Eames Excellence
Editorial Design
Charles and Ray Eames were a force to be reckoned with. Their designs were sophisticated and innovative while their process of creation was truly inspiring. One of the first couples to use both of their expertise in their work during a time when women were still not seen as equal to men, the Eames' are some of my favorite designers of the 20th century. So, when tasked with creating and designing a magazine on a designer or designers of my choice in one of my classes, there was no question; this magazine is my homage to the Eames team.
In the spirit of Charles and Ray Eames' tendency to explore different techniques in their designs, I did the same in the design of my magazine. I mainly decided to play with color throughout the text to create hierarchy and highlight parts that I felt particularly important.
As you can see, the two colors that I chose to work with were red and purple. I used red for the captions, and for each one I used either text taken directly from the accompanying article or I wrote the caption using a few relevant words from the text. So, because of the link between the text and captions, I used red in the text itself to highlight and connect the phrase or corresponding words used for the captions. I used purple in a similar way but for the titles and pull quotes instead.
I also wanted to vary the layout of the imagery that I included. So, as you can see, some pages have both text and images while others are just text or just images. This is all to try and create a sense of consistency and flow between the elements of the magazine.
Because Charles and Ray Eames have inspired me in my design education and career, I wanted to end the magazine in a way that might help inspire other designers as well. So, I decided to include some pieces of advice that he once shared with students at U.C.L.A. in 1949. Finally, I highlighted the advice at the very bottom of the page because those are words that I try to live and create by.