Magazine 6000 is the first project I took on as SomeChuppy Studio and right after the closing of Plus 4 Creative (the partnership business I was formerly part of).
I decided to work alongside some of my former business partners from Plus 4 Creative for this project. Ann Marie, because this project wanted to achieve a minimal, black and white, edgy and sophisticated look, which was definitely up Ann Marie's alley and Shawn Flett because he could do both web design and web development, which is perfect for this project since the client was looking to open an editorial website.
This was the initial brief, which I condensed multiple meeting notes into one proposal brief to confirm that the client and I were on the same page. I have cropped out the client's details for their privacy reasons, but there will be a link to their website and social media to check out at the bottom of this project entry!
In a nutshell, the client, Holly, wanted to open an editorial website that was inspired by DAZED & CONFUSED, VICE, Complex, Broadsheet, etc. as she wanted to share local journalism and start conversations with her platform. She was looking for branding and an editable website from us. A non-negotiable was that it definitely had to be a black and white design. My initial reaction was that this was going to be a challenge since I had always been designing with colour, at the same time, I was excited to try something different.
I decided to include more pages of the original proposal because as I was managing this project (the client went through me) and I hired Ann Marie and Shawn on the basis that they would be the right fit for the project, I did want to try a new process different to Plus 4 Creative. This new process would trial a "stylescape" phase, something I picked up from The Futur.
We used the Futur's Stylescape video to help us create a stylescape that would better pitch a potential brand look to the client.
The stylescape would help to narrow down the vision of the client because in the consultation sessions, what was told would be broad and open. The only way to narrow it down would be to use to stylescapes to capture several visions of the client and from that, the stylescape would influence the branding - logo and website.
The examples don't belong to me, but belong to Shawn & Plus 4 Creative as we tried out our own stylescapes for our own Plus 4 branding but never trailed the process it with a client.
Because I didn't feel confident in what I was doing and whether I knew anything about minimal, black and white, edgy designs, I researched really hard at it. The 3 pages of research at the end of that photo grid isn't everything as I had a total of 7 pages altogether. You can read about it if you want to be nosy ;)
I looked at multiple sites to get an idea of the what the client wants and is inspired by.
The task was to come up with stylescapes to pitch an idea look to the client. Since the proposal and quote only covers delivering 3, I asked Ann Marie to make 2 since she was comfortable with this style. I did, however, end up making more than 2 but filtered down to choosing just 2 that I thought worked best.
Here are my prototypes:
I ended up going with 2 stylescape designs to show the client which I've put below.
Below are Ann Marie's concepts.
Ann Marie's 2nd Concept:
After I had compiled all the rationales and stylescape presentation together, it was time to meet with the client. The verdict came out and Ann Marie's design was the winner!
Below we had refined the concept via client request/feedback.
Luckily, Ann Marie nailed it because the client ended up going with one of the revised designs and that was it - the chosen stylescape has emerged!
The next step after deciding on a brand style guide was working on a logo.
I ended up with 2 concepts and Ann Marie had also made 2, similar to the stylescapes, we were meant to deliver only 3 but ended up giving 4 concepts, which we wrote it off as a bonus for the client.
Below are my concepts to show the client and its rationales.
Ann Marie's concepts below:
"There's a glitch".
Ann Marie's 2nd concept was called "Only the essential".
We started naming our concepts inspired from The Futur's Building a Brand Series.
After a meeting with Holly, she had requested us to do a few mock-brand collateral for her to get an idea of how the logo would look like on different material.
This is what I submitted:
Ann Marie's submission:
Holly ended up going with Ann Marie's design in the end as her final choice.
The last part of the branding was to create the styleguide and export the logos which I requested the client get black and white versions of a horizontal, vertical and watermark logo that would give the client versatility for both print and digital.
With everything decided, I made a styleguide for the client.
With the stylescape, logo and styleguide completed, it was time for the website to be created. Shawn would start at the beginning of 2021 to work on the web design and then the coding and development of the website. At that point, I was more of an overseer of the project while Shawn liaised with Holly himself and organised his own meetings.
Although I created a styleguide, I did leave it open so that Shawn can develop the brand as he develops the website.
Here is some of the finished work of Shawn's.
I'm writing this with the project being completed in April 2021.
The website is already live and so is Magazine 6000's social media!
Go check it out to see the full project in place!
Above: Social media graphics I made for my own social media account.
So this is one of those projects while I collaborated with my former business partners, it's also a rejected archive project entry. However, I'm grateful, it's given me an opportunity to explore a different style to what I'm used to and given me another opportunity to work once more with my former Plus 4 team who I worked besides. It was challenging and lovely. No amount of work went to waste because it was all invaluable learning lessons.
Shawn & Ann Marie has since moved on from freelancing and now work full-time under other design studios in Perth, Australia. Unfortunately, both Ann Marie & Shawn don't have Behance otherwise I would have tagged them.
Ann Marie has 2 accounts - photography & drawing (no graphic design sadly)
