Gq Magazine
The goal of this project was to research a magazine brand, determine the exact dimensions of their magazines, and examine their brand identity, layout design, and use of type. Then, create a magazine that follows those guidelines while still adding a touch of personal style and creativity. GQ has a very distinct and iconic branding, being more image-heavy, along with having a clean layout for its text. To add an original twist, I used one of my original characters, Tendex, to be the main subject of the cover and the main feature for this specific edition.
This project was made using Procreate, Illustrator and InDesign.
cover design
I created the cover illustration with Procreate. I decided to showcase Tendex as though he’s listening to music for viewers to get a better idea of who he is as a character, his special interests and even his introverted personality. I then brought that illustration into Photoshop to add the GQ logo behind Tendex, and finally brought that updated version to InDesign to add the title, features, barcode, and other elements necessary to make the cover more GQ.
Advertisement structure
While doing research for the advertisement structure for GQ, I discovered that they’re more image-heavy and don’t have much text. It’s usually just the brand name and product name, with some ads spread across two pages.
features
When the features get introduced, I noticed that the introductory page is a spread, sometimes having the title of the feature take up the whole page. As for the actual structure of the story, I noticed that GQ utilizes a 2-column grid with justified left text to have a cleaner and boxier look.
Magazine Spreads
Once all of those components were figured out, the magazine was put together as a GQ magazine, going according to the original guidelines with my own special illustrative twist.
