Designing a Magazine Editorial

Creating a magazine editorial with my original photos and design content. This is a project I can see myself really enjoying, as it will give me the opportunity to put my graphic design and photography skills to use, which I have been studying during my time at school. I believe this particular project would challenge me since my past graphic design projects have not been as detailed or thorough as a magazine would be, but instead were just single projects such as posters. A magazine would challenge my graphic designs skills in new ways, pushing my creativity and my attention to detail, while also giving me the opportunity to showcase my artistic abilities in both the graphic design and photography fields. 

Depending on the type of content I decide to put in it, I would either take new photos or use some of my existing photographic content. I would then use a combination of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to complete the magazine graphics and layout to put everything together. My goal would be to have 15-20 pages of content in the magazine. The past students who did magazines for their projects, Gabby’s The Femme Rebellion and Makiah’s Culture Vault, inspired my interest in doing this for my project.

Elevating My Brand

Creating a set brand for myself in the form of a website will be beneficial in a professional sense. After creating the website in web design class, it made me realize how important having an online professional portfolio is, especially for the field I want to go into. Although I was proud of the website I created, I would like to take it a step further and add a lot more to my existing website and change some things, giving it a revamp and elevating it. This will ensure I have a website I can use when applying for jobs, as it will showcase my portfolio, creativity, and professionalism.

I want to use the coding skills I learned in web design, along with my graphic design skills, to brand myself and my work in the form of a website. This would include a full portfolio of my work with descriptions, a logo for myself, some personal and professional information about me, designing virtual business cards, and more. I would either use WordPress or SquareSpace along with my own coding, and also Illustrator and InDesign for the design aspects and my portfolio work. After researching portfolio websites, both https://www.bethgalton.com/ and https://www.courtneydailey.com/ stood out to me, and inspired me to want to revamp my own website.

Creating a Brand Book for a Company

I would create a brand style guide and book for a made-up company of my choice. This would include all styling for the brand: logo, fonts, color palette, mockups, graphics, and more. After creating a style guide and process book for an advocacy campaign last semester, it was great practice with not only design, but really thinking about the choices I was making along the way. I think creating a full brand book would be beneficial for my decision-making, creativity, and making a lot of design elements.

This project would challenge my creativity to design a whole company from scratch, and allow me to take my design skills a step further. I would use a combination of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign to create and put together the brand book. This option would be one that looks toward my future career goals of going into the graphic design field, but is also something I am interested in doing.