Naturelle Magazine

The mockup cover of my magazine, Naturelle

Client: City of Bath College/coursework
Date: January 2014, 1st year City of Bath College Creative Media Level 3 BTEC

Contents page mockup (my favourite page)

Cosmetics and beauty products are my biggest guilty pleasure, so my mind instantly jumped to them when we were given the brief of creating a magazine with the theme of minority. A bit unorthodox for the topic, but cruelty-free beauty products and enthusiasts of said products are a definite minority! It's near impossible to find affordable products that are kind to your body, animals and the environment - mainly because not enough people care, so many big cosmetics companies see no reason to stop using animal testing and including harmful ingredients in their products.

The idea of a conscientious, girly consumer is who my magazine, Naturelle, was aimed at. Naturelle would feature articles about a wide range of generic female topics - most of which with a "natural", eco/body/animal-friendly spin on them where necessary. As you can see on the cover, headlines include carbon neutral swimwear and vegetarian recipes, but also dating tips - very typical of any women's magazine like Cosmopolitan, Glamour, etc.

I don't think I would attempt to market this magazine to any publishing houses, given the chance. I doubt there is the market for it - however, convert the idea to web format and I think it could be successful, featuring user generated content and recruiting the more "natural" beauty bloggers to write content for it.

Two-page title spread for the main headline article about toxic ingredients in makeup

The brief also involved writing a main feature article and coming up with a title spread for it, too. I feel slightly disappointed with the title spread, mainly as it didn't look quite as spectacular as I initially imagined it would. Despite this, I still like how it turned out, particularly the blood drips and the title.

The two-page spread of the article. 

Considering this project was my first ever experience with InDesign, I think the layout of the article went reasonably well! I initially struggled weighing up practicality and legibility vs. design and aesthetic, but I feel like I reached a decent balance in the end, using the kiss motifs to make the page more interesting. If I were to redo this, I would definitely be more adventurous with my layout and I would use colours and images to my advantage instead of shying away from them.