True Tales Magazine

Hi Y'all!

Branding Publication Illustration

Overview

True Tales is a fictional true crime magazine focused on giving its readers educational content and new outlets to learn more. Readers can expect articles ranging from true stories, crime statistics, and advances in criminology, as well as less intense articles relating to new content they will enjoy.

Solution

For this project, I created a 24-page magazine publication with custom-illustrated elements. This assignment's options were to either create our own branded magazine or choose an existing brand. I decided to produce my publication titled True Tales, a true crime publication with content for avid crime enthusiasts who enjoy the gritty details and for the more relaxed and casual true crime audience. With multiple revisions of content and style to better connect with the reader and become more modern, this magazine has its place on a reader's coffee table.

Logo Process

With the original name intended to be True Mystery, the logo design process became more difficult due to the vast differences in the word's length. Thus with some more brainstorming, the name was changed to True Tales, a more catchy alternative. The logo began as a stacked option but, after much feedback, was reduced to a single line and absent of all-round edges to appear more modern and sleek.

General Process

Wordlisting and Flatplans

General Standards

Cover Development

Originally designed to correspond with a different article, the cover began as photos manipulated with cover overlays, a preliminary design choice nixed from the piece, and then the cover art. With the feature article switched to the evolution of crime scene photography. With this change, I decided the cover should include sketch-style illustrations with found photo components to better fit into the publication’s feature article. I then added sketch-style illustrations to help censor images on the cover.