Custom Typography
Editorial Design
Year:
2021-2022
Kindling
A new magazine for ‘people with children’.
To celebrate a decade in publishing for Kinfolk, the editorial team decided to start something totally new: a magazine for people with children called Kindling. Alex Hunting Studio were commissioned to create the design direction for the new title. Kindling isn’t a parenting magazine in the traditional sense. It sets out to explore new ideas and fresh perspectives that come with raising a child. For design inspiration we looked to children’s workbooks, drawing visual cues from old educational texts. Utilising playful and bold typography, primary colours and beautiful illustration, Kindling’s design aesthetic is supposed to appeal to both adults and children alike.
Illustration
Norwegian illustrator Espen Friberg created an immersive world of illustrative characters that appear sporadically throughout each issue. The playful monochromatic drawings punctuate the pages and help to create an approachable yet refined visual language.
"Ultimately, Kindling feels like a place where the Kinfolk team have been able to communicate a new side of their personality, shaping a publication that is more expressive and naive. It’s the perfect younger sibling for the established magazine. "
Its Nice That Press
Graphic Language
The illustrations and typography are accompanied by a graphic language comprised of geometric shapes, used throughout the magazine to tell stories in a simple and immediate way. They are part infographics, part page furniture, and help to add another layer to the design language above and beyond the photography and the illustration.
Issues 2 and 3 awarded Graphite Pencils at the D&AD Awards
Magazine & Newspaper Design D&AD Awards (2022 & 2023)
Issue 3 awarded a Gold Cube at The Art Directors Club of New York Awards 2023
Magazine Design ADC Awards 2023
Typography
The Century Schoolbook type family was chosen for its accessible yet authoritative tone and paired with Feliciano Type’s Parafina. Parafina adds a decorative feel, with its multi-width geometric characters. Alongside these choices for issue three we commissioned the French Typographer Pauline Fourest to create a bespoke 'bubble type' lock up for the cover, distilling the idea of 'Imagination'.