CASE STUDY

Magazine spread – Editorial illustration, visual storytelling

OOH / social / display – Brand campaign, illustration

TRAVL: Editorial & Multi-Channel Campaign Design

Project Type: Self-Initiated Editorial & Advertising Design

Tools Used: Pencil and paper, Figma, Procreate, Artboard Studio, Mockups-Design.com

Deliverables: Double-Page Magazine Spread, Integrated Ad Campaign (OOH, Social, Display)

Project Overview

Driven by a desire to explore print editorial imagery and large-scale campaign logic, I conceptualized and illustrated a double-page magazine spread based on a self-authored article about post-pandemic group travel.

I extended the core concept into a comprehensive, multi-channel advertising campaign for a fictional millennial travel brand called TRAVL. The final deliverables demonstrate how a hand-drawn, storytelling illustration style can seamlessly scale across out-of-home (OOH) media, social channels, and web display ads.

Editorial Design & Conceptual Process

The Challenge

The editorial brief centered on the post-pandemic resurgence of in-person group travel. My core design challenge was to visually capture the joy of shared physical space.

Visual Brainstorming

Every project begins the same way—with extensive visual brainstorming in my sketchbooks. Early on, I rejected strict panels and grids, which felt too confining and reminiscent of pandemic isolation.

A sketchbook filled with various drawings of people camping, eating, playing, and enjoying outdoor activities, with additional sketches of outdoor scenes and activities surrounding the book.

Tactile Prototyping

I wanted an eye-catching visual near the title to hook the reader immediately. I anchored my concept on the central metaphor of a group of friends gathered around an oversized smartphone, treating it like a table for a shared meal.

Designing around a silhouette of this focal image, I printed the layout at scale to sketch directly on paper.

A collage with a sketch of people sitting around a table on the left and a magazine page about friends gathering to chat on the right.

A sketch of a beach scene with umbrellas, people swimming, and others sitting at a table with food. A person kayaking in the water, a person fishing, and a person holding a fishing rod with a fish on the line. The scene includes various outdoor activities like camping and relaxing by the water.

Magazine page with the title "Taking the Friend Trip Out of the Group Chat" by Cola Chandler. The page contains several sections of placeholder text and various sketched illustrations of friends outdoor activities like camping, sitting by a campfire, and relaxing outside, all in a minimal line drawing style.

An illustrated page layout with a colorful drawing of various snacks, a group chat, and three small sketches at the bottom showing people enjoying a meal together.

Iterating on the Narrative

For the secondary imagery, I focused on specific locations while intentionally avoiding gendered travel tropes (like a women's wine trip or a men's golf outing). Initially, the content organized into three distinct destination vignettes: camping, a beach resort, and a ski cabin.

Sketch of a beach resort scene with a person relaxing on a float, palm trees, a table with drinks and snacks, a pumpkin, and a person lying on a lounge chair.

Several sketches of people camping outdoors, including hiking, sitting around a campfire, and enjoying nature.

A sketch of a group of five people inside a ski cabin, with a woman sitting with her legs crossed holding a magazine, surrounded by steaming mugs, a plate of cookies, and a child sitting on a blanket with a blanket draped over her shoulders.

As the work progressed, the true focal point emerged: the universal experiences friends share, regardless of location.

With this clarity, I consolidated the separate destinations into a single, cohesive visual. By focusing on shared moments—laughing, taking photos, and splitting snacks—the narrative shifted from where they went to how they connected. This pivot made the final imagery universally relatable.

Line drawing of three scenes: a person sitting on a beach with palm trees, mountains, and a tent; two people sitting on the ground with arms around each other, fishing and mountain scenery; and four people relaxing inside a house, one on a laptop, another drinking, and others chatting, with a window showing trees outside.

Refinement & Execution

Moving from paper to pixels, I used Procreate to digitally draw and refine the final illustrations.

A sketch of three scenes: a cozy indoor room with three people drinking and chatting, a campsite with two people looking at mountains and tents, and a beach scene with two women relaxing and swimming, one under a large sunhat and the other in a hammock.

Colorful, abstract watercolor painting of a person with dark curly hair and a brown skin tone, sitting at a table with food and drink, with a white background.

Next, I built the final magazine layout in Figma. I used custom spot illustrations to break up large typographic blocks and balance the negative space.

The final color palette was selected to feel adventurous and playful, yet commercially polished.

Colorful illustrated magazine spread with the headline "Taking the Friend Trip Out of the Group Chat," showing a group of friends relaxing outdoors, eating, talking, and playing with a phone on a vibrant pink and teal background.

Campaign Extension

Pairing clean, bold type with a vibrant color strategy, I used the tagline "Take the friend trip out of the group chat" to develop a multi-channel advertising campaign for TRAVL, a fictional travel company helping millennials book IRL group trips.

Adapting the editorial imagery, I used Artboard Studio and Mockups Design to visualize the campaign in real life contexts, including billboards and bus shelters, as well as digital touchpoints like social media and web display ads.

Billboard illustration with people having a picnic on the grass, drawn in pink and yellow tones, with the word 'TRAVL' at the top. A blue chat bubble says, 'Take the friend trip out of the group chat.'

A colorful digital advertisement on a city sidewalk display showing a purple illustration of four people with a large smartphone, with text that reads, "Take the friend trip out of the group chat."

Bus stop shelter with a bright green advertisement featuring illustrated people with bags and a phone, and text that reads 'Take the friend trip out of the group chat. TRAVL'.

A colorful mural on a building wall depicting a group of friends relaxing and socializing outdoors, with one person on a lounge chair, others sitting nearby, and a woman with a hat taking a drink. A speech bubble on the mural reads, "Take the friend trip out of the group chat."

Three colorful digital interface screens with travel-related illustrations and captions, set against a blue background. The yellow screen shows a group of happy people on a plane with the caption "Take the friend trip out of the group chat." The pink screen depicts friends enjoying a meal with the caption "Take the friend trip out of the group chat." The green screen has two children playing on top of a suitcase with the caption "Take the friend trip out of the group chat." Each screen has a call-to-action button: "Let's gooo," "Start here," and "Book now."

Laptop displaying a webpage with travel-related illustrations, one in green and one in pink, over a pink background.

A person holding a smartphone with a pink screen showing a group chat message and an illustration of a suitcase with two birds, a girl and a boy, swinging on a hanging strap. The sky is clear and blue with a few clouds.

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