Zasshi Magazine
A redesign of Otaku USA for an audience that was interested in learning about Japanese culture and language
2016
Goal
Like the articles and content of a magazine, the design, too, should be curated for its audience. This design isn’t limited to the visual aspect. The structure is just as, if not more so, important. This redesign of the Otaku USA magazine, one of the few anime and manga focused magazines in the US, aimed to better convey the most sought after information more efficiently as well as shift the audience to better include the broad spectrum of fans of this hobby.
Upon further analysis of this magazine, the biggest issue was its structure. The visual design was eye-catching and fun, emphasizing the images of the visual based media the magazine was based around. One of the biggest issues was the inclusion of the manga section. Since manga is read from right to left, the readers were forced to flip the direction of the magazine then flip it back. Yes, the manga section was right in the middle of the whole magazine. Not only that, only one chapter of two manga could be included. For a media with a multitude of genres, from slice of life stories to action packed adventures, this could be very hit or miss for the readers.
And since anime and manga has such a wide array of genres, it makes it that much more important that certain information is conveyed to the reader immediately, one of which should be the genre itself. Often the information that is most sought after was lost in the sea of body text.
The last issue I wanted to focus on for the redesign was target audience. Though their target audience seemed focused enough, they actually were focused on a particular half of an already comparatively small audience and they focused on it poorly. In anime, one can watch the show “subbed” or “dubbed”; in the original language with subtitles or voiced over in another language. Otaku USA seemed to be focused more on the fans of “dubbed” anime, which makes sense since the audience is in America after all. However, they still included many Japanese words, some of which were hard to figure out from context clues and no translation was provided. Rather than removing the Japanese words to make sure all readers could understand the content, I chose to instead embrace it and include facts of commonly seen culture aspects in anime and manga and related media, but do so in a way where it explains it rather than simply inserting it.
Highlights
Title
Though this is changing now, “otaku” can actually be taken as an offensive term. Like how the term “geek” has now been embraced by those often called that name, “otaku” is also being adopted by those who once fell victim to it. But like “geek”, some people can still be offended by being called an “otaku”. So even though it is an appropriate title, it can easily drive away a reader before they even see the contents of the magazine. I instead chose to simply rename it “magazine” but in Japanese. It is an interesting enough word to draw people in, short and easy to say, and appropriate for the new way I planned on appealing to the target audience.
Culture and Facts
There are many ways the audience can learn more about the language and culture that brought them the media they love scattered throughout the whole magazine. Each section is named in Japanese, with a translation close by so that those who only consume the media through dubs can understand it quickly as well. The hiragana of the title is also often integrated into the title itself, adding interesting design elements that can be used throughout the section while making learning easier and more engaging than following a footnote. The page numbers also have their Japanese equivalents. A short section has also been dedicated to fun facts.
Signage System
After making the logo, the extended typography with the diagonal cutouts easily became lines doubling as arrows. These lines can help separate content and guide the reader to the next section they can read. This is especially demonstrated in the FOB, “Tsugi” section. They were also useful when creating the infographic and visually tying it into the rest of the page. This changed for the BOB section to represent ellipses, since tsuzuku means “to be continued” (which was named to pay homage to older anime having that at the end of each episode).
Cover
Like how the name of the magazine helped pique the reader’s interest by appealing to their curiosity, the first cover I made for the magazine also seems like nonsense to those not familiar with Pokémon. For those who cannot read the cipher known to Pokémon fans, they can play a bit of a game to join in on the sense of accomplishment and inclusiveness. I thought it appropriate since this audience also tend to like video games and a sense of being part of a group others are not a part of.
Challenges
Niche Audience
Because the culture of this audience is not commonly understood, I had to look outside of my design critique group and do some extra research to truly feel like I wasn’t making a magazine for myself but for the audience I was a part of.
Imagery
It would be easy to just put screenshots of the respective anime or manga when talking about them. However, everyone has seen those already. I had to get creative, digging into appropriate fanart and putting official art in a different visual context to differentiate the magazine from others.
Otaku USA, not Anime USA
Another problem with Otaku USA was that it had a sister magazine that focused on anime, but despite that, Otaku USA still dedicated a lot of articles to talking about anime. I can see why. There is a lot of news focusing on anime so was difficult trying to not fall into the same trap and give equal attention to all facets of this topic.
Diverse Content
Because there is a lot of different topics I had to focus on to give even representation throughout the magazine, there was a lot of content I had to fit into a small space. In order to not have a section drag on, I had to edit down a lot of the articles. The diversity also made it difficult to pull everything together into one look that could encompass it all.