Gaming Article Spread

For this project, I chose an article from a student editorial contest by The New York times, and organized all of the text into a magazine spread, combining it with my own illustration. The original article by Tony Xiao can be read here:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/learning/confronting-toxicity-in-gaming-going-beyond-mute.html

Process

I began by coming up with imagery that could be used for the spread. The article discusses how online gaming culture has become very toxic, and specifically references the game Minecraft.

I wanted to create an illustration that referenced the game while also cleverly demonstrating the concepts discussed in the article, so the first think I did was create some very basic sketches that could fit all of the article content around the illustration (in a way that allowed for a natural reading flow), and the final drawing would be the last thing I did once the layout was decided.

I also created some other layout concepts, with the gray shapes being reserved for illustration space. While the content of the article needed to remain the same (which made organizing the type in an easy-to-read way difficult), I had the freedom of changing the article's title. Some of my concepts used some other names I made.

After some critique, I developed this modified version of the previous mark. I decided to keep the overall shape and type, but simplified the color bars in both number and color. I felt that this version, while easier to look at, did not reflect me or my work as well as the previous iteration of it did. I was also not completely satisfied with the overall shape or type choices carried over here.

I developed this sketch further, and am overall satisfied with the current variant. The type feels more fitting and simpler than the previous type used for my name, the color has returned in a way that I think feels diverse but still simple, and the shaping of the color bars fits the shape of the mark better while addressing the "adidas" problem.