Following our interim redesign of the LA city guide in 2017, Cereal approached us again in 2018 to update their other printed guides ahead of their reissuing with a redesigned cover through Abrams Books. We were grateful for the opportunity to extend the visual direction we established for the magazine now onto the printed guide books as well to create a consistent design direction across Cereal&#8217;s printed material.
Cereal&#8217;s city guides have often been our go-to resource prior to visiting one of the metropolitan cities they feature, so it was a delight to have the chance to reimagine the books as avid users of the guides ourselves. From 2017–2020, our redesign of the city guides included London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles and Copenhagen. In addition to the renewal of the interior content, the guide books were also reintroduced with a new softcover with a debossed inset photo and black foiling—a design made in collaboration with Rich and included a subtle reference to Cereal&#8217;s self-published book, <a href="https://portal.studiofaculty.com/work/these-islands/">These Islands</a>.
While most city guides may offer a general overview of highlights and iconic attractions, Cereal&#8217;s city guides certainly act more as a summary of the city from their distinctive point of view, offering photo essays, interviews with celebrated local creatives, as well as a suggested one day itinerary. The result is akin to spending a day in the city with Rich and Rosa as they share their personal favourite spots with you.

<h2>Design</h2>
Having worked with Cereal in the past, we were able to jump right into the design with a clear understanding of their brand. To begin the design process: we reviewed and analyzed their past city guides; compared them to other existing ones; and noted how typically overwhelming a city guide can be. Pages are usually flooded with information, crammed to fill every inch of real estate. We believed this reality made Cereal’s guide unique, thanks to its simple and clean page layouts; therefore, we wanted the new design to retain these attributes. Cereal’s way of travel is meant to be relaxing and we wanted the guide to reflect this. However, unlike a magazine or coffee table book, the guidebook needed to be robust and useful on the road. With this in mind, we decided to keep the overall structure and feeling, but refine the layout and revisit some elements where improvements could be made.
The venues&#8217; intro spread1 is one area where we spent quite a bit of time on as we found it to be the most important layout in the guidebook. In the previous guide, each venue would have a full title and text page dedicated to the address, phone number, and website. We felt this space could be better allocated to showcase more photos of the venues—providing more examples of the venues to the reader. To allow readers to have easy navigation, we placed the information consistently at the top left corner so it can be easily identified when flipping through the book. A double-page spread template was added for the flexibility of featuring landscape and/or portrait photos. We also considered page colour to provide clearer distinction between sections in the guide book. When the reader observes the edge of the book, they can see the distinction between white pages—representing venues and dark grey pages for the interviews and essays.

Services

Location

Credits

Print

Cereal City Guides

Since our collaboration with Cereal on their first self-published book, These Islands, we had the opportunity to help redesign a number of their printed city guides as well. In March of 2018, Cereal proposed another exciting project—the redesign of Cereal Magazine for the launch of volume 16.
As we approached the project, we understood the impact Cereal had made on the creative community and beyond. With a massive following that loved the magazine for their distinct minimal aesthetic and perspective, we were careful to respect their global readership while assisting Cereal to establish the next evolution of the magazine. It was important to us to understand the core of Cereal, what makes it what it is, as a way to redesign with integrity and reverence for what came before. Whether seen in print or online, the photography approach was one aspect that was distinctly Cereal and iconic to their brand. We wanted to create a design to achieve that same level of thought and simplicity, an iconic design that was distinctly Cereal.
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<h2>Type Treatment</h2>
During the research phase, we observed that most magazine layouts are filled with large contrasting headlines with small text as a way to establish hierarchy. However, when we were mocking up spreads with this type treatment, we found it took away from the calmness and simplicity of the photographs and writing. Through several iterations, we challenged ourselves to create a sense of hierarchy through a different approach — a hierarchy with as minimal amount of type size variations as possible. This resulted in majority of the magazine, from title to body copy, to be set in a serif typeface at 8.5pt and credits/captions set in a 6pt sans serif. We were still able to achieve the page hierarchy through the use of negative space. Another adjustment we made was changing the previously justified paragraph styles to a ragged edge for enhanced readability and adding a line to indicate the end of an article.

Table of Contents — At the start of the project, Cereal wanted to do away with organizing articles by categories (cities, art &amp; design, style, etc.) as it was restricting for the content they wanted to create. Removing the categories lead to a restructuring of the magazine and in turn the table of contents. The new design features a numbering system to keep track of each article along with a restructured layout for the new types of content. Without section breaks between categories, Rosa came up with the concept of page breakers (morning, afternoon, and evening), which we placed at the top of each column.
Interviews Treatment — Among the notes we took looking over the previous issue, we found there was an opportunity to improve the formatting for interviews. We wanted to further distinguish the voices in these articles, between Cereal and the interviewee. While we kept the use of initials for Interviewees, the new design displays Cereal’s dialogue indented and set in italic.
Image Captions — We utilized the two typefaces (serif and sans serif) together in the image captions as a way to differentiate the content. We used arrows to indicate the image in which they were referring to.
Page Breakers — When we designed the page breakers, morning, afternoon and evening, we wanted to visualize the passing of time. Each title is placed with intention, descending along the right edge of the page. A small graphic detail accompanies each reflecting light and the movement of the sun for each of these moments.
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To create simplicity, it often requires the practice of showing restraint. Such is the case for the beginning of the project in setting the foundations of Cereal magazine’s structure. The working file itself must be simplified and well structured, just as a clean kitchen would serve clean food. The foundations of the redesign are structured by a consistent eight column grid; a limit of six type styles/treatments for all varieties of text; and three grey tones.
When we set out to redesign Cereal magazine volume 16, we knew we were only enhancing what was already in existence. The photos and writings of Cereal continue to be the heart and soul of the publication. We simply wanted to elevate the design to match and embrace the content.

Art Direction

Cereal Magazine

Equilibrium (EQ) is an award-winning structural consulting firm with a passion for sustainable, responsible design. As an international leader in timber innovation, they believe good design should minimize environmental impact, while correspondingly making a positive contribution to society. Equilibrium offers a range of structural engineering consulting services ranging but not limited to mass timber design and life cycle analysis of structural systems.
Despite their impact and recognition in the industry, Equilibrium&#8217;s existing brand identity did not appear in step with their work and aspirations. Their team reached out to us in the summer of 2020 to explore a rebranding process and new website for the company.
In our discovery phase, we decided to position Equilibrium within an ecosystem, as it acknowledges how EQ’s core values and approach is propelled by contributing to the greater sustainable impact. As engineers and consultants, EQ recognizes the work is not done once the project is complete. The full life cycle of their work is considered from inception to death—how the structures they help to produce become a part of the community and the larger ecosystem. This holistic approach enables EQ to explore new technologies and developments while also working effectively with architects and their collaborators.

Building off EQ’s collaborative and innovative approaches to design and engineering, the brand identity is the fusion of technical expertise yet connected and community-cen- tred elements. We found ‘support systems’ to be an all encompassing term in the literal physical and in the cogni- tive community sense.
The brand identity results a play on the structural form and supports of the ‘E’ in Equilibrium. The centre horizontal line alludes to an interlocking joint in the vertical beam’s void— encompassing the idea of coming together.

Equilibrium Consulting Inc.

Brand Identity, Website

2021

Equilibrium Consulting Inc.

Brand Identity, Website

2021

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