Waxwing Magazine
📎 Responsive Design, Typography, Personal Projects
Overview
Waxwing Magazine is a personal project I’ve been volunteering my time for, and it’s very dear to my heart.
Waxwing is a quarterly online literary magazine featuring poetry (included translated works), prose, music, artwork and reviews. It is well-regarded in the literature community for the quality of its editing, its emphasis on diverse voices, and its design.
I was asked to develop the Waxwing brand, design the site, and oversee its development. Attention to typographic detail (across multiple languages) and responsive interface design create a spacious pleasurable reading experience on any device.
Brand
Although it is an online magazine, Waxwing branding was created with a physical component in mind: Waxwing editors use a custom-designed wax seal when sending physical correspondence or publishing chapbooks.
The Waxwing W monogram can also be read as a bird’s wing.
International Language Support
Waxwing is intentional to celebrate diverse voices in its literature and poetry; each issue features translated works from around the world. The site was designed to display works beautifully in any language — including right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic.
Gallery
Original Sketch
Sometimes an early sketch captures the spirit of a thing. The feather logo and ‘single sheet of paper’ concept survived through to the final.