ROLE: Designer, Author, and Editor
Sound and Stage is a 28-page music magazine that explores everything from artists and live performances to the culture surrounding music. For this issue, I chose to focus specifically on the history of iconic New Jersey music venues, including the Wellmont Theater, Starland Ballroom, and The Stone Pony. My goal was to create a visually engaging magazine that captured the energy of live music while also telling the stories behind these venues and the impact they have had on music culture.
The idea grew naturally from the research I had already completed for my Wellmont Theater campaign. After spending so much time learning about the theater and its history, I felt it was only right to take that research further and turn my interest in music history into an entire magazine. I expanded my research to other venues and began developing Sound and Stage.
I took inspiration from magazines like Rolling Stone and Clash. One of my weaknesses as a designer has been never allowing enough negative space in my work, so I challenged myself to make this magazine less flashy and more intentional. Instead of relying on graphics to fill every space, I wanted the photography, typography to carry the design. I used bold type, concert imagery to capture the feeling of being at a live show without taking attention away from the history I was telling.
There were many rough drafts, topic changes, layout revisions, and even different venues considered before the final magazine came together. Surprisingly, writing the articles became one of the easiest parts of the process. The challenge was taking all of my research and deciding what actually mattered to the reader. I learned how to pull out the strongest facts and turn them into stories that were informative but still short and easy to read.
Sound and Stage became more than a magazine project for me. It challenged me to work on an area of design I was less comfortable with while combining several things I enjoy.
