CASE STUDYCreating a first-of-its-kind magazine for Scottish Drugs Forum
The Details
Client:
Scottish Drugs Forum
Project:
BUZZ Magazine
Services:
Print design + logo design
Deliverables:
Logo design + quarterly print magazine
The brief was simple and radical in equal measure: make something people actually want to pick up.
Buzz Magazine was created by Scottish Drugs Forum as an antidote to the clinical NHS leaflets that people in drug treatment and support services typically receive — a platform written for and by people with lived experience, featuring support information, helplines and real human stories. There hadn't been a publication like it in the UK before.
The design needed to match that energy. We landed on something bright, bold and unapologetically joyful — think 90s rave scene — because the people reading this deserve something that doesn't treat them like a problem to be managed.
One of the more interesting creative constraints: to protect the privacy of contributors, we couldn't feature faces. Print is permanent in a way a website isn't — you can't delete it if someone changes their mind. So every issue has to tell deeply human stories without photographs of people. It's a challenge I've come to love.
Scottish Drugs Forum started with one year's funding and a budget of £1,000 for three issues. I believed in the project enough to make it work within that. They secured continued funding and more issues are on the way this year.
"The work Laura has produced is incredible. I've had so many people positively comment on the look of the magazine, and the truly professional feel."
— Rhiannon Davies, Founder, Greater Govanhill
