The reason I have decided to re-design Ride BMX Magazine is because it has lost its way. At a time when print media needs to up its games to hold on to its audience Ride BMX is failing miserably. Paradoxically the quality of the photography in Ride BMX is always absolutely first class while the design has in the last year or so become embarrassingly bad.
There is to a certain extent a punk, DIY or zine ethic in BMX magazines. BMX is usually seen as anti establishment and this philosophy can be seen in the magazine design. However just because ride BMX looks at itself as slightly outside the mainstream and not having to conform to the rules that most magazine adhear to does not mean it has to be appallingly badly layed out. Rules are there to be broken but if you don't have any rules in the first place it just looks like a mess.
Throughout the magazine there is no fixed grid used all of the pages are layed out in a fairly random manner, the designer appears to use what even column structure he feels like at the time. Also in the spread above it seems as though the designers hasn't been able to make a clear decision about what images to run with resulting in a whole lot of little images on the right hand page with no hierarchy at all.
I'm guessing the designer has tried to aim for some sort of zine aesthetic hear, but the complete lack of structure here makes the page look a mess and I don't want to read it.
If you look closely at the spread above there are 8 different sizes and weights of typeface not including the logotype. Was the designer ever even taught the basics of typography???!
The hierarchy works OK on the contents page (above) but is 8 different sizes and weights of type really necessary?
I'm sorry but considering this is the UK biggest selling BMX magazine having type set with so many obvious errors is rediculous; too many words per line, the paragraphs should either be seperated with line spaces or indentations, neither have been used here. Too many type faces have been used and the hierarchy is not logical. As a result, I don't know about anyone else, but I don't want to read it.
Again it looks as though he hasn't made a decision about which photos to use as a result there is no hierarchy on the spread above, so your eye doesn't no what to focus on and you just move on.
The designer has aimed to have a different look for each article, I would argue that this is not necessary, it makes the magazine look inconsistent and you are destructed from the words and photos by constantly changing colour schemes and layouts.
As if the use of bold pink type wasn't enough to separate questions from the answers in this interview, the designers has felt the need to offset the questions by half a column width as well. Why?
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