Academic Project
MINUS Magazine
Date: Summer 2019
Duration: 4 weeks
Role: Art Direction, Branding, Visual Design
Overview
MINUS is an architecture and interior design magazine, the magazine mainly introduces a minimalist lifestyle to the reader. This project involved the design of the cover, story editorial feature layout (print & digital), the table of contents, and subscription (online ads & business reply mail). The design would evoke a sense of calmness and a minimalist lifestyle. This was done through the use of color palette, typographic, and grids.
Photography sourced from Kinfolk
Editorial Mandate
MINUS magazine is for architecture professionals and design enthusiasts that guides them to minimalist living. We aim to inspire readers to create the home they have always dreamt of. Each issue features various homes that reflect popular minimal designs. The magazine contains photo spreads and articles of special features information about building materials, living solutions, renovation help, furniture, home décor and other topics that will help the reader to design their perfect home.
Target Readership
The target reader is a mid adult (age 25 - 40) who is always on the hunt for great design and inspiration in furniture, remodeling, and interior design. They like to decorate the home to suit their lifestyle. The reader believes good design improves their quality of life and mood, they don’t mind paying for architectural design/designer products.
Brand Name
MINUS is a modern interior design redefined. A short and catchy name demonstrates its relation to the subject matter, it tends to guide readers to create their own minimalist home design.
Art Direction
The art direction was inspired by minimalist living: calmness & clarity. In order to create those feeling, the choice of color using is monochrome (black and white), based on lots of minimalists design are not using more than two colors, and I don't want to use a color palette that will distract readers while using this color palette can help reader focus on the details.
Typography
For the logo and body, I used Rubik which is a sans-serif typeface, the slightly rounded edges keep the text classy and sharp, it increases the readability.
For the headers, I used De Valencia, which is a monospaced display typeface with a subtle, elegant and minimalist character. It has extremely large kerning, which lets the reader feel the space between them just like the interior space.
Cover
To keep the magazine looks simplify, I used only one typography (Rubik) for the cover. On the logo part, I applied the bold and light style to the font, which makes the name “MINUS” stand out. The issue cover in this magazine is “Building with nature”. And the cover image is an interior from Khai Liew’s house, which is one of the featured stories on this issue. I selected this image because the object in this image is orderly and created by wood-based material, which gives a warm feeling to the reader. I created a small content table on the cover, it includes the name of the story and page number, which can help the reader quickly to go to the featured story page.
Editorial Feature - Print
I used the font “De Valencia” on the title, I outline the name “Khai Liew”, which make it stand out. Also on the first spread, the right side is an image showing an interior and men, which can let the reader know who is the protagonist of this article. The layout is using both images and text to tell the story, the ratio of both image and text is half-half. For the layout, it uses the column grid system, it can bring order to a layout and make it easier for the reader to find and navigate through information. Moreover, grids lead to consistency in the layout of pages across several pages.
Editorial Feature - Digital
For the digital edition, I used the font “Rubik” which is the same font with the print, it can keep the consistency with both print and digital publication. The layout is much more simple and forward, which can allow the reader to keep scroll down to read the article.
Subscription Campaign
The print is the main publication of MINUS magazine, so I want my audience to subscribe to the magazine and get a physical copy. I think if I emphasize the number of the discount offer, it will not be that effective to encourage people to subscribe to the magazine. Therefore, I used “Never miss an issue!” to emphasize the importance of subscribing to the magazine. Also, I used red color on the subscribe button which can bring attention.
