Magazine Cover Design

Spreads for Print Magazine

Spreads for Digital Device (Pad Device layout, Mobile Device layout)

Mobile Device Promotional Contest Ad Campaign & Screens

Film Screening Sponsor: Posters, Banners for Event, Giveaway cards

Freaks of Nature is a new magazine inspired by the Big Mountain Rider movement, backcountry ski and snowboard interest, and the active lifestyle embraced by a growing population. The audience skews younger, and some do not see magazines as an everyday or usual media channel—for many, it may be a “new” media stream, and the client wants to produce a high quality print magazine for boutique distribution in high-end coffee houses and print magazine outlets. As well, the program calls for digital media design that corelates in look and feel to the high end and visually grabbing appearance of the print magazine.

Magazine will promote its launch with several promotional campaigns: sponsoring a movie screening festival for Teton Gravity Research, an email and social media promoted sweepstakes and sporting product package, and give-away/bounceback postcards to be distributed at retail locations and at screening and other events.

Freaks of Nature is a fictional magazine, a niche publication for backcountry ski and snowboarders, a growing sport and industry. The projects seen here were part of an  assignment for an Adobe InDesign course, which began as a publication design and layout project. The project expanded, from a magazine cover and spreads, into mobile media and promotional banner design.

This (below) is the original layout for the cover spread and spine. The photo--later deemed too low in resolution--still captured the look and feel I imagined the client wanted: an athlete, going for it, no margin of error, and everything on the line. The photo was later replaced with stronger photography. Same for the rear cover, mock advertisement.

This (above) is the original layout for the cover spread and spine. The photo--later deemed too low in resolution--still captured the look and feel I imagined the client wanted: an athlete, going for it, no margin of error, everything on the line. The photos for the cover and the print advertisement were later replaced with stronger photography. 

Back cover, spine, and front cover, laid out in InDesign and polished in Illustrator and Photoshop.

The revised and final magazine cover design (above) included a polish of design principles I did not fully grasp in the earlier drafts: typographic hierarchy, use of high-resolution photography, attention to typography choices (for example, The North Face uses Helvetica in all their promotional materials), and revision of color schemes and graphics to better match art choices.

Two-page spread pictured here  was part of the original design problem, the design of a Table of Contents for the inaugural volume of the publication, Freaks of Nature, here seen in a Surface mock-up.

Here is the cover and part of a spread in a mock-up from Envato.

The challenge I gave myself her was to somehow make the old and the new meet in the middle: a 19th-century pioneer skier and local legend, Snowshoe Johnson, is featured in a contemporary and somewhat youthful magazine. This is the flat two-page spread.