Project Overview and Deliverables

In the spring and fall semesters of 2023, I designed layout spreads using Adobe InDesign for three different articles for the student magazine Atlas at Emerson College.

As part of the design team, I was given one week to design layouts and visuals for 3 articles spread over 16 pages. I was provided with a Google Drive folder filled with format guidelines, page style presets, articles, fonts, colors, and images.

All graphics, color choices, design layout, and graphic elements on the page are my design choices.

When designing print layouts, I have a specific design process that I like to follow to ensure visual continuity, adherence to any brand specifications (if applicable), and visual appeal.

Research. In this specific case, Atlas Magazine is an established magazine with a new design team and editor each year. To ensure a sense of style continuity, I viewed as many old editions of the magazine that I could find. I took note of stylistic choices and general layout ideas and took guiding principles away, such as using blocks of color behind large photos, adding small graphic elements to enhance the visual appeal of the layout, and noting the placement of pull-out quotes overlaying the images.

Sketch and Plan. Once I gathered sufficient research, I planned out the rough layout of each article. I find sketching out the general placement of the main visual elements- title, images, text, and pull-out quote- to be both time-saving and helpful to maintain both visual interest and uniqueness across 16 pages, while also maintaining cohesiveness.

Organize my materials. With rough sketches in hand, I chose the photos that I felt best represented each article, and used Adobe InDesign and the color palette provided to me to choose colors for each article.

Design. With these basic steps in place, designing itself was a matter of placing the appropriate image and text in the workspace, adding graphic elements to create flow and fill in space as needed, and making final layout tweaks. This step also includes carefully double checking that the document is fully matching all style guidelines.

Package. With all final edits in place and screenshots sent to my editor for approval, I packaged the document in InDesign and sent it off to my editor to be included in the overall magazine.

I repeated the same process for the Fall of 2023 publication; design guidelines were adjusted, as well as color schemes. Below are the final spreads.