A magazine created as a school project that would speak primarily to the queer underground. Featuring articles about contemporary and historical figures important to queer culture, essential happenings, essays, free-form writing, and a harm reduction guide.
Underground culture has always been an underhanded driving force for soft power. Trends; fads; tastes; and, most importantly, ideas, all get exchanged in the underground and eventually get filtered down into what is considered the mainstream over time.
I created and designed a 96-page magazine that featured writers/artists in the underground community, is willing to talk about challenging topics that are common in that culture, and also had an aesthetic that would attract its demographic.
I also made the harm reduction guide a stand-alone booklet to distribute at underground events and it was very successful. Other people in different cities have requested the file to distribute at their own events.
This is a gallery of select articles and spreads throughout the magazine. I wrote a few submissions; provided my own photos; I created the artwork/illustrations for the magazine; people in the community submitted articles and photos; and I created a lot of the ads. Otherwise, some of the articles were found online and credited in the magazine (along with all the photos that accompanied them).
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Here are some select process captures to see how we achieved the final result.
This is my mood board for the layout of the magazine. Using colorful and/or gradient backgrounds behind text coupled with vibrant or dark images to contrast is what KEYI MAGAZINE does for their layout. I didn't want to completely rip off their aesthetic and there were legibility issues (my main gripe with a lot of designs that come out of the underground), so for most of my magazine, I opted for a white background behind the body text with gradients in the margins.
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The aesthetic for underground dance culture is based more in feeling and emotion than images of people and places. This comes from the experience of the dance floor: it's usually dark and foggy with dynamic psychedelic lighting. A mix of dark and colorful abstract shapes and textures are common visuals for marketing and the like. I was particularly inspired by posters from Lion Sauterleute, zuuuuus11, and of modest means.
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This is the front cover, spine, and back cover of the magazine. If this were a real magazine, the covers would mimic the style cadence of event posters: there would be an underlying consistency with branding, but shapes, textures, and the color palette would vary. I wanted to have a minimally psychedelic look, but keep it legible amongst flat-to-3D shapes/letterforms. The main people/groups in the featured articles would be presented like artist names on an event poster.
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This was the original logo for the magazine. I ended up going with a different typeface and wider font. I also made the final logo into a 3D object, but kept the slight gradient.
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