accents
alumni magazine
alumni magazine
Our alumni magazine is quite the undertaking. Forty pages loaded with text and images -- it's the ultimate 1,000 piece puzzle!
This piece has been undergoing a very slow facelift since it was placed in my basket a year ago. The result involves more illustration work, fresh typography, redefinition of the general template, and a reorganization toward a more magazine-like flow. The best part -- the target audience is my biggest proponent to keep moving.
Below is a collection of cover designs and particular spreads worth noting. Enjoy.
The VP wanted a photo, the editor wanted 4 photos -- so I attempted to marry the requests using an illustrative approach.
Thus far I have been able to enjoy the opportunity of creating my illustration covers from scratch. Not only has this helped to grow me as a designer and illustrator, but the target audience has responded quite well to it. So often we place a photo of current students on the cover, but it can be a challenge to select a photo that has a wide enough appeal that it will intrigue everyone to open that cover and peek at what's inside. I have found that illustrations can sometimes do a better job of bridging the gap and piquing interest.
I've re-worked the opening spreads to include brief, interesting stories that snag attention.
If there is a theme for the issue, I lump the feature stories together and will often introduce the section with a special illustration that fits the theme. In this case it was the same illustration as the cover but that is not typically the case.
*Please note: The illustration on the beginning of the "Urban Scots" section is not one of mine.
This is one of my favorite spreads because I was also the photographer. The main shot was staged -- the kids did such a wonderful job of listening to my directions while we created the long exposure shot. The resulting image perfectly captured the life of this busy elementary school principal and told this story without the aid of a cutline. The subject appreciated the final spread and her colleagues at work loved it so much that at the end of the year they presented her with a printed version, signed by them and framed. It was a lovely compliment.
