Advance: Interactive magazine

Overview

  • Flatplan, content and 2 articles for interactive science magazine
  • HND Visual Communications: Interactive Design
  • Solo project
  • My contributions:
    • Industry and customer research
    • Developing the theme and flatplan
    • Content research and curation
    • Graphic design using Adobe CC
    • Developing animation and interactivity using ReadyMag

Brief

Develop the look and feel of Advance, a new interactive science magazine. Design the masthead, cover, contents page and 2 sample articles for digital publishing.

Project

My interactive sampler – including extra content, film and animation – is available here: https://readymag.com/u84674350/616360/

Advance Interactive Magazine: Cover

Research

I began by researching WIRED and other science magazines, including their target audiences. To differentiate Advance from WIRED I decided to target women as well as men. Research on digital magazines revealed an appetite for interactivity amongst audiences, but also a warning that many people still want to read articles without too many distractions. 

I examined the contents and flow of WIRED and other magazines to develop the proposed contents and flatplan for Advance, including departments, regular features & slots for adverts. The sticky notes were invaluable as I could shift them around until I was happy.

Advance Interactive Magazine: Flatplan

Creative challenge

Digital magazines require a larger type size than print magazines, as they are often read on small screens. This posed a challenge for the detailed contents page, which I addressed by alternating the article descriptions above and below the page numbering. Clicking on the descriptions takes you directly to the articles.

Advance Interactive Magazine: Contents Spread

Spreads

The image below shows the introductory spread for my first article. Given the resources to create the film, it would have been fun to allow the reader to ‘ignite’ the cocktails by clicking on the glasses. 

Advance Interactive Magazine: Cocktails Spread

My second article was about the neuroscience of happiness. Given more resources, it would have been good to animate the colourful neurons’.

Advance Interactive Magazine: Happiness Spread

Conclusion

In a previous role, I helped project manage the creation of The Royal Bank of Scotland’s customer magazines. This made it particularly interesting to develop a magazine from scratch myself. I really enjoyed planning the content for the entire magazine, as well as creating the interactive sampler. Given the right collaborators I would be delighted to take it further.