Setting a new creative direction for the School of Architecture's celebrated student publication.
Overview
Issue is the beloved annual publication of student work from the University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture. As editor in chief, I made strategic design decisions that cut the production budget in half and re-directed those funds to programming and workshops that benefited the School of Architecture community.
My Role
Editor in Chief
As editor in chief, I was responsible for setting the editorial and creative direction of the magazine. I led a team of four graduate students and two undergraduate students to produce the magazine.
The Issue 14 editorial team was: Hannah Bacon, Eeshna Gupta, Eric Joyce, Annie Liu, Krishnan Mistry, and Hannah Williams. Photographs by Justin Viera and Brennen Birch.
Problem
Upon becoming editor in chief and looking over our finances, I was surprised to learn that former teams had spent as much as a third of the magazine's budget on premium paper. By spending the entire budget on publication and materials alone, little money was left over for team development and event programming.
Additionally, past editions of Issue were increasingly sober and serious. Austin, on the other hand, is famously weird. Issue needed to better represent our celebrated identity.
Opportunity
How might we set a beloved student publication on a new course?
Solution
Understanding the Users
Defining the Problem
Design Solutions
Cheaper paper—among other things.
I made the executive decision to embrace cheaper paper. By changing the paper the magazine was printed on and nothing else, we slashed our production cost in half. Our team embraced economy as our guiding light, manifesting in design decisions throughout the magazine.
We set most text in the free typeface Arial (yes, the Helvetica knockoff) and limited ourselves to one color—a radiant orange weird enough for Austin. For a bit of fun, we produced a small run of stickers created from scale figures that students contributed from their architecture presentations.
Results
Process
Outcome
"I got a magazine like this from every architecture school I applied to, but Issue is my favorite, hands down. It's just so fun and exuberant and down-to-earth and...Austin. Issue is one of the reasons I ultimately chose Texas."
-Feedback from a Graduate Student
Issue 14 was a smashing success with faculty, students, and alumni. To top it all off, we left money in the bank for the next year's team.
Reflections
When in doubt, defer to the experts.
Since none of us had ever published a magazine before, I thought it would be wise to use some of the money we'd saved to bring on some help.
I invited Juliette Cezzar, Associate Professor of Communication Design at Parsons, to Austin to speak to my team. Juliette led our team in a day-long workshop that served as a crash course in magazine publication and graphic design strategy. Juliette also presented a lecture, Is Graphic Design Architecture? Is Architecture Graphic Design?, to the entire school, drawing a standing-room-only audience.
Publishing a magazine is no small feat. Juliette gave our team the direction and confidence we needed to take on the challenge. I am proud of the magazine we produced, but my proudest achievement as editor in chief was giving my team this incredible opportunity to grow as designers by learning from the best.
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