Critique: Modern Midwest Prototype

I agonized over the designs for my prototype. I was so frustrated by the fact that we basically had nothing to go off of (in terms of copy and photos), and that frustration caused the project to take more time than necessary. I have to admit that I felt completely lost. How do you design a magazine from scratch? Where's the handbook on that? I wanted to try and make an energetic personality for the prototype because I thought that would make it stand out amongst the many other lifestyle magazines that exist. I stay far, far away from that style of publication because they bore me, or so I thought.

After starting this project, I have begun to look at lifestyle and food magazines in a whole new way. There's something to say about finding elegant photos of food that haven't been done before. The people that work for publications like these have to put an endless amount of time and consideration into choosing the design and style of the publication because I feel that they have a difficult task to stand out. With other commercial magazines, sex, fashion, and impending celebrity doom sells. I think those topics are more likely to get plucked off a newsstand before a lifestyle magazine. So, my goal was to try and make the design as visually pleasing as possible so that I could grab the attention of a younger demographic. So, here's my prototype.

Now that I know how to access the creative library, I'm going to utilize that resource for way better photos to use in the presentations for next week. I think one of my biggest hurdles is finding appropriate fonts. Fonts plague me. Some times I have an eye for them, and other times I feel completely lost. I wanted to go with a sans serif for the fonts because it seems more modern and chic, to me. The one thing I plan on spending more time with before our presentations next week is my logo treatment. It needs help! Hopefully that will give me some practice for the upcoming 20/10 assignment too. Good luck to everyone presenting prototypes next week!