Branding and designing a magazine dedicated to exploring our diverse, interconnected world.
The magazine
Perfect Strangers is a biannual publication dedicated to the cross-cultural. Within its pages, contributors from across the globe explore their complicated roots and complex identities.
We were approached by the editor of Perfect Strangers to help develop the branding and creative approach for the inaugural issue of the magazine.
The brand idea
The notion of exploring and exploration lies at the heart of the brand; we wanted readers to feel as if they were roaming through the content, traversing new territories and discovering new perspectives and voices along the way.
The right type
A key part of the branding was the type system we devised. Hero typefaces were selected to match each of the issue’s eight themes — Food, Forms, Music, Partners, Places, Screens, Society, and Words.
Creative cartography
Brand marks and flourishes such as custom brushstrokes, border outlines and crosses were all inspired by the finer details and craft of cartography. Dotted throughout the issue, these elements help the reader navigate the fascinating territories covered within Perfect Strangers.
Tying it together
The foundation of our layout was something we termed “the unconventional grid”, a highly flexible grid design upon which all the other brand elements could come together — from our cartographic marks, to photography, illustration and copy.
The cover
Foiling was applied to the cover masthead for an elegant and tactile finish. We also commissioned an illustrator to create an inside cover pattern that serves as a visual introduction to the magazine’s themes.
Image and colour
Photography is a bright, bold feature throughout the magazine, especially on articles with tip-ins. Our colour palette was also inspired by the warm, earthy tones of the photography supplied to us.
A cross-cultural production
Collaborating from our London office with an editor based in San Francisco and a printer based in Berlin, the branding, production and design of Perfect Strangers was itself a cross-cultural endeavour.
You can find out more about the magazine at perfectstrangersmag.com
See more of our branding and publishing work on our site.
