Shayli Hone Photography: A Digital Publication
It’s been 2 whole semesters since my last adventure with Mag+. This time however, was a much better experience and a lot less stressful. In fact, I finished the actual putting together of my project within 2 days (not consecutive). That’s pretty impressive if I say so myself.
Our projects were revolved around an actual client that we had to seek out ourselves. It wasn’t too hard to find someone because I was already creating a website and logo for a friend’s photography business, Shayli Hone Photography (look her up). There were no real hesitation when discussing this project with her, she thought it would be fun and really useful for her business.
I wanted to approach her publication differently, and instead of doing a portfolio style publication, I wanted it to be a guide for her clients. I know when working with photographers people tend to have a lot of questions, either about their work, styles, vendors, etc. This way, I could create an all inclusive guide on what to expect when working with her.
The Planning:
When I first started to plan out how to approach this project, I obviously needed ideas on what each article would be about. I brain stormed a few things and came up with a list, that I obviously revised a few times before coming up with the final plan.
Once everything was mostly finalized, it was time to sketch out what I wanted my pages to look like. It didn’t take a lot of work because I knew I would end up changing a few things about the layout, and I wanted that freedom. I just drew some lines and wrote in some text, and that was my sketching phase.
Construction Phase:
The construction of my project actually started during our first review session in class. I finished my cover and part of my table of contents (which later was revised). I wanted the cover to feel minimal, but also editorial. I put a photo from one of my favorite shoot’s she’s done on the cover, lowered the opacity, and then added her business name. Initially I had her logo but I thought it didn’t look right. As I said, I wanted this to look very editorial, and I felt like just putting her business name accomplished that. Like I said, minimal.
The second page I only put the image that was on the cover. I wanted it to feel like a really fancy magazine, or book, where they’ve put a tissue-like paper over an image, and when you turn it, it shows the image. Something like this:
Obviously creating a design like this digitally doesn’t have the same satisfaction as seeing it in person, and flipping the page yourself. However, I wanted to show that even though it is digital, you can have the same design style and make it editorial.
The rest of the publication was fairly simple, I didn’t want to put a lot of interactions into it because it’s not supposed to be this “wowing” publication. In fact, I thought doing that and adding a lot of interactions would be more distracting for her clients, especially because it’s not supposed to be look-book.
Initially, I wanted to create a help guide for those who would go through this, but the more I got into the design, I realized I only really had one action that would need a guide, and that was tapping. I had created a custom plus sign and put it in more subtly throughout, so someone wouldn’t see it right off the bat and think, “Oh, that’s symbol means I need to tap it.” Instead of creating a whole section for a guide, I just added a small note on the TOC page that said that they could find this symbol throughout the publication.
The most unique page in this publication, was the inspiration page. I basically ditched my guide and ditched my layout scheme because I didn’t want it to be formal and organized. I wanted the inspiration page to look like a mood board, which mood boards aren’t very organized and they are mainly a place to put all sorts of elements into it. I ended up creating it in Hype because I wanted there to be animations in it to make it even more unique.
In talking to my client, she expressed the different things that inspired her, and although they were random things, I noticed they could be grouped, which is what I did. She also had a Pinterest board that I took ideas from.
Obviously Pinterest is already one big mood board that you can put into categories. It would’ve been easier to take these photos, and created a Pinterest board within her publication, but that didn’t feel authentic. I wanted to approach her mood board as if it were something physical that she actual cut out pieces for and glued them on. I added little elements like dried flowers in there, to represent that feeling.
To Conclude:
Even though I’ve had a love hate relationship with Mag+, this was one of my favorite projects this semester. Although it was simple and minimal, I put a lot of thought into each thing I did. I didn’t want to force anything or completely ruin my client’s brand identity to prove a point. I did the best I could to represent her photography style in this publication, and I think I accomplished that really well. I mean, my client likes it, and that’s the most important thing. I’m glad I had the chance to create something from scratch, especially because I had a lot of creative control over her brand. It was fun to not have to worry about checking the assignment marks, but rather checking the client’s marks. This is what real life is like, I assume, and it may never be this simple again, but at least I got that experience.
