Toney | Week Twelve

I decided to make a magazine spread over an upcoming event many football fans are anticipating: the NFL Draft. My magazine title is DRAFTNIK, which is an insider term for someone who specializes in pro sports drafts. These publications explode onto shelves around this time every year, so I wanted to make an in-bookstores magazine focusing on the college football players who would make the best professional players.

My major article features Tim Tebow, a quarterback in this year's draft who has one two college football national championships and the Heisman Trophy. Many people are aware of Tebow's on-field exploits. Despite his enormous visibility in football the last four years, however, not many people are aware of Tebow's background.

I felt it was an interesting story; Tebow, a devout Christian, split his time between missionary work and football at Florida. The story, by Austin Murphy, appeared in Sports Illustrated before the 2009 college football season, but still would have mass appeal to readers who are curious about Tebow as he prepares for the NFL.

My cover, then, is a picture of Tebow as a Florida Gator with his back to the reader. The picture is meant to raise intrigue about Tebow. The two cover fonts, Gazette and Futura, work well together to give the front cover an edgy, yet respectable look. I sampled font colors (white and orange) from Tebow's jersey and emboldened the Futura on the cover to increase readability and gestalt. Additionally, I felt that Tebow's posture, especially his elbow, points out the text previewing the sidebar article that I added, which chronicled the other quarterback's entering the 2010 NFL Draft. This is a common feature of these draft magazines, and I wanted some aspects of familiarity in my magazine.

The first spread needed to have a wow factor. I decided to use a high resolution photo of Tebow for the two pages. His nose is bleeding and probably broken, which immediately grabs the reader's attention. His eyes and arms lead the reader to the title and deck head, which are both postures of Penumbra. I liked how Penumbra looked as bold, white font, so it seemed appropriate for an article focusing on Tebow's faith. The folios first appear here, and they are in Gazette, the pseudo-trademark font of DRAFTNIK magazine (Gazette was the font used for the magazine title as well).

The text appears on the second and third spreads. I incorporated pictures on page 3, 4, and 6. Page 5 was used for text primarily. The body text is Century Oldstyle for maximum readability. The caption text is in Tempo because it really stood out against the two photos of Tebow I used. My two drop caps are in Penumbra from the 1st spread for some continuity, and it again sample

My sidebar on page 6 used postures of Tempo again against an orange background. I used high resolution pictures of the two highest-rated quarterbacks in the upcoming draft and described why draft experts think they'll make good quarterbacks.

I thought a Gatorade ad was a good way to close out the magazine.