Magazine: Bon Muppétit
Brief
This was my final project for my intro to graphic design course at UCSD. The prompt was to design a fictitious magazine. While the class covered the entire Adobe suite, we had to use Adobe InDesign to create the layout for a cover and a 1-page article.
Role: writer, designer
Project for: UCSD UX design program
Credits: I am thankful for existing photography
Miss Piggy portrait: Dan Forbes / Trunk Archive, InStyle 2015
Spilled wine: Polina Tankilevitch
Miss Piggy backhand: The Muppet Show (I believe)
Challenges
I'm not very good at Photoshop and Adobe products have some tool inconsistencies between products.
Goals
Show InDesign proficiency.
Make it look real.
Have fun with it.
Solution
Bon Muppétit is a play on the food magazine, Bon Appétit. The writing is playful, with dark humor around isolation and facing your own demons during a pandemic. It's rare to have a completely creative writing project and it just flowed. The article allowed me to weave common experiences together through a familiar character. When reflecting on tough times, I’ll often say, "If I wasn't laughing so hard, I'd be crying." I hope this gives you some respite from 2020.
I'd like to make this a series featuring other muppets in the future.
Looking at other covers, I liked how article teasers framed the subject’s face. Since there wasn’t much space left of Miss Piggy’s curls, I used a green arrow to visually lead people to Kermit’s article and balance the text on the page.
I used a lot of creative freedom with Miss Piggy’s backstory, but drew on historic events her biography. Most folks know about her relationship with Kermit, but the breakup timeline with Jim Henson’s death is some real inside baseball muppet stuff. As an Asian American witnessing the COVID-19 racism and living in Hong Kong during the 2009 swine flu, I needed to weave these details in. I want Miss Piggy to be a bridge to empathy, even towards one’s self this year.