ROOTS

A print and online magazine

ART DIRECTION | TYPOGRAPHY & LAYOUT | WEB DESIGN | ILLUSTRATION

Challenge: Create a new cohesive themed magazine, curate its content, and develop its brand.

Solution: The Roots magazine is a quarterly food-driven magazine that focuses on the importance of going back to the roots — a mindful approach to eating and cooking. The magazine is dedicated to all aspects of food — the relationship with food, featured farms, chefs, recipes, urban gardening, modern trends, etc. The magazine has a minimalist aesthetics, clean photography, and thoughtful articles.   

My role: Art direction, Print magazine layout, Illustration, Web design and development

Tools: InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, WordPress

Timeline: 10 weeks

Concept: Art directing a magazine felt like a unique chance to look into any topic one could imagine. I knew straight away that it was an opportunity not to be missed and I thought I had to create a magazine that would cater to my own interests as well as have its niche readership. This is how the Roots emerged.

I have always been curious about food. For thousands of years, food was a straightforward and digestible concept. But in the last two or three generations, food has become a giant, hazy, ambiguous, and scary beast. I created Roots to change the perception of food as of something complex and ambiguous. The Roots truly believes that we are what we eat. It also stands by the idea that eating healthy, respecting your food, and paying attention to it, is the best way to preserve vitality, energy, and stay away from ailments.

Content: The Roots’ content can be described as thoughtful and engaging. I carefully selected all the articles and images to provide a captivating reading as well as inspiration for the Roots' audience. The magazine's content encompasses personal stories, know-how’s, recipes, and much more.

Photography can make or break any magazine, so I was paying extra attention while curating the images for this issue. The photographs are airy, moody, often shot in natural light, showcase people, show close-ups of their faces and surroundings. The Roots’ goal is to encourage its readers to follow into the footsteps of the people featured in the magazine and urge them to try new things: explore a new ingredient, go talk to a real butcher, get to know their farmer, cook something delicious and enjoy it without any distractions — return to mindful eating.

Responsive website: One of the challenges for this project was to create a magazine that would exist over several platforms. In order to make the magazine easily updatable, I hand coded it using WordPress as a CMS system. I also strived to convey the same look and feel that my print magazine had and made sure it conveyed the same brand attributes of graceful, calm, organic, and sincere. I incorporated this aesthetics through the elegant and easy-to-read online typeface Europa, as well as subtle elegant dividers and plentiful negative space.

The online magazine also exists as a means of revenue, supporting the print magazine. It operates through “freemium” business model. It also features advertorials, articles created through partnerships, and has a shop section that sells the items advertised in the print version of the magazine.

PROCESS

Audience: The Roots’ readers are people who are naturally curious, love food, seek guidance. These are people who are looking for like-minders, ideas, and inspiration, as well as ways to improve their health and establish a mindful relationship with food.

Brand and tone: The Roots’ brand is defined as graceful, sincere, organic, crafted, and calm. These attributes are implemented in every page of the magazine through layers, textures, fine lines, clean typography, natural light photography, watercolor illustrations, and plentiful negative space. The nature of the brand also shows in the Roots’ wordmark, through the adapted letterforms of an elegant Baskerville typeface.

Execution of the brand: Due to the wide margins, the combination of symmetric and asymmetric layouts and the use of adapted two and three column modular grids, the magazine stays true to the brand and conveys the feeling of gracefulness, sincerity, and craftedness.