Project 8: Page Layouts

We subscribe to the Saturday Guardian and National Geographic so I have been able to research these two publications.  I also receive various photography and wildlife publications and have also looked at these.

When I come to look at the Guardian Saturday supplement, it seems to carry few solid long articles or photo-essays.  It does have a large number of advertisements which fill whole pages and are full bleed.  These are in vertical format and are are overprinted with text.  The more lengthy, serious articles again have whole page, vertical format full bleed pages with the caption overprinted on them.  One of these usually forms the title page for the article and there will be one of two more within the article.  Interspersed with these are smaller images, often portraits which may be vertical or square format and occasionally set in a block together.  Captions may be over the image or under it.  Occasionally images are larger and over two pages but rarely a double page spread.  One article with photographs by Sophia Evans features a very large horizontal format image as a title but not full bleed or even a full double page spread.  On the same page is some body text along with two square format images.  None of the images on this page have captions.  On the final page of the article are two square format images at the top of the page making, together, a horizontal format spread and at the bottom a vertical format portrait.  Another article on people's different work-spaces has images with very long captions by the side of them.

National Geographic, on the other hand, features many double page spreads, both as title pages and also part of the article.  They are nearly always full-bleed and have titles and captions overlaid.  The other regular feature of National Geographic photographs is the fold out image forming large panoramas sometimes four pages wide.  Other images are often one page, vertical format full-bleeds with the caption overlaid, or sometimes two or more images per two page spread, one being larger, perhaps over two of the pages and the others being smaller images.  In this case captions are to the side or underneath.

I take Outdoor Photography Magazine every month and here there is a wide variety of image sizes and formats.  The largest are double page, full bleed spreads, sometimes with captions overlaid, sometimes without captions.  Other large images are usually over two pages but not full bleed and with a caption to the side or underneath.  One article featuring photographer Norman McCloskey has two doule page full-bleeds interspersed with differing sizes of horizontal format photograph juxtaposed on a double page with body text and captions.

The British Journal of photography has double page, full-bleed images but fewer of them than National Geographic.  There are many double page spreads, though, usually with a caption by the side.  Interspersed with the body text are smaller images juxtaposed alongside each other, often one larger one with smaller ones spaced on a double page spread..