Night Owl Magazine
Art Direction, Layout
Problem
There are many reasons why people are up late in the night. Especially with the COVID-19 pandemic, many sleep schedules have been uprooted.
How might we create a resource for people who are awake at night that engages and offers comfort?
Solution
Created by and for those up who are up late, Night Owl magazine exists to keep its readers company during the off-hours when things seem a little more surreal.
role
Layout, Art Direction, Curation, Typography
collaborators
Solo
time
11 weeks
tools
InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Miro, Figma
Client
Student project
jump to solution
Process
Following concept ideation, I built personas, a moodboard, and a flatplan to provide me with direction. I curated articles and focused my visual design on creating an open, relaxed layout for a 44 page magazine that would be engaging its audience.
Process Overview
Audience
There are numerous reasons to be up late, from working night shifts, to taking care of others, to insomnia. Night Owl’s audience consists of anyone who is awake and alone.
To ensure I was working towards a specific direction, I created three personas:
“The Classic Insomniac.” Up too late and awake too early, this reader wants to relax and engage his mind while he waits to take his child to school. He is intellectual, curious, and interested in the surreal.
Click to Expand
The second persona is “Temporarily Up.” A new mother, she is awoken to nurse frequently throughout the night. She often feels isolated while up with her baby and wants to feel connected to others.
Click to Expand
The third persona is the true “Night Owl.” She generally prefers to be up late at night rather than awake early in the morning, but struggles to turn her mind off from work. She wants distraction from the lists in her head when she is still up at 3 am.
Click to Expand
Solution
Night Owl magazine offers a resource to its audience by encouraging them to recognize they are not alone despite the loneliness often felt in the night.
The magazine is broken into three sections:
Advice
Readers and experts offer their approaches to dealing with sleep disruption. Not only does this provide information, it also reminds the reader that they are not the only one who struggles with sleep.
Analysis and commiseration
More in-depth articles that focus on sharing experiences and analyzing the more complex causes of being up late. If the reader wants to go deeper and more fully engage their mind this is the section they can turn to.
pure distraction
With stories designed to put the reader to sleep, puzzles, and less serious content, this section is intended to engage the reader with something other than their inability to sleep.
Solution
original Flatplan
By building a flatplan, I had a guide for content placement and a foundation for my layout.
Flatplan
Solution
moodboard
The moodboard and a series of design recipes defined the visual language.
Moodboard
Pure to Expressive Design 'Recipe'
Solution
Night owl Issue one
While Night Owl focuses on a different topic each issue (ranging from sleep disorders to our annual Halloween bump-in-the night issue), this particular issue spotlights insomnia, the most common sleep disorder in the United States.
Cover Design
Table of Contents
Feature Well: Article Opener
Feature Well: Article
Feature Well: Photo Story
Back of Book: Puzzles
Solution
full magazine
Reflections
final thoughts
This project gave me the opportunity to practice my layout skills, my typography, and my art direction. After landing on the magazine concept and building my personas, I quickly developed my sense of brand. With more time, I would have loved to add in a bit of illustration to push the design even further.
Next steps
If I were to push this project further, I would physically put the magazine in front of a few representatives of the audience in order to receive feedback. I’d be curious if the articles and activities in the magazine successfully meet their needs.
