Time length:

16 weeks

Tools:

InDesign, Photoshop

Roles/Skills:

Solo project - Design Layout, Time Management, Production, Art Direction, Editorial

OVERVIEW

Death can be a taboo subject in American culture. Requiem Magazine strives to encourage a different understanding of it. This quarterly magazine maintains a consistent theme and blueprint across all issues. It showcases articles about festivals honoring the dead, rituals, and burial sites for various cultures around the world. Requiem strives to captivate the culturally curious with vivid photography and educational stories through an unbiased and inclusive lens.

PROCESS

For this passion project, I started the process by picking a topic and concept that would be strong enough to run for many years. After I pitched the idea and developed the magazine name and tagline, I gathered articles that would fit with the concept and high-resolution images that helped tell the story of each article. It was essential to pick photographs that were authentic, bold, and high quality to ensure each article was featured in the best possible way.

PROCESS CONTINUED

During this process, I also defined the personas that would be interested in the magazine and what each persona would hope to gain from the magazine. Next, I created a flat plan and organized the order of the magazine by front of book, featured articles, and back of book and curated the articles that would go into each section.

PROCESS CONTINUED

To make sure the whole publication had a consistent structure throughout, I created recipes for various elements of the magazine. These recipes included layout of photographs, various text columnar structures, and headline treatments. I wanted the layout to be clean and elegant to fit with the theme of the magazine, yet slightly dynamic since the subject itself is also robust and compelling. I made sure each feature article included a dynamic and expressive headline to match the vibe of the story and give it a bit of personality.

In addition to layout guidelines, I created a set of rules for bylines, headlines, subheadlines, pull quotes, and opening lines to create consistency throughout the magazine.  Once these rules, styles, and systems were put in place, the rest of the 72-page magazine came together easily.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The high-quality visuals and compelling storytelling within each article creates a niche magazine that could last on the shelves for many years. By creating recipes for the publication structure, the magazine is cohesive, which helps the reader know what to expect with the layout. Even though the magazine’s organization is consistent, the content itself is intriguing, diverse, and unexpected, which captivates the reader to continue reading to learn more about the subject matter.