The MVA in collaboration with Design Works (MCAD’s internal design studio) was tasked with re-designing the school’s biannual magazine. Our goals were to give it more of a magazine feel, make it cheaper and incorporate MCAD’s distinctive identity system into it in a new way.

Taking cues from sixties publications like Design Quarterly and Venture, we approached it with a simple clear lay-out where text and images were placed on a three-column grid and captions on six-column grid which allowed the captions to fill in spaces to support the compositions. We created a “horizon line” to hold headlines and short blurbs so that the magazine had a rhythmic play across the top 1/4. The MVA’s Kimberlee Whaley came up with the photo concept: pieces from MCAD’s identity system were printed on transparencies and then layered on sheets of glass and photographed. These created beautiful images reminiscent of the mid-century American modernism. The images combined with the uncoated paper gave the whole thing a kind of modernist arts journal feel.

More images to come.