Independant magazine: REWIND

Editorial Design

Project Image

Student project

2026

OVERVIEW

This project was set to design for a magazine focused on raising awareness of social issues through infographic-led design and the clear communication of quantitative data. As a group we were tasked with designing a double-page spread infographic, supported by a series of animated assets for social media promotion. Within this brief, our group chose to explore the issue of loneliness and social isolation, using data, visual storytelling, and motion to translate complex statistics into an emotionally engaging narrative for a wide audience.

Challenge
I had the opportunity to design an independent magazine on any subject I wanted for this project. Creating a publication with a distinct identity and a cohesive visual language for the cover and all accompanying spreads was a challenge.

I decided to concentrate on nostalgia, a feeling that unites people with memories and experiences from the past. My main challenge was transforming this intangible emotion into a contemporary magazine that was visually appealing without feeling dated.

Solution
To address this challenge, I created REWIND, an independent magazine exploring how past trends continue to shape contemporary culture. The issue designed focussed on Retro Revival, which features articles on film photography, vinyl records, retro fashion, and design.

Retro items formed the foundation of the visual language, while the typography and layout decisions kept the publication feeling current rather than dated.

RESEARCH

I began my research by creating a visual moodboard to explore the look of the magazine. I added together images from independent magazines, nostalgic colours, retro items, and type to see how these elements could work together. This process helped me understand how I wanted REWIND to look and feel. Also helping inform my design decisions moving forward, ensuring the visual language consistently reflected the theme of nostalgia.

DESIGN

I began exploring possible names and masthead concepts for the magazine. After generating several ideas, I focused on three strongest options for names:

  • Archive

  • Pastlife

  • Rewind

Using inspiration from retro magazines and nostalgic typography, I experimented with a range of styles including:

  • Bold serifs

  • Condensed sans serifs

  • Overlapping letterforms

  • Pixel-based type

My aim was to create a masthead that captured the feeling of nostalgia while remaining distinctive and contemporary. The final masthead chosen was ‘rewind’  having the ‘w’ as the rewind icon, with repeating yesterday as the tagline alongside it. 

I explored several cover concepts inspired by vinyl records, Polaroids, and the rewind icon used in the masthead before selecting the Polaroid concept as the final direction. I wanted the magazine feel tactile so details like making the polaroid a sticker and foiling the masthead helped create a cover that feels personal and easily recognisable.

Typography became a key tool in establishing the magazine's identity. After testing many different serif and sans serif options, I chose Skolar as my primary typeface because of its legibility and versatility as a superfamily.

These design decisions together shaped the magazine, the final outcome capture the emotions of nostalgia while presenting it through this editorial perspective.