Thesis Project- Week 1

For the first week of my project, I started to plan out my magazine. First, I needed to design a logo for the Magazine brand that will be focused on showcasing repurposed retro tech in the 21st century. For this I looked at the various tech I will be covering, such as vinyls, cassettes, and polaroids in order to see what to base my logo on. The name of the company would be the name of my project, "Retro Revived". Here are some concept logo designs I initially did.

Logo Concepts

I tried to incorporate either the Vinyl or Polaroid as part of the logo to incorporate the feeling of nostalgia to those who would buy the magazine. Splitting these items in half still make the recognizable to viewers, which is why I chose these elements. I wanted to get a seemingly retro looking typeface, one with thicker and smoother strokes, and the other more thin and straight edged. I also wanted to try to give the type a distorted and "glitch" affect to it. This would play off the retro feeling of the magazine and give the name of the brand a more distinct look. After asking friends about which works best, many agreed that the polaroid based logo was the best out of them, and having the thicker typeface with the glitch affect.

Mood Board

Next was to start getting ideas for the magazine, in style, color, and overall layout ideas. For this I created a mood board that would showcase the feeling that I want for this magazine.

For the board you can see that I am trying to go for an older "retro" look for the overall aesthetic. I look major influences from old technology magazines, photography magazines, and The Rolling Stones Perception, & Reality campaign. I wanted the cover to be minimal, using up to one secondary color. For Type I was inclined to use the same "American" typeface from the logo for any headers to keep consistency. I also looked at other famous magazines to understand important placements decisions such as the title, the number of the magazine, and the date it was published. Though these are minor details, their placement matters and are relevant to the hierarchy of the cover.

Initial Cover Designs

The final step was to start creating initial designs for the cover. As I stated earlier, I wanted something that both exhibited a retro feeling, either through color or visuals, but was also able to have powerful imagery. With this I want viewers to be able to have a general understanding what the magazine is about, and to peak their interest of the content inside. These are the initial covers that I designed.

I figured the best approach to the "before & after" feeling was to create a torn page affect. Torn pages also give a older feeling, like original punk rock posters that were torn pieces of other magazines. I decided the initial image should be a repurposed vinyl disk. This is widely known and would give people a lot of nostalgia to see this. After looking through the various color schemes I found, I decided to use both the muted blue, and orange for the two variations. For the first variation, I wanted to try a horizontal tear. For this I positioned the company logo in the top left, the publish date in the top right, and the issue number in the bottom left. For the second variation, I tried a vertical tear. I kept the logo in the top left, moved the issue number to the top right, and moved the publish date to the bottom right. Finally, to give each some texture I added some noise to give them a retro look. After consulting with various classmates the overall favorite was the vertical tear.

For next week, I will fix up the cover, and start on the inside of the magazine.