Design Analysis

The design I choose to analyze is from Telquel magazine’s cover number 511. Telquel is a weekly independent Moroccan magazine written in French. It is well-known for discussing issues which are considered as taboos in Morocco, such as the royal family, politics, sex, and religion. In order to analyze the design of Telquel’s cover, four aspects will be discussed: the space being used, the attractiveness and orientation of the design, the Gestalt psychology, and the four design principles.

In order to strengthen the message, the designer has to effectively use the space. Telquel’s cover is a portrait, that is to say a vertical rectangular space. The fact that this space is narrower than the landscape format, makes it easier for the receiver to grasp the main message and ideas being conveyed by the designer since the receiver will probably move rapidly his or her eyes from up to down and from down to up. Hence, this kind of space is the most appropriate to express tension or energy. The format of this portrait is a standard format since it belongs to the A-series. This format is particularly appropriate for magazines as it allows the designer to have more space for images since the text will be organized in the form of columns. As for the type area, one can say that there is more space dedicated to the image than to the text, and that the designer is looking for a compact and dense impression rather than an airy one. This impression of density is balanced thanks to the margins in red which allow the receiver to feel some kind of order. For that purpose, those margins are larger than the white ones. Generally speaking, there is one single basic design for all Telquel magazines’ covers. It basically consists of large red margins, the magazine’s title “Telquel” which is generally in white or black bold depending on the background’s color, telquel’s website link vertically inclined at the bottom left corner in a small typography, the publication director’s name also vertically inclined at the bottom right corner, and the edition number and week of publication and price both in dirhams, euro, and Tunisian dinar. The basic design of Telquel magazine fits the message conveyed since it is a denouncing message which needs to be straightforward as it is the case with the design.

For a design to be considered as attractive, it has to be powerful and unique. For this cover page, the receiver is directly attracted by the central image showing the king of Morocco Mohamed the VI in a large size, and the new Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane in a much smaller one. Hence, suggesting the imbalance of power between the two. Although, as promulgated in the new constitution Benkirane is supposed to have more powers as head of the Moroccan government, the image clearly makes an allusion to reality where the King is still the one having all powers. As for the orientation of the design, one can argue that the receiver can easily be guided since the information is displayed in such a way that suggests reinforcement and emphasis on the main issue that will be discussed further. For the composition of the design, it looks like an asymmetrical one since there is no symmetrical axe and there are lots of color and size contrasts, which create both dynamism and tension regarding the sensitive issue being dealt with. Also, this design might be referred to as a closed design since the red margins kind of delimitate the space and hence this closed design conveys a feeling of claustrophobia and dramatic atmosphere. Besides, since the design has a powerful and disturbing effect on the receiver, it is called a “takete”. Finally, all these aspects of attractiveness and orientation all together participate in creating this design which can be considered as an obvious and good design since all the elements included have a justification and the message being conveyed is clear.

As for the psychological gestalt, it is composed of three tools: law of proximity, similarity, and closedness. The law of proximity is used by the designer in the sense that he or she makes all the elements of the magazine cover look close to each other while at the same time using white space, hence creating a sentiment of a unified whole. The law of similarity is the most stressed for this design. Indeed, the designer uses a uniform typography and above all colors in order to help the receiver easily find the links between the different ideas. The most apparent example is the use of the yellow color for sentences and words which refer to the same thing: “le roi a tout et le chef de gouvernement presque rien”, “partage des pouvoirs”, “illusion”, “les spheres d’influence”. The law of closedness is used for the magazine price, the website link, and the publishing director’s name. These three elements are placed on a background of a different color: red, different typography, and within the margins so that they can be differentiated from the other information. Thus, the result is a more structured one.

Four design principles have been applied to this Telquel magazine’s cover: contrast, balance, alignment, and rhythm. The contrast in size is the most important one used for this design. It is primarly used to indicate to the receiver that the size contrast is the first thing to look at. In order, to create this size contrasting effect, the designer used a dominant image where king Mohamed the VI is made bigger in size in such an invasive way which partially hide the letters ‘E’ and ‘L’ of “ TELQUEL”. In contrast, the head of government Benkirane is made way much smaller, to the extent that he looks almost ridiculous. Indeed, the designer applied the rule of thirds in such a way that king Mohamed the VI occupies half of the entire image, while Benkirane only occupies one third of the image. In addition to size contrast, color contrast is relied upon by the designer as well. Indeed, when contrasting colors such as black and yellow, or white and red, the dramatic atmosphere is reinforced further, and the eye directly attracted to read the printed words. Also, the fact that the heading and sub headings are never in the same color accentuates this feeling. As it was discussed in the previous section, the asymmetrical composition is also reflected in the balance between the different elements. Although shapes and colors are contrasting the designer managed to create a certain balance which makes the target audience wants to know more about the issue. As contrasting as they can appear, all the contrasting elements finally came into balance. Concerning the alignment used by the designer, it is the same one used for all cover pages of Telquel magazine. This kind of template allows the receivers to be familiar with the brand magazine and recognize it each time it is published no matter the new issue dealt with. Telquel magazine has been known for taking a rhythm of wide variety concerning different Moroccan issues, and a shocking way to deal with them that makes the audience very surprised each time. This rhythm concerns the content as well as the design which generally use shocking images, contrasting colors and shapes.

To conclude, one might qualify Telquel magazine design as a content-based design, in which the content is orienting the global layout: images, typography… This design is clear, straightforward, and unambiguous. The target audience being educated Moroccans from the age of 18 to 60, living in urban areas, can easily understand the message and that it is the ultimate goal of any successful designer.