Little White Lies- Layout conventions and House style

Little White Lies uses characteristics throughout their magazine, to give consistency and a house style to their audience. Things such as a house font (Century Gothic) and different styles of fonts are used to give variety to the audience as the house style changes throughout the months of release but the same form of layout remains.

• The size of the page will be: 196mm x 245mm
• The picture advertising the film will be taking up around 40% of the image ratio, and will feature a screenshot of the film, which would feature a main character in the film.
• The image will constantly remain the same size however it could move down the height of the page, varying to the amount of text the author writes, most reviews consist between 5-7 paragraphs and around the word limit of 550 words.
• Each column of text of text is 52.4mm wide with 3 columns.
• Only three fonts are used, being Century Gothic, Aparajita and Microsoft Yi Baiti
•  A 3-digit page number is also shown at the bottom along with the minor design of 'REVIEWS' horizontal to one side of the review, halfway down the centre line of the page.
• The authors name is embedded along the last line of the review
• summaries are featured for 'Anticipation', 'Enjoyment' and 'Retrospect' of each film. Each summary is separated by lines, which are around 3px deep.

Meg Poster Draft 2

For my second poster draft I went more specific with the Billing Block and the rating "PG". Also adding in our film institution logo from our previous films.
The picture was taken via a camera and not a screen shot from the actual film. This makes things clearer to see, and of a higher quality.

2nd Poster Design & Re-draft - Alex

Draft 1:

After reviewing my first poster, I realised that the overall design didn't quite match my original idea. Instead, I designed another poster that focuses more on the original font we used (alphabet spaghetti). This is also more effective as well as we used this in our title sequence.

I also decided make the background darker and slightly more red to give a sinister feel; the original image was too orange and hid the billing block/actor names.

Everything has been centred to draw the important details to the viewers.

Through audience feedback, it was decided that this was the better poster, but something was missing. So I messed around with a stock image of an eyeball to create this second draft:

Draft 2:

The second draft has a little surprise hidden just below the spoon to suggest a genre, unlike the first draft. This seems to be a nice finishing touch, and will be one of the posters I will put forward to be entered.

Little White Lies Research- What is it and who reads it?

'Little White Lies' is also an independently published film review magazine which is under a bi-monthly subscription, which features writing, illustration and photography all related to cinema. It is published by 'The Church of London' who also produce 'Huck' magazine.

The magazine gathered results from a reader survey they ran, which gave the magazine their demographic and psychographic audience traits.

The demographic of the magazine mostly consists of 63% male readers and 37% female, which is two thirds of the magazine as a male demographic. The large majority of the male readers are aged 25-35, which shows a target to audiences who earn their own leisure pound, and have more of a disposable income to be able to spend on things such as films or magazines. The magazine costs £6 per issue and subscription to the magazine is an option, which is how the magazine generates their revenue. This then leads on to the psychographic information , 72% of the audience visit the cinema 0-4 times per month, showing their interests and hobbies also relating to their disposable income as cinema costs are rising more and more. 

The audience for 'Little White Lies' are mainly job based in the creative and visual arts, as graphics and aesthetic is an important feature in the magazine along with the content, relating to the various industries, leaves the magazine as valuable.

Layout Conventions of 'Little White Lies' - Alex

After looking at various film reviews featured in 'Little White Lies', I have come to the conclusion that they have a very particular house style to stay consistent through each release. Here's an annotated version of their review on 'What Maisie Knew':

Here's what I've found:

• The size of the page will be: 196mm x 245mm
• The size of the image, (which can vary) will feature a coloured screenshot from the film. The height may differ, but the width will always be 168mm. The image will take up approximately 40% of the page and will feature the star/main character of the film.
• Each column of text of text is 52.4mm wide. There are 3 columns, and will vary between 5-7 paragraphs depending on what the journalist has to say. Each review consists of approximately 550 words.
• The only 3 fonts used are: Century Gothic, Yahei & Aparajita.
• Smaller details include: 'REVIEWS' in captial letters, horizontal to one side of the review, halfway down the page. A 3-digit page number is also shown at the bottom.
• The authors name is embedded within the last paragraphy
• Bold, Century Gothic detail is used on the summaries for 'Anticipation', 'Enjoyment' and 'Retrospect'. Each summary is separated by line graphology, approximately 3px deep.

These details will come in handy when creating my own Little White Lies replica on our short film 'SOUP'.

Research on 'Little White Lies' (Magazine) - Alex

'Little White Lies' is an independently released magazine, based in London. The bi-monthly magazine specialises in the film industry and their most prominent feature would be their film review section. Each release features a cartoon-esque, art piece of the main character from a recent release film.

Released through 'The Church of London', this small company specialises in making a collectable item that most of their audience choose not to throw away. Each page is intricately designed and follows a specific layout/format, created by an ingenious group of young adults and students.

Due to it's release features and aesthetically pleasing layout, the magazine mainly targets those with a creative or visual artistic background. Generalised demographics show that mainly males aged between 25 and 35 make a large percentage of the audience. This 'slightly-older-than-students' group could be expected as each magazine sells for £6, and offers subscription package for a slightly discounted price.

Each magazine is printed on a thin card material, and uses bright colour-schemes to make the cover artwork visually appealing and noticeable from a distance. Artists use variations of cross-media in their magazines to give an 'edge' to each page. Font choices and sizes stay fairly consistent, but film choice and genre varies greatly to appeal to a mass audience. This balance of professionalism and variation in appeal makes the magazine popular across the nation, with copies selling in various book stores such as WHSmiths.

FILM POSTER DRAFT- HOLLY

Here is my draft of the film poster. We took photographs at the time of filming and these are some of the images used. I edited the curves of the photo to make it more saturated and darker, which makes the orange stand out against the white plate.
I like the simplicity of the poster and the billing block, although there were only three people to credit so it made it more difficult to give different credits to people.
I don't like the background as I think it is slightly unrelated, and the photo would make more sense if there was a bowl to make a visual link with the spoon.
Overall I don't think we will use this poster.