COVER CONCEPTS
NYT Magazine
BRIEF
Design two magazine covers for The New York Times Magazine based on articles exploring the future of work and the ripple effects of remote work. This was my first real design project, where I learned the fundamentals that feel obvious now but weren't then: how to take a clean photograph, how to actually lay type over an image without it falling apart, how composition creates hierarchy before you even touch the typography. It was about understanding how text and image negotiate space on a page.
FOCUS
Typography
Visual Storytelling
Photography
DURATION
5 Weeks
YEAR
2024
Five weeks to shoot, edit, and design two magazine covers based on articles about the future of work. I'd never touched a camera with intent before this. I'd definitely never tried to make type and image work together.
The brief gave us three articles about work culture—AI automation, remote work, work-life balance. I chose two that felt like opposite sides of the same tension: working less versus losing the serendipity of shared physical spaces.
What I learned: Photography is harder than it looks. You can't fix a bad composition in post. Type placement either enhances an image or fights it—there's no middle ground. And the crit process—showing work, hearing what's not working, trying again—is where you actually get better.
These covers aren't perfect. But they're the first time I realized visual design could communicate an idea without relying on words to do the heavy lifting.