Editorial Design
Designed and art directed numerous departments requiring a wide range of design skills, team collaboration, and organizational skills. Many required working closely with illustrators on various types of illustrated content, art directing photo shoots and upholding design standards for highly successful franchise content. Also, participated and provided design support on special initiatives and annual events that the Kids magazine team, such as setting Guinness World Records, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed working with the magazine team and on such challenging and engaging designs. Below is a sampling of my work along with a brief description.
30 Cool Things About
This department features cool facts about a topic. The design uses a tight grid layout made up of a mix of photographic and typographic treatments for each fact. While being one of the more time-consuming designs, it's also a fun puzzle to put together.
By The Numbers
This department features infographic-style content surrounding a specific topic. Each topic receives a specific design solution based on the nature of the content and often utilizes illustration or photo collage style visuals.
Illustrated Departments
Departments like History's Greatest Hits, Destination Space, and What Would Happen, feature illustrated content that requires working closely with several artists on various styles of content. These can range from one feature piece as in Destination Space, to multiple pieces in a series depicting timelines such as in History's Greatest Hits, and multiple pieces showing a funny visual representation of the scenario as in What Would Happen.
Chew On This
This department features a dish and accompanying recipe. It requires creating the dish, and staging a photo shoot for it as well as the ingredients. This required close work with the editorial and the photo team and careful art direction to achieve the desired visuals.
Weird But True
This department features weird fun facts visualized through photographic or typographic treatments. Each fact gets its own design and then the facts are arranged in a flexible grid on the page. While often a time-consuming design, this department is always a fun puzzle to put together. It's also been spun off into a very successful franchise for Nat Geo Kids books as well as online content, podcasts, apps, and more!
Many More
There are many more rotating departments that I worked on over the years. Below is a sampling of just a few. Each requires a different set of design skills, covers a wide range of topics, requires unique design solutions, and even occasionally cobranded special contests and advertisements. Many of these evolved into books that I also worked on design and development for.
