London studio Julia dissects articles in their designs for Tunica magazine

London studio Julia is known for their broad range of projects, but they’ve built up a reputation for their print work, having art directed Elephant magazine for three years up until 2014, as well as books for publishers like Sternberg Press and typefaces for Wallpaper*. 

Its latest project comprises designing issue four of New York-based arts and culture mag, Tunica where a new art director is invited to reinterpret the design each issue. Addressing the structure of magazines, where articles are typically constructed by combining a title, text, quotes and images, the team decided to extract each element individually, and present the magazine in their separated categories. 

Each section is labelled with stamp-like type among a flurry of purples and peaches. “The act of reading becomes purely verbal or visual,” says Julia. “The articles are read many times over different perspectives, establishing new connections between them.” This cataloguing allows the reader to absorb the magazine in a more personal way, like an editorial pick ’n’ mix, where they can choose how to read the issue.