Name of Project: Magazine Publications

My Role: Design the cover of a magazine and a spread for an article.

Client’s Name: Social Magazine

Intended Audience: Adults ranging from ages 18 to 45 who are interested in celebrity news, human interest stories, and pop culture. This diverse audience typically enjoys reading about entertainment, lifestyle, and celebrity gossip.

Strategy and Concept: For the cover, I started with the magazine name and the image of the main story as the hierarchal elements, then added in the secondary content, such as the story’s title and additional images related to the main story. Since this issue is during the summer months, the background setting is at the beach, and the blue sky inspired the main color scheme of the composition. The hot pink accent color specifically targets the feminine demographic due to the content of the main article, and it contrasts well with the light blue color. For the magazine spread, I wanted to incorporate visually stimulating images that related to the article’s content to get the viewer’s attention as they flipped through the magazine. Choosing a large, bold, capital typography that had futuristic characteristics for the heading would assist in getting the viewer interested in reading further into the article. The high contrast of colors between the graphics and the whitespace behind the text help guide the reader to the story.

Reason for decisions: For the cover, I chose the colors, graphics, and layout to cater to a more specific demographic within the magazine’s overall target audience because of the cover story’s main message. In regard to the magazine spread, I chose a layout that had clear columns of text, a contrasting color palette, vivid images, and a bold heading to give a preview of the article’s content through visual communication.