Design Magazine is first of its kind in the region of Saudi Arabia. It is a magazine focusing on all kinds of artists; architectural, graphic, photographers, creative business owners, fashion and etc. It is a humble attempt to integrate creativity into the firm fabric of society and to open the flooding gates of humanity`s innovative power and indulge in the discovery of self-expression. Especially in a region that discourages it.
I was able to not only assist in photoshoots but lead the whole creative direction of a client's portfolio. I was consistently challenged with the task of coming up with creative designs for different clients. I learnt how to persuade clients to pursue a better creative direction with their brand, as well as convince them that change is essential at certain pivotal points. With each mistake I was able to better understand how a creative magazine is run in the business world.
The reason why I gravitated towards working for this magazine was because of the creativity that comes with every issue. For issue 39 the concept was to uncover all those students who studied abroad, and their accomplishments after graduation. We brainstormed different directions of how we can present the topic, as well as how the cover of the issue will look like. We settled on dividing the students based on the countries they came back from. The goal was encouraging education abroad and local creativity.
The best part of the job were the different workshops I had to attend on behalf of the magazine. We were promoting certain initiatives, such as Saudi Creative Week held by SNCI, so we had to attend workshops by extremely interesting individuals such as David Habchy were he showed us a fun way to create animations. Other initiatives we were promoting were by The Empty Quarter a creative space that held workshops by amazing photographers such as Stanley Greene and Pep Bonet. Each photographer explained the technique and passion required behind every photo.