BLACKSPOT MAGAZINE
An unusual magazine about local urban legends, campfire tales, and hidden histories. It was something created for personal enjoyment that eventually evolved into a podcast. Published in a limited run in matte color and hard cover
Layout spread for the The Doctor who starved her patients to death
A LAYOUT INSPIRED BY WEIRDNESS
The layout for the spreads followed simple columnar grids to offset the bizarre content of the story. Using a clean style and structure juxtaposed with the unnerving articles made for a more kinetic experience.
Layout spread for THe dark history of slender man
LAYOUT SPREAD FOR AN ARTICLE ENTITLED LAKE CITY QUITE PILLS
Role: This weird magazine was my brainchild, for better or worse. I acted as creator, writer, editor, layout designer, photographer, photo editor, and illustrator.
Skill: Some of the skills needed for this one were Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, Photoshop, layout creation, editing, writing, masthead/logo design, Wordpress, social media strategy, SEO, UX/UI. The challenge for this one was to make a magazine geared towards something I find interesting and under-explored, that being urban legends. I gave myself a 6 week timeline to gather articles and content, create a minimum of 3 feature spreads, 3 Front of magazine sections, and 3 Back of Magazine sections, a table of contents. After magazine conceptualization, I brought the articles and content into InDesign and visual assets into Photoshop.
Project Goals and Objectives: Within the framework of my project, I wanted to make something that I hadn’t seen on the market, a magazine for folklore and urban legends done in a clean manner with a dark and brooding undertone.
Process: Making a timeline for myself, I budgeted 1 week for gathering assets, articles, photos and illustrations. Then 1 week for logo and photo editing. After that it was blocking out the spreads for the magazine itself, editing, first drafts of the layout, and revisions. After another round of critiques and edits, it was time to print. Printing was done on the DocuColor, then collated, cut and glued by hand.
After that I edited everything for the web, including the visual assets, making them appropriate web style (72 dpi, RGB, etc.) and created a web domain through Bluehost. Then brought content into Wordpress where I started with a Flat-Bootstrap theme and began editing the visual style of the site in it’s child theme. Starting with a nav bar, I then separated articles into several different categories, tagging them, and stylizing articles by creating and editing categories. After that, creating native advertisement that familied with the site. With all that set in place I made a footer that featured my call to actions for different revenue sources such as a fictional podcast and Seattle Underground Style tours.