Project Brief
Koniwa is a magazine about gardening that introduces how to enjoy growing plants with limited space. When the magazine introduces “how-to” content, each step is simple and easy to follow. It includes photographs and illustrations more than text-heavy articles. The layout of each page has nice supporting space, and the contents never look squished. The last part of the magazine includes a shopping catalogue section where readers can purchase products related to plants.
Brand name
Koniwa, meaning “tiny garden” in Japanese, is short and unique. The idea of the word connects to a traditional Japanese way of thinking called “Zen” which basically means “less is more”. The title by itself sounds mysterious to North American readers, but the short tagline helps to tell what the magazine is about.
Design Approach
Not only using photographs but adding my simple line drawings gives more warm and welcoming visual effects on the overall design theme.
Layout for Web (1420 px)
Web content keeps almost all the same content as the printed version. Some layout adjustments were added for images to keep decent white spaces. Web-only contents (video lecture) were added as a bonus to encourage magazine readers to access their webpage.
Layout for Mobile (640 px)
Web and mobile layouts show quite similar layouts (continues scrolling).
Subscription card and web advertisement
Those two items show gift items for subscriptions to get more readers.
Programs used: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign