GET SET GO
An empowering youth magazine focusing on life-readiness
Undertaken as part of my internship at Parklife Group, Get Set Go was an initiative of Kate Stagg’s, who believes that youth opportunity is one of the key driving forces of the workforce.
Myself and two other interns - one a graphic designer, and one a writer - were tasked with taking the magazine from a basic style guide, to a reality.
We were given an idea for a colour palette, as well as a magazine called Teen Breathe as style inspiration.
It was then up to us to decide on the article subjects, layout designs, graphic elements, cover design and extra pieces, such as puzzles and horoscopes.
The target audience for this magazine was unisex 16-25yr olds.
First, I wanted to completely familiarise myself with any and all of the possibilities, and then narrow my thinking down to layout designs that may be most appropriate for the youthful, unisex style.
We were constantly researching throughout the process of designing and compiling this magazine.
I researched separate areas that were not directly design related too. For instance, when designing the horoscope spread, I did a lot of research into the zodiac signs, beyond just the symbols and dates. I also did a lot of research relating to the personality quiz I constructed. This required in-depth knowledge of the Myers-Briggs personality indication system with which I familiarised myself so as to design the most relevant and common-sense quiz I could.
A couple of the very first layouts for the magazine were drafted and sketched out beforehand. But as time went on and articles flooded in, it became a lot more efficient to draft layouts in InDesign from the get-go and make changes gradually.
I found that sketching things like the puzzles and some of the graphic elements in patterns was a very useful step. I followed the same process in creating most of the puzzles. I researched some ideas, sketched, outlined in pen, image traced in illustrator and then tweaked the designs a little to fit where they were going.
As a result of this, there are very few elements of the magazine that were not created by hand and represent my own work. This not only provides a unique, specialised experience for the reader but also negates the need to search for and acquire permission for using certain imagery.
Arguably one of the most important steps that was undertaken during the drafting phase of the project was to add to the otherwise rather limited colour palette. This gave us a clear direction going forward with layout designs.
For some of the layouts, research into colour theory and meanings was conducted, for others, the theme was more or less implicit from the subject of the article. For example, the Lab Factory article is orange because the main colour of the Lab Factory’s branding is orange and so use of this colour reinforces the message and subject of the article.
As far as the typography, the fonts remained the same throughout the layout designs to ensure style consistency throughout the magazine. Three calligraphy typefaces were used, one typewriter-like font and a sans-serif that was used for the content mostly.
I designed the patterns used for the backgrounds and borders of the articles specifically for the magazine, and in some cases, for that particular article. The patterns were heavily inspired by the patterns in other, similar style magazines.
At the conclusion of my fourteen week internship, I had compiled a collection of articles to be used when the magazine goes to print. These include: puzzle pages, case studies, a personality quiz, horoscopes, job interview tips, a pathway article, an anxiety essay and brain food advice, to name only a few!
