Editorial Design
Maryam Magazine
Cover design for Maryam, a quarterly educational magazine, with a masthead and typographic system built to be reused issue after issue.
- Role
- Cover design, masthead, typographic system
- Disciplines
- Publication, Print
The challenge
A quarterly magazine cover has to do two jobs at once: carry a long quotation as the lead, and still feel like the same publication every issue when the words change. Long quotations are the hard part. Set as a block they read like a notice; set as a headline they lose their meaning.
The approach
I gave the quotation the whole centre of the cover and let it step down through three type sizes, so the eye lands on the key phrases first and reads the rest second. A watercolour blossom border and a soft teal ground frame the page without competing with the words, and the masthead sits in a fixed position in its own pale band so it reads the same from issue to issue. Article titles are kept small and tucked along the lower edge, out of the way of the quotation.
The outcome
The system gives the editorial team a cover they can refill each quarter without redesigning it: change the quotation, swap the titles, keep everything else. Print run and distribution details to be confirmed.
