The objective of this project was to design a magazine of my choice. I had the subject of my magazine be about my story of living life with Achondroplasia, which is a bone disorder. The name of my magazine is Raw & Real, which brings a fresh perspective on what life may look like for those that don’t typically fit into “normal” society standards. I present my struggles that I have dealt with navigating from childhood to adulthood while living with Achondroplasia, in a society that has deemed me different. Introducing the man that founded the life changing limb lengthening procedures to patients across the world, Dr. Dror Paley has been able to give hope to those that were previously told they would have to live a life full of struggle or ongoing complications. Undergoing surgery after surgery, physical therapy after physical therapy – the climb to make it to the other side has inevitable obstacles making the summit of that mountain oh so bittersweet. I was able to tell my tale on my journey, as well as shine a light on two other Paley patients as they underwent a similar story. Bringing in my mother’s perspective on watching me undergo numerous hurdles builds another layer of depth to the overall feature adding a whole new outlook in its entirety. Raw & Real strives to bring awareness to those that struggle with bone disorders and have their voices be heard by bringing connection and providing a safe place for those that otherwise feel ostracized from society.

I designed my magazine mainly in Adobe InDesign and Adobe Illustrator for some graphics. When designing, I worked with my grid, hierarchy, color palette, and typography. For my color palette I stuck with the color purple because that is the color of The Paley Institute, where I got all my surgeries done, so I wanted it all to be connected and cohesive. The typefaces that I used are Poppins and Mokoko because I wanted it to look simple and clean.

Some challenges that I went through was finding the right color palette, following the grid, hierarchy, as well as, trying to fix the resolution of some pictures because they were from 2009.