Con-text

Con-text was the magazine I designed in response to a university brief. The project required me to create a magazine cover that uses augmented reality to bring the cover to life with an animation that plays when a QR code is scanned. I also had to design two articles within the magazine based off texts provided in the design brief. As well as a typographic style guide and a document containing the breakdown of the typographic grids used in the design of the magazine. As part of the brief, one of the articles could only include text as image whereas the second article could use photographs. Everything in the magazine including all the imagery had to be created from scratch.

Concept

Con-text is an eclectic design magazine focused on exploring different design topics through a global lens. Each issue explores a unique design topic and showcases how different countries visually and conceptually deal with the topic or area of design. The magazine aims to contextualise all things relating to graphic design by investigating the ways design is uniquely realised in different cultures. The physical magazine creates a tangible experience for readers where they can truly immerse themselves into the materials of the magazine and closely admire the design details. Each issue is purposefully crafted to create a visually experimental and hand generated design aesthetic that can be appreciated by visual designers. Con-text brings technology into the physical practice of reading a magazine by using augmented reality to animate the cover and intrigue the reader.

The first issue of Con-text is called Type: A Global Perspective and explores how typography is manifested around the world. It includes two crucial articles on typography as a grounding point to set the context of the issue. The “Letters and Cities” article explores how to read a city based on its typography and how that forms an identity for the place. The other key article is Robert Bringhurst’s “The Elements of Typographic Style” as it discusses the nature and importance of typography from a western graphic design viewpoint. The issue delves into the unique visual nature of typography and discusses how each language has its own visual style through its typography. It also explores how region-specific design schools carry their own unique typographic rules which leads to global trends like Swiss typography. Con-text is an eccentric magazine which provides the design scene with a new source of global inspiration and visual style.

Typographic Style Guide

Process Work