the content over it, using Roboto Thin and Bebas Nueue fonts, the layout pretty much compliments the Art Nouveau theme. If you look at the title, the letter 'E' is inverted. The reason being is that Vincent Van Gogh was different from other Art Nouveau artists in terms of art style, work & thinking. To represent that I inverted the 'E' letter. 

Apart from this, I placed the most important article of the magazine i.e Vincent Van Gogh at the top, just below of the subheading. I wanted readers to read this first. Then comes the announcements which I placed at the bottom, where reader could go through it one by one. 

And that's how I finalised my Museo Magazine.

THANKS!