What good is a publication if you can't find your way around it? Jeff, Michelle, Beth, and Laura created the table of contents so that you'll be able to find the article you want to read--in style. Keep reading to find out how they did that.
What is your job?
We make sure that people can find what they are looking for in the magazine. We also make the table of contents aesthetically pleasing so that people enjoy using it.
Why is it important to have a TOC in a magazine?
It’s a visual representation of what’s in the magazine. It highlights what is in the magazine and helps readers find an article they want to read.
The features are awfully diverse. How did you decide to represent them all in a cohesive fashion?
It wasn’t that hard, actually.We asked each feature group for an image from their article so that we could put it in the table of contents. In our design, each feature is cropped into a box. The order of the features was already determined, so sometimes the images didn’t look good next to each other. If that happened, we just asked for a different image.
How did you decide to work as a group? What strategies did you implement?
We decided to work in stages. Each person worked on one iteration. We started out by looking at a lot of magazines and other examples on the internet. Our inspiration actually came from a document that wasn’t even a table of contents--it was just a feature in another magazine. So from there we decided what we wanted and used the file exchange on Blackboard and sent files to each other.
We make sure that people can find what they are looking for in the magazine. We also make the table of contents aesthetically pleasing so that people enjoy using it.
Why is it important to have a TOC in a magazine?
It’s a visual representation of what’s in the magazine. It highlights what is in the magazine and helps readers find an article they want to read.
The features are awfully diverse. How did you decide to represent them all in a cohesive fashion?
It wasn’t that hard, actually.We asked each feature group for an image from their article so that we could put it in the table of contents. In our design, each feature is cropped into a box. The order of the features was already determined, so sometimes the images didn’t look good next to each other. If that happened, we just asked for a different image.
How did you decide to work as a group? What strategies did you implement?
We decided to work in stages. Each person worked on one iteration. We started out by looking at a lot of magazines and other examples on the internet. Our inspiration actually came from a document that wasn’t even a table of contents--it was just a feature in another magazine. So from there we decided what we wanted and used the file exchange on Blackboard and sent files to each other.
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| Michelle and Beth working. |
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| Editing on the print production computer. |
What went well?
Our original idea was to go with the boxes. We agreed on most things.
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| An early draft of the table of contents. |
What challenges did you encounter?
The images that people sent us were all so different so it was hard to treat them all the same. We were originally going to put text over the photos but that was hard to read. It was also difficult to get people to send us content. That really stopped us from moving forward sometimes.
What advice would you give students doing this job next year?
Start early. Although, it was hard to start early because we needed to gather a lot of content. But it’s good to have a general idea of what you want when you get started.
What is there left for you to do?
Just finishing up the colours!
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| A nearly complete draft. |
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