SICC
Graphic Design | October, 2022 - November, 2022
A life-style magazine for DSM-diagnosed adolescents aimed to destigmatize mental illness through authentic narratives about DSM-diagnosed conditions and their interconnection with coming-of-age themes.​ As the Designer, I developed the visual identity and created Figma mock-ups. I also helped outline marketing, publishing, editorial and design plans. The project was completed in 8 weeks.
By Jade, Jessie, Kaitlyn & Ray
Project Link:
SICC Final Magazine Media Plan
1
User Research
Tasked with creating a magazine media enterprise, my team and I first defined our magazine's topic and its target audience. Passionate about topics of mental health, especially in relation to living with a diagnosis, our team decided to create a mental health lifestyle magazine catered towards DSM-diagnosed adolescents; adolescents that have been diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. With our niche and target audience defined, my team and I collaboratively developed personas, delving deeper into our readers' backgrounds. The personas created through Figma helped provide insight on our readers' demographics, as well as, their goals and challenges. Through our personas, we also defined how our magazine SICC can help our readers achieve such goals, and overcome their challenges.
2
Design Decisions
Once the initial process of researching our audience was completed, I then developed a first iteration of our brand's image. During this process I defined our magazine's tone and style, colour, typographic treatment, photography, and iconography. Through careful consideration of our design decisions, I wanted to create a magazine that both attracted our intended audience and reflected the hopeful stories found within.
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Inspired by film photography and retro aesthetics, I emulated the flat graphics style, vibrant colours, and bold shapes found in 80s design. This choice, I believe, helped bring in a cool, youthful, and positive style that could be relatable and uplifting to adolescents. Furthermore, with our magazine focusing on diagnosed adolescents, we believed it was equally important to make our content accessible, thus, colours chosen for our magazine were tested for contrast using the WCAG 2.0 guidelines to ensure our text was accessible by all readers. While following the WCAG guidelines made designing more challenging by narrowing the selection of colours, in the end, I found it very rewarding to have created designs that were inclusive for our readers.
3
Mock-Up & Final Design
After discussing the design decisions I made with my team and gaining their approval, I then began the final mock-up of our magazine website. Creating a home page and story page using Figma, I mocked-up the envisioned magazine website, using the colours, typography, photography, and general tone and style defined in the design decision process.
Website Story and Home Page Mock-ups
In addition to the website mock-ups, I also designed each page of our magazine media outline, ensuring, once again, that our document matched the branding style I defined previously; this was done using Figma.
Pages from the SICC outline created using Figma
While the final mock-up and document exceeded my own expectations in terms of design, one of the challenges I faced was translating our brand's style to both print and web. For the web design, there was more considerations for the interactions between the user and the platform, in terms of how users would navigate the site, and whether this style of navigation reflected the tone and style I previously defined. For the print design, I took more consideration into the layout of the document itself, ensuring readers were not overwhelmed with content whilst simultaneously ensuring the design fit our brand's image. While I managed to create designs for both print and web, there was certainly different aspects to consider for each media, thus, challenging the ways in which I approached the design.
4
Reflection
Having more practice and being more comfortable with UX design, creating a magazine enterprise as the lead designer definitely challenged my skills in areas of graphic design, an area of design I have had less practice in. Throughout the entire process, I learned a lot regarding creating a brand image in terms of how the defined colours, typography, photography, and iconography add to a brand's tone and style. The process of creating a magazine also further emphasized how important it is to design for users, and how the right design choices can aid in attracting the intended target audience. In terms of skills, I believe I improved in user research, as well as familiarized myself with the design process. Being the lead designer amongst editors, marketers, and publishers, I also learned to interpret various ideas to create a design style that matched the envisioned magazine of my team.
