Art direction & editorial design: my experience creating the University of Alberta’s Gateway magazine
A collection of my editorial design work for the magazine format
From 2018 to 2019, I had the wonderful opportunity to be the art director of The Gateway, University of Alberta’s student magazine. As the art director, I was responsible for every layout within our eight magazines. Working one to two months ahead of each printing date meant that I had to design quickly and precisely.
I am so grateful that I got the chance to share the diverse voices of some of the University student body with my work at The Gateway. To present the stories of others in a truthful and thoughtful way is important and valuable work.
The work below demonstrates my competence in programs like Adobe Indesign, Illustrator, and Photoshop to create a variety of print-ready (ie. ready for the press) documents. The work below proves my ability to design layouts of text and image that are beautiful, easy to read and compositionally pleasing no matter the length and subject.
“FIGHT LIKE A GIRL” needed to make a statement- this three spread layout is an experiment with strong typography inspired by sport advertising
Really enjoyed creating this full bleed illustration of dripping oil and tying it in with type manipulation for the layout design of this feature, “In the Grey”
Illustration and layout design of stylish business women for the feature “Trickle-up economics”
Strong typography and minimal visual elements for “Tipping the scales”
Complementing this striking photo with a script typeface felt right for this feature titled “Queens”, about Edmonton’s drag scene.
“Alberta Votes” feature: photography depicting anonymous people showing their support for opposing political parties also reflect each other in the magazine format as back to back spreads
For an added organic quality, it’s always nice to add small details to the typography like the decorations around the pullquote; “Cultivating Motherhood”
Had a fun way to present this story about the moment a student had to watch in horror as her ball of yarn rolls off her lap and down the steps of the lecture hall to stop at the professor’s feet by suggesting it within the visuals itself :-); “Knitting in class: a betrayal”
A lovely illustration by a student contributor, balanced with a three column layout; “It’s not u(ni), it’s me”
I had a lot of fun with this segmented illustration and its use of patterns for “Being and academia: isn’t university absurd?”
In the mood to do some reading? Feel free to check out all of the issues below!
Possibilities: The Gateway September issue (2018)
Food: The Gateway November issue (2018)
Keepin’ it wavy: The Gateway October issue (2018)
Home: The Gateway December issue (2018)
♀: The Gateway January issue (2019)
Love and sex: The Gateway February issue (2019)
Pride: The Gateway March issue (2019)
Politics: The Gateway April issue (2019)
Credits
The work that I have presented here was only possible with the combined efforts of my coworkers at The Gateway and the student contributors who added to our writing, photography and illustration. The high quality writing that I got the chance to design was all overseen by managing editor Sofia Osborne. On the imagery side, I was so lucky to collaborate with and use the exceptional photography from photo editor Richard Bagan in all of our issues. (All student contributors and the names of my team can be found in the beginning spreads of every issue.)
In conclusion
Designing magazines forThe Gateway has been one of the most rewarding experiences for me to date; I gained real world experience working closely with other creatives, but also my footing in effective and empathetic ways to listen and design. Now, when I design, I try at minimum, to get a good understanding of what my design must say first, and that comes from understanding my client’s target audience and that audience’s goals and needs. To design effectively is to listen, and my time designing magazines taught me the foundational skills of how to do that.
Project Tags
Print design, editorial, magazine, illustration
I can’t wait to design more stories in the future.
If you have a project in mind that is a story you would like to tell, I would love to be a part of it.
Check out this related project where an illustrated brand is applied uniformly across several formats!
