Kailey Meyer '20

Graphic Design Major

Unfiltered magazine

Healthy body image starts with the mind, not the mirror. Today, most young women struggle to deal with how they look by comparing themselves to others. Young women are left with feeling dissatisfied and unworthy. It can be mentally draining when feeling self-conscious about yourself, especially when frequently manipulated advertisements targeting women are everywhere.

For my senior capstone, I have designed, edited and published a printed magazine titled, Unfiltered. My magazine is designed for young women of all races and ethnicities. The target age range is from 19–25 years old. The magazine will have images and stories of young women embracing their natural flaws and beauty without manipulation. These women have shared their stories about their own insecurities, and how they learned to embrace them.

Magazines are still relevant to this day, but it is almost impossible to not see a frequently manipulated woman on the front cover. Polaroid photography of each young woman is included in Unfiltered, since the image is instant and not created using an altered technique. The polaroids are essentially the main design aesthetic and, in my opinion, I believe there is too much manipulation and alteration of photographs in most women’s magazines. I believe polaroids stand out more as they are an instant snapshot without any filter.

In addition, I use a collaging technique by cutting and pasting from other women’s magazines to personify an imperfect, playful nature to image making. This theme is used lightly throughout the magazine, as well as drawing on each of the model’s headshots representing their personalities rather than covering them up.

Unfiltered is different from any other magazine you would normally see in a drugstore.  Magazines typically seen today on shelves are about ‘quick fixes’ or ‘fad diets’ in order to change your looks and supposedly appear better. The photography used in most magazines are also heavily edited using photoshop and requiring pounds of makeup on each model. Unfiltered will stand out from the rest because it uses unique elements such as collaging, overlapping lines, and polaroid images.

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