Cover of Perspectives Magazine

This is the cover of the first issue of Perspectives, a magazine that I have designed, published by Haileybury School. The publication was developed from a desire to showcase the school’s heritage, current academic and cultural issues and new research about the school’s collections. It has been established in order to examine its role in a variety of cultural practices and issues, and to think critically about the way in which it interacts with other cultural institutions locally, nationally and globally. 

For the design of the magazine, I worked closely with Toby Parker, the Director of Learning and Research at Haileybury. Through a series of conversations and exchanges of visual material, I developed a design that makes some nods to Haileybury’s visual identity but which is distinct enough to stand alone. 

The design is based around a flexible layout that can accommodate different types of information, giving each section of the magazine its own distinct identity. The basic layout is a three column grid with type arranged on one or two columns giving a variety that helps differentiate each article. Titles, body text and images are often hung from a guideline that runs through the magazine giving a sense of order which is occasionally broken to create emphasis or visual energy. I have used type at different sizes, weights and combinations to create interesting titles and headers, arranged in sometimes playful ways with the text and images. 

My initial thoughts for the choice of typeface was to use a serif and sans-serif that have been designed to work together – I initially considered Meta Pro and Meta Serif Pro or Freight Sans Pro and Freight Text Pro. The school’s branding is based around the typefaces Calluna and Calluna Sans, so, although not a requirement to do so, it made sense to use these typefaces in the magazine. Calluna has some interesting characteristics that are revealed when the typeface is used at a larger scale, as on the masthead.

Images are prioritised in the magazine: some were specifically chosen to be placed within particular articles but I was also given another set of images to be placed throughout the magazine to act as punctuation and to create an alternative dialogue that runs alongside the main articles. It was wonderful to be given a free rein to arrange these images and I hope I have placed them in a way that creates another level of reading in the publication.

The plan is to publish the magazine quarterly with issues in Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. Each issue will be themed, with this one titled ‘Innovation’. The magazine is being launched on 14 May and we are already working on the next issue. The magazine is 210mm x 245mm and is printed on Edixion Offset by Gomer in Wales.