toucanBox MAGAZINES
Role: Graphic designer, illustrator, artworker
As part of toucanBox's subscription service the monthly box includes an imaginative 28 page themed illustrated A4 children’s magazine, featuring a range of activities such as recipes and stories. Following research that the magazine wasn't always age appropriate due to the large age range, in 2023 we introduced two age ranges for the magazine, designing a simpler magazine for 3-5 year olds and a more detailed one for 6-8 year olds. Alongside the editorial team and the senior designer I worked on one of the two magazines each month working across both age ranges and also working with the French/German translators to adapt the magazines for their markets.
This above magazine, The Kind Mind Edition is for the older age range of 6-8 year olds and the theme focused on dealing with emotions. For dealing with the complex theme of mindfulness, I took an abstract approach and used shapes, patterns and abstract illustrations and colour theory to convey the concept of different emotions. I based the look of it on a journal and used soft shapes, handwritten titles and pastelcolours to convey kindness.
“The crafts and magazine they send are always imaginative and engaging for my 6 year old.”
toucanBox customer, Aug 2023 (trustpilot)
The boxes are designed to be educational and build on what the children would be learning in the school curriculum, but fun and entertaining so children really enjoy doing the crafts and magazine. The above magazine Pirate Voyager Edition for 6- 8 year olds had a focus on geography and learning about the five oceans and the seven continents within the theme of a pirate adventure. In this theme, I designed the fact files as ship log books featuring travel stamps and photographs.