National Geographic Magazine

On May 27th, 2022, a family member celebrated his big day, his wedding. Both families wanted to give something special to the newlyweds. Knowing that they were big fans of National Geographic, we decided to create a magazine in that style. It would include photos of them together, stories from the past, beautiful scenery, and more. As the family’s designated designer, it was my job to put it all together, while every family member contributed something to the magazine.

But how do you create a National Geographic-style magazine that combines NatGeo’s branding with the contributions of all the family members?

My first objective was to study the National Geographic branding. I bought several magazines and visited the library to find more. I also searched online for digital versions and reviewed the branding guidelines. I examined every detail, layout element, and image carefully. In a relatively short time, I developed a solid understanding of the magazine’s style.

In the end, I was proud of the final result:

The impact is in the little details: the date format, the special issue slogan, the title positioned behind his head like in other magazines, and the use of contrast to make the title stand out.

Of course, I can’t show you all of it. There were 80 pages of content, which took quite a while to create. I also want to protect the personal sections, but the country articles are truly magnificent.

This would be a full-page introduction to an article submitted by a family member. Most of the time, I received text in a Word document with low-resolution images. I would then quickly search online for higher-quality images that I could use.

Beautiful pictures. The magazine also included some personalized ads for the couple, mostly featuring jobs they had in the past or products they used.

On the day of their wedding, I gave them their copy. The next day, I was flooded with messages praising how awesome the magazine was. Every page was discussed, with comments about jokes, photos, and more. The other family members were also amazed by the quality of the magazine and their contributions.

Because I put so much time and effort into this project, I was able to submit the magazine for a grade in my studies at HvA. I scheduled a meeting with a teacher to review the product, and we sat down together to discuss it.

She was amazed. She said you could place the magazine around the school, and students would think it was the real thing.

She was so impressed that she gave it a 10, the highest possible score. No issues, nothing to improve.

Looking back, I gave it my all. I spent so much time on the details and assembling everything, and I was very happy with the final result. Sadly, I can’t show you the entire magazine, but perhaps that’s a good thing. It was a personalized product made for a very special couple.