Creating Layouts

Today we began creating the layouts for our double page spread. This involved creating all the guidelines and measurements for gutters and margins, so that when it came to creating the spread, we would know how to layout the page and create the guides.

This inolved calculating the areas for each column of the page. After first creating margins (remembering the Optical Centre, where some margins are larger than others), we are left with the amount of "safe space" we can use to add our content. To get the width of each column we want to use, we decide on the size of the gutters and the amount of gutters, and use these figures to calculate the size of each column. I used a classic 3 column by page layout, as it thought it was simple and gave me room to add all the elemnts, hopefully in an intrestring way.

I drew this out on Photoshop, which lets you create custom guides for yourself. Using the rulers to measure the space (using the calculations from before) you can then pull guidelines out from the rulers and place them in the places you want.

I also drew this out on to paper. This way I could quickly sketch out a plan, deciding where to place different elements, noting design choices etc. This is helpful as a designer so you don't get stuck when you come to working, and works well as evidence that you have thought through the process.