To mark fifty years since the opening of Howard Community College in Maryland, the school chose Skelton Sprouls to redesign their alumni magazine. Working closely with the Office of Public Relations and Marketing, we recommended a drastic restructuring of the magazine’s content. We organized sections ranging from general news to sports to community service, and introduced a distinct feature well for longer stories.
Pathways
The magazine’s name has been transformed into a distinctive masthead logo, typeset on the cover in the “superfamily” typeface Macklin, by Monotype Studio. This unique typographic style is used throughout the magazine in large, distinctive titles opening each section. The Macklin font family was inspired by 19th century typography that was evolving from book use to attention-grabbing poster and advertising design. It is used throughout the redesigned magazine with the sans, slab, text and display subfamilies working together in harmony.
Table of Contents
A comprehensive contents page breaks down the magazine into sections intended to appear in each issue: Spotlight, Voices, Impact, and Support. Features are naturally given more prominence on the page. Readers will begin to recognize sections as they receive future issues of the magazine, making it easier to find areas of interest.
Features
The cover story, “Celebrating 50 Years,” is depicted in colorful collages by Franziska Barczyk using archival photos dating from 1970 to the present. The addition of a timeline to this feature calls out notable events in the college’s history. “Wild Card” is a flexible space for a highly visual two-page feature story, breaking up the 2 longer features in the magazine. “Looking Forward” offers a glimpse into how HCC may evolve in the next 50 years. Feature stories stand out due to the structured nature of the front and back of the magazine. Drawing inspiration from the content of the stories, each feature is uniquely designed and illustrated to gain readers’ attention.
Departments
Each section of the magazine serves a distinct purpose. “Spotlight” focuses on timely topics such as new programs, HCC honors, athletics, and student and faculty voices, using short blurb updates, lists, and Q&A interviews. “Impact” includes a short article about HCC’s role in the community, along with statistics (By the Numbers), and brief testimonials from alumni. “Support” occupies the back section of the magazine, with donor profiles, special programs created through grants, and an annual Donor Report.