Linux Magazine

About This Project

The Challenge: Design start-up trade magazine, soup-to-nuts, creating a flexible template which would permit the evolution of the publication.

The Solution: We created a simple template for the magazine departments, front matter, interviews, and cover, while leaving the layout of the featured articles open-ended to accomodate a wide range of illustration.

We were hired to design Linux Magazine from soup to nuts, or logo to magazine layout to media kit, stationery, and advertisements. The magazine was a start-up with a short development time, and we had the heady experience of working around the clock to see a successful magazine launch. It was a great opportunity to work with some wonderful illustrators and designers. For example, illustrator Ken Westphal brought his wonderful sense of humor to play in the cover for “Tomcat” and in the article on “Linux Security”. Gary Wagner photographed most of our interviewees, drawing out the unique personality of each.

On many occasions, we were required to create artwork using low resolution or GIMP-generated graphics created by some tech community, such as the PERL camel. That posed a particularly tricky challenge, particularly when the supplied graphic was low resolution.

For a number of years, we were the design and production team for Linux Magazine, witnessing the transition from film output (and the mad 9:30 p.m. dashes to the only FEDEX location open late) to direct-to-plate. The magazine eventually became a web-only publication.