ABOUT

PROJECT:

Launch and design an Ultra marathon trail-running magazine based in Australia, New Zealand and Asia

CONCEPT:

My company, The Bird Collective, was approached by our client 'Adventure Types' to create a new magazine for the Ultra marathon running market. Adventure Types wanted to encourage the culture of adventure running in remote, exciting locations. At that time, Trail Running was a new 'fad' in the adventure world, and this would be the first 'Trail Running' Magazine in the Asia Pacific region. I was briefed to creative direct the entire process with my client, from concept to branding, style guide creation, design concept, website, marketing, and of course, the actual layout of the Magazine, as we were then contracted to design all issues of the magazine (digital and print) for two years, as part of the founding team.

EXECUTION:

Most of the marketing and content for the magazine was intended to be digital. Primarily, it would be a digital publication. And yet, ironically, our product (trail running) was all about getting physical and connecting to textures and reality. My client and I felt it was funny to be making a Digital Publication encouring people to get off grid. So to communicate this idea of trail-connection to our target market in a more powerful way across the digital medium, I proposed the idea of photographing all the pages of the magazine, on actual trail surfaces. I went out with my camera and captured pieces of paper on all kinds of trail surfaces, and then photographed many trail textures, from grass, to snow, rocks, leaves and so on. I developed an entire stock library of images which I was then able to use as backgrounds for future issues. Then I designed the magazine layout nestled in amongst these trail surfaces. I used photographs of muddied, dirtied pieces of paper as the background 'paper' for the magazine. For the front covers, I had a logo laser cut out of the bottom of a running shoe, and then I positioned the shoe in different trail situations for the Cover photographs of the first six issues. This really hammered the branding home to our market.

RESULTS:

The magazine was such a success, that Adventure Types contracted me to produce two more magazines. I went on to create similar concepts for Vertical Life and Paddle Magazine, which covered the Adventure Paddling and Rock climbing markets.

Our readers gave endless positive feedback about the magazines. The design of Trail Run Mag was frequently commented on, and my artwork for the publication was eventually selected to feature in Communication Arts, which is the largest International Design Magazine in the world.