With strana-velky-foto.jpg you reveal one of the problems of including the graphic by changing text color: as the columns rewrap, the shape can get distorted. I don’t much care for changing the text color as it also introduces readability issues, but if you must do it try overlaying a translucent graphic object over the text instead of changing the text color. With that, you’ll run into the problem of a few letters being only partially changed, but you will save a lot of time over resetting the text color letter by letter.

That being said, it isn’t a bad layout, but it is indeed a rather boring one, more appropriate to a serious medical journal than a lifestyle magazine.

Check out page 6 : http://www.adobe.com/education/pdf/type_primer.pdf

I agree with jason’s assessment, particularly regarding the graphic/text relationship.
Although I might suggest the translucent graphic BEHIND the text instead of in front.
You may also rethink the elements in the open column to the left. I get the feeling that by rrunning the author credit at the top of the column and the one column photo at the bottom, you’re negating the openness of the layout. Instead, it might be worth trying to group the author credits and the secondary image closer together, and letting the free space fall to the bottom left. It will really open the page up more.

Also: since you’ve decided against hyphenation, you’re getting some trecherous rivers and word spacing going on.

> one half is for men and one half for women.

Nice! :->

One thing you definitely should try to pull off
is different -but harmonious- fonts for each half.

hhp

I agree with Chuck re the rivers of space caused by not hyphenating. This, in narrow justified text columns is very unsightly. Actually I don’t care for the male/female symbol behind or in front of text at all. It takes away from the text and meaning. It is simply too obtrusive. Why not a little symbol, light in color, in the open column under the caption or at bottom of page. Does it have to be so obvious?

Jordy is right in saying the male/female symbols seem heavy-handed, esp. since you’re already using them (more gently) in the section headings (see: modakoncept). Unless you really need to drive it home which side (venus-mars) we’re reading. But as Hrant suggests, using differing faces could do the same thing with perhaps more communication, such as a sans serif for masculine and serif for feminine sides...

cuttlefish: actually, it is done that way, this layout is only created in photoshop. but thanks, also for that “boring” comment

chuckgroth: thanks, that’s much better

hyphenation - as i said - this was only a picture created in photoshop. on the real pages, i will let quark do the job

symbol - you are right. i will try to think of a better solution

(more pages to come;) stay tuned)

Late at night when I wrote. Quark does not “do” jobs, the designer does.

I should have added: What is wrong with ragged right instead of justified columns? This would be the easy way, avoiding rivers of space and using Quark cleverly you can avoid too much hyphenation.

ok, a new graphic designer was assigned to me and i sleep better know

anyway, here are some two new pages. my solutions is no longer needed, but some final touching is essential. could you give me some advices? (this time it is on the almost-final product)

http://ahasver.wz.cz/skysurf.pdf (1.2 MB)

I love the images - fantastic. I think I prefer the wider columns and the captions in color bars outside of the pictures. I especially like the ragged left on the title spread. I’m sure you’ll have other comments but I do love the images, they provide the focus for the text. The simple symbol is fine, font choices work well. I especially like Franklin Gothic Heavy for title. It always worked well for me.

I’m not certain I’d be sold on the Letter Gothic sidebar text. Could you try — just for fun — something like Rotis? http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/rotis-sans-serif/
Or maybe the Letter Gothic would work better as slanted? I’m not sure. I just feel the word spacing is maybe too weird with the Letter.
I’m with jordy on the images. Very lively.

I like the slanted lines across the images. Looks fine for me with the caption. However, I would go for a thicker title bar and make the photo’s caption slightly more narrow. Just a little suggestion..