Babel magazine
Client
University of Huddersfield, School of Linguistics, 2014
Media
Digital
The Project
The Linguistics Department at the University of Huddersfield School of Music, Humanities and Media had a bold idea: publish a language magazine that turns a discipline, viewed by many as dry as dust and steeped in academia, into something lively fun, and relevant. dg3 was briefed to produce a design that would maintain the high academic rigour of the linguistics discipline but combine it with engaging design and copy.
With internationally renowned linguist and author David Crystal as linguistic consultant, Babel magazine is published quarterly in print and online subscription. It includes special features that cover everything from beauty discourse in advertising, Polari: the lost and found language of gay men, Women in rap music and How to speak Venusian! Regular articles, news, reviews and competitions include Meet the Professionals — one edition featured a Hollywood based linguist who creates invented languages for films such as Game of Thrones; Language Games; and introductions to remote languages of the world.
Babel has attracted attention, featuring on Radio 4 and even a generated a tweet from Stephen Fry: “Can’t recommend @Babelzine highly enough – if you love language you’ll be blown away by Babel magazine: for pros & all language enthusiasts.”
Subscriber response has proved that there is a place for a magazine that can appeal to language experts and lay enthusiasts alike. One blogger commented: “I was majorly impressed with the first-issue of Babel’s very clean, very readable, crisp, elegant, and visually engaging layout. Great use of white space, interesting breaking up of the page elements, plus an eye-catching mix of graphics. Top-notch art direction here, and the content, ie articles, ain’t too shabby either.”
