Coterie Magazine

Telling the stories of friendship and books

In collaboration with Annie Cardi and Alanna Meredith Hughes

Project Overview

A coterie is an intimate and often exclusive group of persons with a unifying common interest or purpose. Mr. Basile, my high school English teacher, saw three young women huddled around copies of Harry Potter and dubbed us “the Coterie of Readers.” We loved the name so much that we adopted it. And since then, nearly twenty years later, we’re still the Coterie. And we’re still a book club! 
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This magazine is an invitation into a twenty year friendship and book club. It tells the evolving stories of three people and the books we read. This magazine is a little slice of the Coterie of Readers. It’s a literary magazine, and it’s a story about growing and lasting friendship.

Time

12 Weeks

Roles

Art Direction
Visual Design

Skills

Research
Typography
Copywriting
Print Layout
Illustration

Tools

Procreate
Illustrator
InDesign
Photoshop

Content

Content directed the design of this magazine. The articles are authored by the members of the coterie, and reflect the inner workings of our book club. The contents include book reviews, fiction, reflection, and emails to each other. It was really important to consider who would be reading this magazine, beyond the three authors! We very much felt that our unique voices, individually and collectively, would be relatable and inviting.

Audience

Coterie readers are people who love reading. They grew up with Harry Potter, but now struggle with what they’ve read about JK Rowling. They read books to their kids. They read before bed. They treasure their bookish friends, and send recommendations whenever they come across something fun. They believe in the magic of reading and imagining. Coterie readers are also people who reflect on friendship. They know that romantic relationships aren’t the only kind of lasting love, and that their long-term relationships should be treasured. 

Typography

The articles were organized and laid into a flatplan, which helped me create the flow and estimate where illustrations would be placed. I also began to create a grid and think about the structure of each article. In order to keep a literary feel, I selected body copy and leading that were suited for longer reads, and began to flow the text in. The headline type is my own hand drawn typeface, Marigold, which brings a hand-crafted feeling to the magazine.

Illustration
and Color

I selected a color palette to be used throughout the magazine, and limited all colors to that palette. I created illustrations in Procreate for each article, based on my illustration moodboard. I wanted the illustrations to support the writing, to be interesting, but also to be unified throughout so that the magazine would read as a cohesive piece. I paired the illustrations with the articles and completed the layout.

What's Next?


I plan to Kickstart this magazine and publish it! Stay tuned for updates.
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