Plant Powered Life – Type & Photography

 Introduction 

   This magazine spread was created by Angela Reichers, who teaches and writes about typography, design and visual culture. She currently works at the University of Arts in Philadelphia where she helps create and oversee visual media programs.   You can find more of her work at http://angelariechers.com/design/

These photos have a general appeal to people that are health conscious and enjoy cooking. 

Category Analysis

In this magazine spread, the words that are circles in green are made of ‘Oldstyle’ typeface. It’s based off the hand lettering of scribes that transitions through thick and thin strokes. Oldstyle is always identified with its serifs on the top of almost every letter that is a line that slants downward. 

The words that are circled in the blue are sans serif. The ‘sans’ meaning it’s without the serifs commonly seen on oldstyle type. Words that are typed in this typeface are almost always the same weight and length all around. One cannot tell where a stroke is. 

Contrasting Elements

There are many things done in this magazine layout to create contrast between the two typefaces. The main focus is on the words “Your plant powered feast”. With making ‘plant’ a different typeface and making it bolder help to draw in the viewer.

Having the words in black, being left adjusted also ensures that the viewer knows that they are similar but not closely related to each other. It also makes it easier to see it with the colorful background behind it.

On the other side of the page, having ‘Brussels Sprouts’ in a different typeface, size and color, makes it stand out further than the other words on the page. It also is used to explain what is being photographed.

Having the two different typefaces on that side of the page, and having one of them literally placed on top of the food with a yellow corner to help it pop increases contrast between the two and draws the viewers eyes back and forth.

Leading Lines

The photographer chose to use leading lines as their way to have the viewers eyes flow around the page. On the first page, the leaning lines draw you diagonally, essentially allowing the viewer to see everything on the way down of following the direction of the photo.

On the right side of the page, the curve of the bowl gives a more center of the photo, but the straightness of the spoon ensure that you don’t get stuck at just reading what’s at the bottom of the page, it forces one to continue looking upward where one would see that there is some text on the actual photo.

Other Photos

I think these photos could be easily switched in to replace the magazine spread photos because they all deal with the same subject of eating healthier food. They all have an example of leading lines as well.

In the first photo of the apples at the store, show leading lines through the side of the container that is holding them. Apples are also considered to be healthy food and go along the lines of being healthy food for recipes.

In the salad photo, the fork mimics what the spoon did on the second page of the magazine layout. The curve of the bowl also brings the eye around to the salad.

Lastly, the apple and oranges photo demonstrates leading lines because if you were to draw a line between the edge of the orange and the apple, it would be straight line, much like in the first photo on the magazine, it seems that the food was placed almost haphazardly, but there is a direction to it.

Final Thoughts

Over all, I think the original magazine spread did a great job of using leading lines to draw the viewer in and to guide them around the page. By also using different typefaces in different color and sizes, it helps to give some definition to the page and ensures that the viewer also sees whats written.