This was an NTU brief to design a style setter for a magazine of our choice. I decided to re-design Elle. I wanted to take inspiration from more minimal magazines. Part of the brief was to design double page spreads from a feature article. The article I chose to design was called 'The Meaning of Life.' It's about a journalist living in London, quitting her job and going in search of what life is really about. I wanted to explore the idea of self discovery and create illustrations that look quite dreamy, like you could get lost in them, like you can in your thoughts. The writer tries meditation while she is away and I wanted to illustrate relaxed and quite abstract imagery such as clouds. To create the backgrounds I have used Indian inks and lots of water. Graph and tracing paper have been scanned in and collaged over the top to continue the layered, textured style of the illustrations.
I have used three typefaces throughout the magazine with Garamond for a modern legible body text, Archer Hairline for an elegant touch to the quotes and for the content page details and Rockwell to draw attention to the titles as a strong contrast against the other two.
