Magazine Layout Design, CAI SoCo
CHALLENGE: CAI is an international organization dedicated to creating better covenant-governed communities, with 61 chapters worldwide. The Southern Colorado Chapter wanted to put together a quarterly printed informational magazine for members.
Audience: CAI members and supporting associates
Content: articles covering issues such as maintenance, finance, and dealing with homeowners, while also including paid advertisements to offset the cost of the publication
Purpose: to present very ‘dry’ content to its members in a visually appealing way
PROCESS: The overall design began with the visuals and thinking about how they would be connected throughout the publication considering that the content would be less than exciting.
I began with a masthead design. The thin connecting rule from this design, as well as the cover design in general, are used as design elements throughout the magazine, from the folio to specialty page headers. Even the spine of the printed publication provides another representation of this yellow rule.
A variety of templates were designed to keep each piece consistent from issue to issue. CAI wanted each article to stand on its own so article templates are based on a flexible two-column grid to encourage creativity as well as the use of visual elements in each spread. It also had to be easy for the reader to find what they needed, leading to the use of article-associated visual elements in the table of contents.
