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| Domenic Macri at the Alberta Magazines Conference (photo courtesy Don Molyneaux and Sandra Markieta) |
With humour and charm, Macri brought his experience and wisdom
to his presentation "Gold-Standard Design" at the 2012 Alberta Magazines Conference, sharing his strategies for great design.
Macri offers these important “things to know” when you're
tackling a fresh issue or edition:
• Know Your Subject
• Know Your Product
• Know Your Audience
"Think of your magazine as a person," he says.
Macri says reaching a final product unfolds through a series of
difficulties, along with many trials and errors. He uses design to solve
problems, such as subjects not wanting their photo on the cover, or not having a
photo of a subject at all. There is often more than one solution, Macri says.
Often, he'll go through 50 trials in his process to produce a polished cover
for ROB.
He does suggest a sly, but effective, method when an editor
comes up with an idea that he doesn't think will work well. "Don't make it
look good," he says. "If it's not the right idea, I'm wasting my
time."
Here are a few of Macri’s design tips:
·
Font: every type size should be divisible by the next type
·
Headlines: try them in every version of your font available -
capitals, without capitals, san serif, serif, light, bold and regular, etc
·
Body Copy: learn how to use the baseline and try colour type for
texture
·
Infographics: don't overdo them, ask yourself what your reader
will tolerate
But most of all, enjoy your
work. "For me, having fun is everything," Macri says.
--- Heather Setka
