Shuffle Magazine

A magazine covering Atlanta's trap music scene

Overview

Timeline

3 months

My Role

Visual Design, Branding, Experience Design

The goal was to showcase a genre of music that is often misunderstood. Trap music is an important part of the South's history and has made its mark on the music world and I wanted to explore this in a visual approach.

Deliverables

Physical product, Product mockups & prototypes

Brief

Shuffle Magazine is a series where a team and I created a music-themed magazine where each edition covers a different genre, so the proposed subscribers would get an introduction to a new genre every month. I chose to cover 'trap' which is a local genre to Atlanta, GA, and has its roots in the Deep South and has now exploded to take over the entire world. I wanted to explore this genre in this magazine and in particular feature different elements that have been born and raised in Georgia. Trap has a lengthy history and a long-contested one that is only growing more and more.

Intro

Full Flipthrough

This is the final flip-through of Shuffle Magazine: Trap Edition. I worked with my team to create a comprehensive branding system and we each then had the opportunity to explore our different genres in different visual representations. I chose to feature the Trap Music Museum as the feature article after taking a visit and referenced this visit throughout the entire magazine.

My goal was to accurately visually portray the energy and life of trap music that has taken the world by storm. I personally love listening to trap music and all of its sub-genres and I thought it only made sense to pay homage to this genre that started in the city of Atlanta. I was conscious of maintaining respect not only to the genre, but the people that made this genre what it is today and am always driven to learn more about it and its diverse history.

Front Cover

I decided on a sketch type of effect on the overall logo to reference the street and rebellious nature of the trap genre that is present in a lot of its culture.

I also took a picture of a piece from the Trap Music Museum and edited it in Lightroom to create different lighting effects to get the best bold pop of color.

*THE ORIGINAL PIECE ON THE FRONT COVER IS BY PHOTOGRAPHER JONATHAN MANNION*

Here is a feature of the full spread of the front and back cover. The photograph is consistent from front to back and the back cover features a pattern of the Shuffle Magazine logo to help establish brand awareness and create some diversity and excitement in the design.

The spine features the title consistently with each edition featuring a different month per music edition.

Feature Article

"Welcome to the Trap" is the title of the main featured article. The article highlights the pop-up museum's addition to the Atlanta landscape that tells a visual story of trap through different artifacts showcasing different rappers and their varied stories. The museum was co-founded by Atlanta rapper T.I and Antwanette McLaughlin.

I highlighted different features of the museum like the initial corner store decorated entrance to the implanted pink trap house by 2Chainz, and different art installations using photography. I kept the color palette consistent throughout the article to help guide the reader and serve as a visual reminder of the starting and end checkpoints.

Supporting Articles

For the magazine, I included two supporting articles that highlight two important aspects of the trap genre, the new generation of women who are taking over the rap world and the producers behind these heavy major hits. I wanted to highlight their power equally to the rappers who have established this genre as this genre is always growing.

I utilized two different illustration styles to create a bold cover photo for the start of the article and referenced different cultural elements that have not been akin to trap music like old traditional paintings.

Ads & Complementary Content

For the supplemental content such as the advertisements and the "Need to Know" section, I created illustrations, photography, and recreated various brand slogans like Nike. The "Need to Know" section was included in each edition as the general vocabulary and terminology that a reader would need to know to understand this genre.

I centered the ads around Atlanta and made sure the content had bold pops of colors and still aesthetically similar to the rest of the magazine to make sure it was all coherent and consistent.