Below are a set of design sheets I have created based on the research I did into layouts and spreads;
They're pretty simple and straight forward to follow, the majority revolve around functionality and ease of read as opposed to some crazy looking work of art layout, i'd much rather it be functional than unreadable. My favourite and the one i'm going to develop further is the one on the bottom right, second image. This because of its clearness and and simplicity, I feel it has a happy medium of white space, it isn't too congested nor is it too simple making it boring. It's uniformity enables me to layout images perfectly in a grid which I feel will add to the aesthetic i'm striving to achieve.
I have decided to go down the route of using black and white images because I felt it suited my subject matter better because it's from the 1930's meaning the majority of the photographs were black and white to begin with anyway. But I also chose to use black and white pictures because I love the tones you get from black and white images. I feel sometimes it offers a better quality than coloured images because it's all uniform and you don't have multiple images that are highly contrasting colours. Another factor that influenced my decision was costs, printing in black and white is 4p as opposed to colour 50p, it just made sense to me because of aesthetics and price.
Above and below are just experiments between the height of the text, I prefer it higher rather than lower because when it's low down it leaves too much white space above. But when it's higher up there is still the same amount of white space but because the large dense image is below as opposed to a lightweight stroke it makes the white space seem less domineering.
And below is my final spread printed off black and white onto bulky news print. The stock choice is just personal choice because the quality is a lot better than printer paper because it's smoother but also has a higher GSM. I also chose it for aesthetic reasons because it is ever so slightly off white which I feel adds to the black and white images and the mass white space.
