Sam Garratt (editor of the university magazine at The Academy of Contemporary Music in Clapham) contacted me recently regarding the first issue which was due to come out in April. He was looking for a graphic designer to work with him and his team on the magazine called Soundcheck as they needed a logo and the general design created.
As for the logo, he wanted something that resembles contemporary music. Later I showed him some sketches that incorporated sound waves or knobs or this amp and they decided to go with the latter one. After some minor tweaks of the lettering I started to deal with the magazine.
It was quite challenging because the deadline was close but the content writers were not done with the articles yet. So I had to start building up the layouts without knowing anything about the text’s length or the attached images. So I started putting together the cover using a temporary image just too see how to place the logo, the titles and what fonts to use. After that I continued with the 2nd and 3rd page because by that time I received a temp file that showed that there will be the editor’s note and a list of content on these pages.
I wasn’t really sure what kind of theme they’d be fond of so made one with a youthful, little bit of diy-ish vibe and the reaction was very positive. Although Sam wanted to see ever changing layouts, I tried to sneak back elements of the diy theme later on in the following pages to maintain some kind of consistency.
art from scratch 