The largest annual car event in Australia is SummerNats. The title sponsor is Street Machine Magazine, and each year they release a special one-off issue that covers everything that happens at that year’s event. I had already been working for Street Machine as an Art Director for years before being asked to create this issue of the ‘Nats mag from cover to cover.

The styling, page architecture and typography was all built from scratch by me, with carte-blanche on photography and graphics that would be used.

While familiar with the established Street Machine look and feel, the goal here was to create a graphic style understood by the regular audience, but differentiating itself enough on the newsstand to keep the brand exciting.

The style I developed references motifs of punk zines with a largely monochromatic graphic ruleset. The motifs allow for dynamism on the page – cut out, asymmetrical, rotated text boxes, hastily cut out images placed over the top of each other, and other Xerox-influenced components echo the rebellious, high energy lifestyle of this car subculture, as does the monochromatic nature of much of the typography. A space for tongue-in-cheek references, and using comical images and captions was also made available. These were all a choice to help differentiate it from the regular magazine, which uses large variations in colored graphics throughout and has a more polished editorial voice.

The choice for monochromatic design elements was also in service of the photographers. A pool of arguably the most talented automotive photographers in Australia works for the media team at this event, and having close personal relationships with many of them allowed me to give them the freedom to lean into their own rhythm and flow knowing they would create some remarkable photography. By keeping color out of the graphics, the incredible colors of the images dominate.

With enough pages in the magazine to easily cover everything that went on during the three-day festival, a lot of design and page layout worked almost solely in service of these photographs. Rather than cramming in many per page, using the right time and place to let an image have more impact on its own as a single or double page spread really told the SummerNats story in a more considered and impactful way, rather than a barrage of similar images which can become noise if they’re shown page after page.