From the Alaska Highway Magazine to The Open Road Guide
From February 2025 to March 2025, I was tasked to support the Art Director in creating the covers and layout design for some magazine spreads of the newly branded Open Road Guide. This was the third edition of the now former Alaska & Alaska Highway Travel & Business Guide (otherwise known as the AHM).
Note: All design work featured in this case study is done through Alaska Highway Services and Open Road Publishing.
Project Specs
Roles:
Graphic Designer, Production Artist
Timeline:
February 2025 - March 2025
Tools:
Adobe InDesign, Adobe Photoshop
Tasks:
Conceptualizing and refining cover layout designs
The Problem
An Unimpressed CEO
The CEO of the Open Road Guide was waiting for some concept designs of the new magazine covers for 3 months from the Art Director. When the Art Director submitted one concept design, the CEO and other Directors weren’t pleased. The Director of Marketing noted how all of the typography on the covers weren’t legible and that the overall design looked like it was just put together without any effort.
The Director of Marketing then passed this project to me. She trusted that my minimalistic, yet high effort design style will impress the CEO and other Directors.
The Solution
3 Magazine Cover Concepts in 2 Hours
Both the Art Director and Director of Marketing gave me simple instructions in tackling this project, “Please utilize color and subtle drop shadows to make the typography on the covers legible.” And so, I followed their advice, while also improving the visual hierarchy of the already existing text content.
The deadline for getting the cover concepts was a week. However, I managed to submit three concepts to the Director of Marketing and the CEO within 2 hours.
The Result? A Happier CEO and Relieved Group of Directors
After the concepts were submitted to the CEO and the Director of Marketing, they were then passed around to the other Directors and stakeholders. All of the Directors and stakeholders then gave feedback and decided on one of the concept designs to move forward with.
The Solution in its Final Form
5 Rounds of Iterations Later
After the Directors decided on the one concept design to move forward with, the CEO then gave me more input after each round of iterations. Most of these iterations were just spacing and sizing adjustments.
The final design was then passed onto the Art Director. From there, he finalized the page spread so that it’s ready to send to the printing vendor.
