08 / 08Editorial2019

AITD Magazine

Turning a text-heavy professional magazine into something people actually enjoy reading.

AITD Magazine
Client
AITD
Role
Editorial Designer
Year
2019
Services
  • Editorial Design
  • Layout System
  • Typography
  • Art Direction
  • Infographics

OutcomeLong, information-heavy articles made fun and engaging to read, held together by one consistent system.

01Challenge

A lot of text, made fun to read.

AITD is a professional publication focused on technology, training and workplace learning. Every issue is packed with information: long articles, often dense and academic.

The challenge was to make all that text fun to read and genuinely engaging, without losing any of the substance.

Stack of Training & Development magazine covers with the Future-Proofing Learning issue on top
Training & Development, cover

02Approach

A modular grid built on entry points.

I developed a modular grid around strong entry points, bold typographic hierarchy, secondary lead-ins, pull quotes and infographic-style callouts.

Colour, scale, imagery and white space break up dense content and create a clear rhythm across each spread.

Entry pointsTypographic hierarchyLead-insPull quotesCalloutsWhite space
Spread titled It starts with you, with yellow highlights
It starts with you
Overhead view of many open spreads from the magazine, each in its own colour
The system across an issue
Spread titled Confronting the limitations of learning professionals, with a green illustrated page
Confronting the limitations
Spread titled Success factors for future-proofed learning, in teal
Success factors
Spread titled The low down, with a blue opener and a large pull quote
The low down
Spread titled How do you get real engagement?, with a megaphone on a purple opener page
How do you get real engagement?
Flat spread on planning video tutorials: a full-width camera photo on purple, four numbered section heads in magenta and two teal pull-quote callouts
Video tutorials, June 2019. Numbered section heads and pull-quote callouts

03Result

Information-heavy, still fun to read.

Even the longest articles now invite you in. A structured yet expressive editorial language gives every article its own visual character, while one consistent system holds the whole magazine together.

One colour per article (sampled from the spreads)

  • HEX
    #01B8BE
    RGB
    1 184 190
  • HEX
    #A55AB3
    RGB
    165 90 179
  • HEX
    #D7BD3B
    RGB
    215 189 59
  • HEX
    #7CA988
    RGB
    124 169 136
  • HEX
    #2D7AB1
    RGB
    45 122 177

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