Work/Field Notes Quarterly
Field Notes Quarterly
A subscription magazine for slow journalism.
- Client
- Field Notes Press
- Role
- Art Director
- Discipline
- Editorial · Print + Web
- Timeline
- 8 months
- Year
- 2023
Tools
InDesign · Figma · Webflow
[ 01 ] The brief
Art direction for a quarterly long-form journalism magazine. Designed the print template, the subscription site, and the visual rhythm that holds them together.
A new editorial team needed a visual language that could carry essays of wildly varying length and tone — from 800-word dispatches to 14,000-word reportage — without flattening them.
[ 02 ] Approach
- 01
Built a flexible 12-column grid that could collapse to 4 columns for intimate pieces and stretch to full bleed for photo essays.
- 02
Picked a single serif for body, a single grotesque for display, and refused to add a third typeface for the entire run.
- 03
Designed the cover system as a constraint puzzle: every issue must use the same five elements, arranged differently.
[ 03 ] Selected screens
FIG. 01
Cover system
[ 04 ] Decisions
One typeface family per issue
The magazine doesn't switch fonts between sections. The hierarchy is built from scale and space, not face changes.
Photography over illustration
Every issue commissions one photographer to shoot all the openers. The visual through-line is editorial, not decorative.
[ 05 ] Outcomes
- 01
Subscriber base grew from 800 to 4,200 across the first four issues.
- 02
Issue 03 won a D&AD Wood Pencil for editorial design in 2024.
[ 06 ] Adjacent work
Next project →
Salt River