Print Design
Solstice:
Literary & Art Magazine
Client
Hinsdale Central High School
YEar
2019
Platform
Tools
Adobe Creative Suite
Awards
2020 Gold Medal& Crown from the Columbia Scholastic Press Association (CSPA)
The Challenge
Compile a 64 page hard copy publication of the schools best literary and art works in 5 months or less... (no biggie).
For 4 years, I participated as a designer in the Solstice club at Hinsdale Central High School in the suburbs of Chicago, IL. I was proud to work my way up the ladder from designer grunt to the Creative Director in my final year.
My Role(s)
Creative Director
I created wireframe templates, led the theming discussions that influenced the overall look of the final issue, and had final say on all selected artworks.
As creative director, my largest contribution was leading 15 other designers as well as acting as liaison between the 'design side' and 'literary side' to ensure that the publication came together cohesively and represented everyone's ideas and contributions.
Design Process
Design Inspiration
For the 15th issue of Solstice, it was jointly decided through a group brainstorm that the theme of the year would be BANG! We tried to think of all the possible meanings and visual uses the word could have on our design. Obviously the big bang came up so we leaned into the space, light speed aesthetic for some of the spreads but we also thought about what bang leaves behind. The bang of a gunshot leaves bullet holes. Bang leaves cracks in concrete and shattered glass in its wake. So, we also found a way to incorporate these more subtle uses of bang into textured backgrounds using photoshop brushes.
Iteration(s)
While we waited for submissions to come through, I started working on templates for the rest of the designers to use for each spread to ensure a cohesive look throughout the publication. This resulted in 11 different spreads that designers could paste the given content into. A select few are shown to the left.
Another notable decision was made to have the publication be a landscape 11x8.5 versus a portrait book most people are used to seeing. However, the landscape layouts benefitted us more for our purposes because it gave us more width to display some of the art pieces at full scale if we wished. I highly recommend this for any publication that wants to display large selections of hero images.
Final Publication
I will forever be grateful for my time working with the Solstice publication. Though it was a high school experience, something that I should eventually outgrow, I learned how to communicate effectively, how to organize my work, how to defend my decisions in a design context, and how to take critiques. All these skills I learned throughout high school were things I would relearn in college and watch as my peers struggled to internalize these lessons that would be crucial to their success. So, I am grateful to have spent that time and gain these achievements so early in my career.
