I work as the creative director and graphic designer at Papercut magazine. Visit the website to view all full issues.
Papercut began as a magazine that filled a gap in publishing by creating a place to feature emerging designers on the cutting edge of the creative industry. After 5 very successful years where we featured artists who later became names in their industries, including Lara Jade, Macklemore, Jaimie Alexander, Lindsay Adler, and more, we realized Papercut could evolve beyond it’s initial conception and become something more.
Working closely with the Managing Editor we came up with a concept that expanded upon our original purpose. We considered what content we would most like to see as creatives and realized what was missing was the voices of the artists. So Papercut became a magazine for artists by artists, where the artists told their own stories.
The redesign was all about organizing different types of information we might receive, showcasing the art and it’s story without distraction, and fitting the layout to the story. To best tell each story individually we came up with a color and icon system that would identify each industry we featured: photography, fashion, art, music, and more. A second set of icons that would identify different kinds of information artists wrote about their stories: inspiration, technical information, meaning behind the work, etc. From there we worked with a very clean layout that could adapt to each individual story to best fit the content.