Striking layout!



I like! I like! I like! Look at this piece of art.
Was waiting for my fries to fry in the kitchen, while I was going through Times of Oman newspaper. And look what I found or shall I say, it found me! Seriously! it just jumped out and caught my attention. I saw this striking layout. I feel like hugging whoever designed this page in perticular. Look at it !! isn't it beautiful? Compared to the page next to it? Its just clean, elegant with fantastic use of space. It barely looks like a newspaper article!



Finally a great use of white space and a smartly-put layout. Thumbs up!






I like how the models shadow is overlapping the green block, which means breaking the guidelines, which means taking a risk for a change and doing something different. I like how the text is nicely rendered around the models curves. I like the balance of the whole page. Balance doesn't mean symmetrical, right = left, but its visually balanced - image and copy-wise.



See! there are good layouts in the Omani newspaper. There are things that strike. This is an excellent example of how to deal with minimal copy on plain oversized canvas. You don't have to maximize your font size to 16 point to fill in the page. You don't have to enlarge the image until you see those pimples in the models face and her mustache! You basically don't have to cram it.
This is it! Simple. This solution looks perfect, modern, classy yet very attractive.



One tiny little thought though. I know that they made the models shadow black or 85% of it to read the white copy, BUT reducing it to 65% might look not as much dominating. Dropping the whole shadow idea might make it even look better.



Oh! i just noticed the quotation marks are green. That matches the top bar. Oooh! and the justified copy has no widows meaning no one single word on a single line. Ahhh. I'm in l.o.v.e!!




Rating:
Layout over all:  4.5/5
Colours: N/A
Font: Legible 4.5/5
Concept: N/A
Execution: N/A






With design, SF.

Comments

  1. Alexandra5 March 2011 at 03:21

    i agree, im likin this!
    dont mind the shadow so much, but i wish the bottom picture wasnt there! it looks a bit like a the-quote-didnt-fill-the-space-omg-what-are-we-gonna-put-there-now-picture.
    and also, they forgot the 2nd quotation mark..?

    nice blog btw :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sara Fida5 March 2011 at 10:57

    I did notice that there is one green quotation mark, but i didn't really mind it. Maybe the idea was to use it as an introduction to the following paragraph - as quoted text- rather than a quotation mark itself.

    Thanks Alexandra.. Keep following :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown5 March 2011 at 20:30

    this article got the right amount of white space ... nothing to distract your eyes, all you need to do is read.

    my only point is, if the space between the two column and shadow picture were a bit more, its would give the article more breathing room ... rather than that everything is just prefect

    regards

    ReplyDelete
  4. 2010 omani Women17 March 2011 at 09:05

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. 2010 omani Women17 March 2011 at 09:07

    Agreed that the lay out it more interesting then nice, but unfortunately it does not work for the news paper.

    1. Too much space is being wasted.
    2. Lay out is out of proportion.

    Also each publication needs to have really strong brand guidelines and this is like murder ;P

    ReplyDelete
  6. Sara Fida21 March 2011 at 21:37

    Sorry 2010 Omani Women. I disagree.

    There are always guidelines to follow for newspapers, breaking them is a good thing, out of the norm and fresh look is always wanted. The newspaper is around 24 pages? so what if one page is different and stands out? ;) dont strict yourself.

    The space is not wasted at all. It gives it balance. As i mentioned, you dont have to fill every mm of white space with clutter. We have to stay away from the cliche.

    Thanks for commenting, keep on following :)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Unknown19 June 2012 at 16:49

    hi, this page was one of my designs. Thanks for the comments all, love when ppl can give constructive feedback and I agree, I think the image below was maybe a bit forced. Also to comment on the quotation marks, it's part of our style sheet to use a single quotation mark as an indicator of a pull quote. And the shadow was a bit darker than I expected haha but all in all was a fun page

    ReplyDelete

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