Alright, everybody, I have some test pages to show off. Whaddya think?
The first photo shows a modern design, inspired by elegant magazines such as The Rake, which was used as a primary reference point. Design is clean and stylish while also using a lot of large photos and white space.
The second photo is clearly inspired by the classic video game magazines of the early '90s: EGM, GamePro, Sega Visions, VG&CE, Electronic Gaming, Game Players and Diehard Gamefan. It's a very trashy style that breaks every design rule in the book, but also captures the energy and excitement of the 16-bit era.
Earlier, I was trying to decide between these two designs for the Sega Genesis book, but now I have the crazy idea to use both. My main inspiration for this project, of course, is Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums issue, which devoted a lot of space to the top ten albums, then steadily shrunk down the capsule reviews as they worked down the list, beginning with 300-1,000 words, down to 200-270, then 100-125, and finally 50.
The idea is to keep most capsule reviews short, as it's a very long list, and highlight select titles for the "GamePro" two-page spread. I could also use this for related articles, depending on how big the book becomes.
These pages were created at 7x10, but the final book will be magazine size, around 8x11.
