Media Kit
About the Project
With the ability to select the subject matter, name, cost, and features, this project is a fully custom project which presented the opportunity to exercise typography, layout and content writing skills.
Client: Self Directed
Category: Editorial Design
Description
Created a media kit for #TeenMagazine that provides advertisers and advertising agencies with information on the magazine’s readership, advertising rates, editorial policy, and production requirements.
Target Audience: Advertisers, advertising agencies, marketing publications, interested brands.
Production Criteria: Full Bleed, Letter Size, Color
Design Timeline: Two Weeks
About the Magazine
#TeenMagazine is an American lifestyle magazine for teenage girls and boys. It includes stories about fashion, education, sports, celebrities, and current affairs.
The dedicated editorial team brings the success stories, dreams and aspirations of the youth to pages of the publication. The stellar content creates an exceptional reading experience for the readers.
#TeenMagazine is a monthly publication that is available in both print and digital versions. The advertising includes but not limited to traditional mass print advertising, online advertising, and social media.
The Thought Process
1. Creating an appropriate layout structure with the best style concept is fundamental to having a great editorial design. The approach was to build a design environment that will focus more on the content. To achieve this, typography, grid, and images were used as the key ingredients.
2. Aimed at giving a modern as well as a trendy flavor to the design as the magazine targets youth. Inspiration was taken from various youth magazines and media documents. Importance was given to the visuals, the layout was not kept monotonous, a lot of white space was used and significant content was presented within tables to give more attention to it.
3. Layout was kept clean with use of ample white space which let the images and text shine through. The aesthetic was minimalist, elegant and stylish.
Color Palette
As the editorial is aimed at both men and women, neutral colors were consciously chosen. This palette will also not distract the content.
Significance: Yellow stands for optimism while it stimulates energy. Rose is for tenderness and playfulness. Teal represents open communication and clarity of thought.
Typeface
Helvetica The modern and neutral sans serif typeface, Helvetica was used not just because it’s trendy, it remains bold and obvious, even in point sizes below 12.
Capriola The unusual glyphs are quite noticeable in large sizes which allows for distinctiveness.
Information Architecture
The design of the media kit also involved planning for the presentation of the content. Content comprised of text, images and other kinds of visual elements. Developing content while designing the layout would have led to unnecessary hassles and an inconsistent output. So, the content was finalized before work on the booklet design commenced. Labeled and organized content help the user to access information easily and effectively.
Exploration with Sketches
The Design Steps
1. Template
To quickly get started with the set plan, a template was created. The margins, column guides and style sheets were loaded to build an overall pattern. Having the basics of the page already in place helped to focus on styling and arranging the content.
2. Cover Design
Details like background color and the placement of typeface can seem less important on a cover. But they add up to creating a book that will either sell well or won’t. A minimalist design style was followed that also gelled well with the layout outline of the inside pages.
3. Consistent Style
Recycle elements that repeat across multiple pages were created - like the yellow bubbles, rose dotted lines and yellow bars. Teamed with consistent font styling, these elements unified the contents of the book, bringing in consistency and unique style.
4. Visual Hierarchy
Size was used to enhance. Images that occupy most space on the page got the most attention. Color and contrast also decided what is more important on a page. Varying point sizes given to typefaces determined the significance of the content.
5. Genre Setting
High-end fashion magazines seem to use modern serif fonts like Didot and Bodoni. That eventually evolved to become the industry norm. Similarly, a style statement for #TeenMagazine that speaks for the content and target audience was incorporated. Typeface, colors, and layout were decided also based on this parameter.
6. Print Specs
The bleed was properly set, the color mode was set to CMYK and all the selected images used were in high resolution. Also, the dimension of the document was verified.
Page Layout
Consideration of Cognitive Psychology Principles
1. Gestalt Principles
Concepts of similarity and proximity were used to organize information in a unified manner.
2. Cognitive Load
Content was devised considering how much the users can perceive in a given time frame.
3. Mental Model
Industry best practices were retained in the design to help the users quickly find what they are looking for.
Overview
The media kit offered advertising and marketing opportunities to potential advertisers of #TeenMagazine. The kit allowed advertisers to know what each issue of 2019 features. This will help them devise their marketing plan. The production requirements and advertisement rates circulated will help the advertisers make informed decisions.
Challenges
In this digital age, there is a misconception that print is dying and digital is the only way to survive and thrive. In fact, print revenue accounted for twothirds of the overall advertising revenue for #TeenMagazine.
Convincing potential advertisers that print is still big business in the magazine industry was quite challenging.
Outcome
The data educated potential advertisers on how #TeenMagazine can help them meet their marketing goals. The content and design of the media kit convinced the advertisers that #TeenMagazine is the appropriate medium for communicating their messages with a specific target audience.
Experience and Learning
1. A distinct, informative media kit was created through a unified design of images, text, color, and movement while staying within the genre of the brand.
2. While designing the media kit, even though I was prompted to make the pages fancier I refrained from doing so as I was very clear about the purpose of the booklet. It is very important to keep in mind the target audience when designing. It doesn’t make sense to create something that pleases the designer but it should be only meant for the consumer.
3. Open-mindedness towards the brief, confidence in my design skills, problem-solving under the given timeline and the ability to communicate helped in successfully completing this project.
