ONYX MAGAZINE

The Design Journey with ‘Onyx Magazine’.

Making a magazine in a pandemic was the announcement on the 19th of October 2020. I had met the team I’d be working very closely with to help their vision come to reality. Theophina (Editor-in-Chief), Ebu (Deputy Editor), and Skai (Creative Director) sat me down virtually and made their introduction into my life. Nervous, excited, and hopeful about a future month we’d embark on.

Onyx magazine, an award-winning independent magazine dedicated to publishing Black creatives founded by Black students from Oxford University. I had the pleasure, and fam, I mean absolute pleasure working with my peopledem. I had the opportunity to work with their team for their third (III) edition titled TRANSCEND. Skai, the creative director asked me, what does transcend mean to you? What pops into your mind? And for the longest time I couldn’t come up with an answer, I was baffled. I don’t know if it was me taking the question to be literal or not, but I couldn’t come up with an answer. The answer was vapid at first until I started working closely with the team, having long, and I mean loooooong skype calls with my screen shared.

Theophina, the Editor-in-Chief gave me insight into her vision. Guided me with the design plans and shed some insight into her vision of what she wants Onyx to be as it grows. The more we spoke about the magazine and the goal she’s aiming for the more I understood what transcend meant for this magazine. Not only did it mean to go above and beyond your limitations, but to maintain and nourish. Nourishment was key, the magazine, edition III is about giving nutrients to those who seek it. The magazine is a different form of knowledge production, it doesn’t adhere to reproducing sentiments of imperialism, white-supremacism, capitalism, colonialism, and heteropatriarchal norms, they’re transcending as they’re not indoctrinating us with imperial residue.

Once the vision was understood, the creative process was a blast. Our endless Skype meeting that led into the silent nights were worth every minute. The process was great, who knew sharing your screen for the team to see was a good idea. I didn’t and from here on out, whatever the job, we are sharing my screen and we are getting shit done!

What’s that? Oh, you need to know where to get your copy. My bad, I was blabbing a bit too much was I. Mad. To know more about Onyx, visit their website https://onyxmagazine.squarespace.com. To purchase the magazine click on the link below.

Thank you Onyx and the Onyx team. You’ve definitely allowed me to transcend. Gett what I did there, Ah haa haaaaa.