AMAZING HAPPENINGS:A BRAND BECOMES A PUBLISHER
EDITORIAL CONCEPT, CONTENT SYSTEM & DIGITAL MAGAZINE FOR CREATIVEDRIVE
(Creative direction · editorial concept · content strategy · curation · information architecture · UX and visual design)
THE CONTEXT
CreativeDrive could explain what it produced: photography, film, CGI, automation and content at scale.
What it could not yet demonstrate was what it noticed, valued or believed.
For a company positioning technology as an expansion of creativity, that absence mattered. Capability language made CreativeDrive sound like machinery. A marketing campaign would only produce more claims about innovation.
The company did not need more content about itself.
It needed a point of view.
The company did not need more content about itself.
It needed a point of view.
THE INSIGHT
An advertisement could call CreativeDrive an ally to creatives. A publication would have to behave like one.
AMAZING HAPPENINGS was conceived as a platform for creators, cultural inquiry and emerging technology.
The brand would earn attention by directing attention elsewhere: finding interesting people, asking useful questions and giving unfamiliar work a serious frame.
The brand would earn attention by directing attention elsewhere: finding interesting people, asking useful questions and giving unfamiliar work a serious frame.
THE LEAP
So, we started publishing.
Each monthly issue was organized around a central theme and a fixed commission of 18 principal stories:
2 Conversations
4 Creative Spotlights
4 People We Admire
4 Culture stories
4 Technology stories
The structure created discipline without making the publication predictable. Themes changed; the editorial engine remained.
Recurring formats — Obsessions, No Comment, Coffee Links and Proverbs — operated outside the monthly quota, allowing the magazine to respond, play and interrupt itself between larger pieces.
2 Conversations
4 Creative Spotlights
4 People We Admire
4 Culture stories
4 Technology stories
The structure created discipline without making the publication predictable. Themes changed; the editorial engine remained.
Recurring formats — Obsessions, No Comment, Coffee Links and Proverbs — operated outside the monthly quota, allowing the magazine to respond, play and interrupt itself between larger pieces.
ONE THEME, MANY FORMS
THIS ISSUE OF AMAZING HAPPENINGS IS DEDICATED TO THE DREAMERS —
THOSE WHO CHALLENGE THE ESTABLISHED,
THOSE WHO NEVER CEASE TO SEE THE WORLD DIFFERENTLY.
DREAMERS provided one governing idea without forcing every story into one tone.
Interviews, profiles, cultural pieces, technology stories and short-form interruptions could each possess their own atmosphere while remaining unmistakably part of the issue.
A flexible grid, assertive typography and changing image behavior gave the publication coherence without visual monotony.
Interviews, profiles, cultural pieces, technology stories and short-form interruptions could each possess their own atmosphere while remaining unmistakably part of the issue.
A flexible grid, assertive typography and changing image behavior gave the publication coherence without visual monotony.
THE EXPERIENCE
The magazine was organized around three territories:CREATORS · CULTURE · TECHNOLOGY
The homepage worked in layers:
LIGHT established the publication.
THEME gave the issue its governing question.
FEED kept the experience continuous.
The interface served the editorial idea rather than announcing itself as an one.
LIGHT established the publication.
THEME gave the issue its governing question.
FEED kept the experience continuous.
The interface served the editorial idea rather than announcing itself as an one.
THE IMPACT
AMAZING HAPPENINGS gave CreativeDrive a way to participate in creative culture under its own name — not merely provide the machinery behind somebody else’s.
The magazine translated the company’s relationship with creativity into sustained editorial behavior rather than another declaration of creative credentials.
It made CreativeDrive’s point of view visible — and gave the larger LayeredContent proposition a living demonstration.
It made CreativeDrive’s point of view visible — and gave the larger LayeredContent proposition a living demonstration.
THE RECORD
18 principal stories designed per monthly issue
3 editorial territories: Creators, Culture, Technology
4+ recurring short-form franchises
Concept, content model, curation, information architecture, UX and creative direction.
Created for CreativeDrive before its integration into Accenture Song
