Shanghai American School is an independent, not-for-profit international school located in Shanghai, China. Founded in 1912, SAS has two campuses and over 2,800 students enrolled in Pre-K through 12th grade, making it China's largest international school.
I was commissioned to do two things:
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Overhaul and cleanup the magazine template
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Design two of the special editorial spreads for issue 5
Magazine Template:
The goal was to streamline and cleanup the flagship magazine, Ascent. The magazine is a partnership between the students of Shanghai American School and the communications team. The original magazine had lacked a clear and logical template that would streamline the editorial and design flow. As such the design had morphed and become mismanaged to the corporate brand. Without clear guidelines, the design was losing its readability and weakening the engagement opportunities with the range of readers.
A revised template was produced that utilized best-practice in regard to:
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Strong and clear magazine grid system
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Tight typography (2 fonts) with robust but controlled stylesheets that include locking text to the grid to bring unity to magazine.
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Defined color palette for regular features that clearly align the magazine as part of the SAS brand output.
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Special features can "break" the rules for special fonts for headers and subheads only as well additional colors. This lets the specials shine and be noticed more.
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Clear gutters, guides, margins, baselines, footers, and general signposting
You can see the whole issue using the new template at: https://issuu.com/shanghaiamericanschool/docs/ascent-winter2019_fin-preview
Editorial Design
I was commissioned to design some of the special features for issue 5.
Below are the two features I designed and illustrated.
