Magazine Design

Canterbury Christ Church University asked me to take over the design of Inspire magazine, published three times a year. The initial design of the magazine was already established in-house.

Starting with the Spring 2015 issue, and following their design guidelines, I introduced a grid system and consistency to the use of fonts. I had a lot of flexibility when in came to the design of the features and articles. Where possible, I liked to open each story with a large bold image. I made use of white space to keep the layouts looking clean and balanced. This ensured the content was easy for the reader to follow.

Some of the articles and features request me to carry out my own picture research. I enjoyed the challenge of finding appropriate images to illustrate the various themes of each issue.

Canterbury Christ Church University designed the first issue of Arts & Culture magazine in-house. Following their established design, I worked on several issues of Arts & Culture.

The client liked each page to be as full of content as possible, avoiding the use of too much white space. To achieve this, the design used coloured tints, images and blocks of highlighted text. There is no set layout for each page, so each entry presented a new challenge. Sometimes there was too much text, sometimes too little. Images varied in quality. Any low-resolution images, I used as small as possible, and if necessary, I sourced replacement or extra images. With each page, I designed and laid out the information to be as clear as possible for the reader to follow.

Canterbury Christ Church University asked me to redesign Link. This was their magazine for former students of the university, published once a year.

The original Link was an A4 format twenty-eight page magazine, printed on glossy paper. Based on feedback from subscribers, the old design was too corporate-looking. The client wanted a friendlier and more energetic look to the magazine. The new design would also have a new format – A5, expanded to forty-eight pages and printed on uncoated paper.

For the redesign, I had to work within the university’s corporate guidelines, using their fonts and colours. I made use of the university’s colour palette range to divide the magazine into sections. To include some variety on each page and spread, I used irregular-shaped boxes, large images and background tints. Different styles for the headings helped to separate the articles, news and promotions from each other.

For the main logo, I used a lowercase italic version of one the university’s fonts. This provided the magazine with a ‘friendlier’ look and helped to separate it from the corporate feel of the original.