417 Magazine

417 Magazine came to us with a one-month problem. They needed freelance art direction for a single issue, their Craft Beer Boom feature in late 2018, and that was the whole ask. Editorial is its own discipline. A magazine feature has to move a reader through a story, make food and drink leap off the page, and do it inside a publication's existing design and editorial world without stepping on it. The real test wasn't one great cover. It was whether the work was good enough that a one-issue trial turned into something bigger.

We treated every feature like its own creative brief. For Best New Eats, top-down hard-light photography and bright red-and-green tones built to make a reader's stomach growl. For What Foodies Eat, neon light and personality-driven photography turned the late-night hospitality world into a story within a story about local food culture. Each one got multiple concepts, real art direction, and close collaboration with the magazine's own design and editorial teams. The trial answered its own question. That one Craft Beer Boom issue grew into six consecutive issues of the FDC and 417 collaboration, and the run earned four American Advertising Federation awards. The result showed that our range runs past brand identity into editorial, and that when someone gives us one issue to prove it, we tend to get asked back.