Works in Progress Magazine

A new look for Works in Progress Magazine.

Works in Progress is a magazine of new and underrated ideas for improving the world. We were asked to redesign its print edition, moving it away from the book-like format of earlier issues toward something recognisably a magazine.

The Brief

The team wanted a portable, beautiful printed object that reads as a magazine, not a book, and repays a second look. Digital readers know Works in Progress as sleek and minimal; the print edition had to do the opposite — layered and image-led, with something new on each page turn. The harder part: every content type, from a 4,000-word spotlight essay to a one-paragraph mini piece, needed its own design voice while still holding together as one object.

The Solution

The guiding image is a small medieval town: worth returning to, and quietly rewarding — each visit turns up something missed the first time. The magazine carries a serious intellectual purpose, so we the design holds some playfulness — the odd detail tucked in the margins, like a gargoyle on a cathedral. The aim is the feeling of multiple ideas clicking into place: each issue a small, self-contained universe within the larger one.

Masthead

Colour Palette

Foundations & Grid System

Building upon initial research into the Van Der Graaf Canon, we developed the "WiP Canon" — an adaptable system that overcomes the layout constraints of Van Der Graaf’s original, acquiescing to the magazines diverse content types.

Typography

The majority of the magazine is set in two serifs: GT Alpina and Lock Serif. GT Alpina sets the body whereas Lock Serif takes the headlines and titling. Lock is calligraphic with strokes closer to a pen than a chisel, and brings a written hand to the display type.

Ornamentation

A delicate, but integral, array of ornamentation built from a single grid adorns the magazine when appropriate, bringing differentiation and detail "available on close inspection" to each page of the magazine.

Covers

For Issue 21 and 22.

Inside the magazine

A selection of spreads from Issues 21 and 22.