Magazine + Print Design

Canterbury Christ Church University needed a redesigned alumni magazine. The original Link was A4, twenty-eight pages and glossy. Feedback showed it looked too corporate, and the client wanted a friendlier, more energetic design.

The new magazine would be A5, forty-eight pages, printed on uncoated paper. I worked withing the university’s corporate guidelines, using their colour palette to section the magazine. Irregular boxes, large images and tints added variety to each page. Different heading styles separated articles, news and promotions. A lowercase italic version of a university font made the logo friendlier. This helped to differentiate it from the original design.

I designed several issues of Arts & Culture magazine, following the established in-house design.

The client liked each page to be as full as possible, avoiding the use of too much white space. To achieve this, the design used coloured tints, images and blocks of highlighted text. With no set layout for each page, each entry presented a new challenge – sometimes 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. I designed each page to ensure the information was as clear as possible for the reader to follow.

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

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