Jitterz Magazine
Design Challenge
Design a fictional magazine from start to finish with a minimum of 25 pages. Research the topic thoroughly and create a proposal to base your content off of. Design a masthead and cover, curate articles found through research that fit the theme and edit as needed, and create all original illustrations and photographs to be used as imagery. Endpapers, Table of Contents, and two departments will also be required. As an added challenge, design two other covers to be sequential issues, following this introductory issue.
Solution
Jitterz is the physical response to what happens when you consume coffee. Just like how coffee blooms and grows, we too are continually blooming and growing. The purpose of this magazine is to be a creative haven to bring together coffee drinkers and creators alike through the shared love of coffee. Since coffee and coffee shops also exist around the world, this magazine will be almost like a travel magazine. Three different coffee cultures will be featured. With just a page turn, readers can step into new coffee shops and travel the world without ever leaving their home. The overall look will have an artsy aesthetic, reminiscent of vibrant and dynamic expressionist and abstract art. Likewise, the overall feel will be an individual coming home and feeling the warmth of a café on a cold rainy day.
Tools Used
Adobe Illustrator
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe InDesign
Skills Explored
Visual Design
Typography
Photography
Editorial Design
Illustration
Multi-Page Layout
Logo Design
Duration
16 Weeks
FULL MAGAZINE FLIPBOOK
Masthead
SKETCHES
ROUGHS
FINAL VERSION
I knew I wanted my masthead to encapsulate the jittery feeling that you get when feeling caffeinated, which has a sense of randomness, but also have a modern look. After going through many versions and variations, I solved this in the final version where the letters are all different sizes, have a dynamic warp to parts of the letters, as well as have a shifted baseline so your eye jumps up and down yet still maintains legibility.
COVERS
SKETCHES
ROUGHS
Final Version
In my cover roughs I tested out my masthead variations which also helped me determine which one worked best. I also realized that the abstract look worked best with my vision and adjusted the colors and added subtle patterns to fit with the cultures I was featuring in the magazine itself and the hierarchy of the shapes. I then used this first issue as a basis for the subsequent covers themed around current topics.
Articles
ARTICLE 01
ARTICLE 02
ARTICLE 03
The three articles were each required to follow a theme: the first had to be only illustrations, second had to be only photography, and third had to be only found objects, which I chose to be old postcards that would be tabbed in. In each article I tried to encapsulate the overall message portrayed in the text. Color choices were also made based on the colors that represent the countries. All articles were found through google.
DEPARTMENTS
DEPARTMEnt 01
DEPARTMEnt 02
Because this is a coffee magazine I knew I wanted one department to be recipe-themed which led to naming it "Homebrewed", and then I tested each recipe to see if it worked. For the second department, I chose to be more of an artsy corner that I named "Crafted" and found a great article relating famous creatives to their coffee-counterparts.
toc & Endsheets
Table of Contents
ENDsheets
Rather than having a regular title for my table of contents I also chose "Today's Brew" to reflect the coffee theme. I also chose to give my editors note which articulates the vision and purpose of my magazine. My endsheets I wasnted to be more experimental so I took the word coffee in different languages (Malay, Spanish, Turkish, and Romanian) and laid out the letters in a dynamic way. I also had other photos not used elsewhere so I incorporated them as well with the cultural patterns.
