LEFTLION MAGAZINE

Leftlion is a Nottingham based paper which dedicates itself to this city and the music community within it. I chose to look at this paper due to the style, typography, unique contents and also the paper in general. The size of this paper is just under A3 which is the size I was aiming for with my zine, I feel that if it was smaller it wouldn't have that traditional newspaper style that I like and feel adds a more homemade element to it.  Something I dislike about the paper would be that it is stapled together. To me this feels quite easy and that no care or love has been used in the process of making it. I want my zine to be interactive, so the reader can move the pages (just like a normal paper) and keep the images or look at them in a different sequence. This would add to the loving homemade feel I mentioned. 

Header: 

I really dislike the typography used. Although I personally think it works well with the style of the paper, it's not a font that I think would work in my zine - I don't think its 'out there' enough or eye catching enough to draw your attention to the photography in the book. 

Contents: 

The images used are interesting but its clear that the newspaper doesnt focus on imagery alone, a lot of the pages are just full of text - which is definitely something I don't want my zine to end up being like. However the images they do use are interesting and unique, they also use a range of styles which keeps the reader interested and intrigued to read on. The second image in this section is one of the pages in the paper, this is an idea of how NOT to do my zine. I know the page is all about retro images and in that case the colours and the amount of images work within the theme, however  I still personally feel that too much is going on. The colours clash and distract you from the extremely interesting images on the page - obviously this would be a huge negative if that was to happen with my work. So the use of colour is definitely something I need to watch when creating my book. 

Ideas of Typography: 

Putting it bluntly, I hate both of these headings. The top one is too girl which wouldn't work at all in a mens fashion zine and the bottom one is quite old fashioned. I'm after fonts that are bold yet simple, with hints of colour or quirky hand writing - something that isn't too graphic design based Like somebody is trying to hard, which I feel that the bottom one is. 

Good elements I have taken from Leftlion though would be that not only is it a great newspaper - despite my few negatived. It's also a good idea of how I want to create my zine, so what size, paper etc.