| ˈprəʊtɪən, prəʊˈtiːən | tending or able to change frequently or easily: it is difficult to comprehend the whole of this protean subject.
Protean Magazine is a US-based leftist biannual print journal that also produces a regular stream of online content. The magazine collects cutting edge literature and art, sans-advertisements. The journalistic mission of the magazine is to promote high quality literature and art for the political left.
Podcast Visual Design Proposal
"We Regret The Error" is a SoundCloud-based podcast series which features interviews with writers and speakers specialising on working class economy and social life. Below are iterations of promotions for Instagram and Facebook Stories that would feature essential snippets from the talks. Through eye-catching graphics on the passive medium of podcasts, traffic can be organically driven towards the website.
this audio is a placeholder sample from an interview by nylon mag.
Proposed redesign + curation of Instagram
The Protean Instagram gallery (2020) should be a key touchpoint to drive traffic.
A long-form piece by A.M. Gittlitz on the search for J. Posadas and UFOs in Argentina is a most significant well-performing piece amongst recent re-plugs. Amidst other pieces that report on working class movements between North America and Western and Central Europe, such reports could strategically be replugged into Instagram Stories.
Repackaging such content entails re-designing and re-curating the Instagram gallery to establish the editorial presence in the digital voice of the magazine. This would mandate establishing a house-style, that, until coding an alternative landing page is confirmed, a free linktr.ee account be established to guide users to the website.
Repackaging Content
A key way to repackage content is with highly engaging excerpts (pull-quotes) from critique pieces, or dramatic excerpts from poetry pieces. It is essential to demarcate.
Iterations of pull-quote templates with critiques in red representing a formalised focal space to convey a sense of urgency in opinion, and an open white background with a single incomplete stroke for poetry excerpts, with a right-aligned author credit to convey the personal and sometimes epistolary nature of poetry.
Additionally, an editorial strategy may be developed to survey the entire poetry archive on the magazine website and a content calendar can be scheduled to determine how many pieces can be repackaged and plugged.
PULL QUOTE ITERATIONS
for CRITIQUES →
PULL QUOTE ITERATIONS
← for POETRY
Regardless of the political composition of the organisation, which in turns informs the published content, the curation of the feed is tantamount to the content itself.
Here is a representation of an ideal Instagram gallery made up of stories from Protean's maiden issue, mixed with some recent more relevant pieces.
The colour balance between desaturated photographs, illustrations with a minimal number of colours, and stylised bold type in the pull-quote template, instantly conveys three things about the magazine: broad in curation, a balance of political, cultural and epistemological essays, and a strong colour palette that sets the gallery apart from its competitors.
Further, one can even create interesting patterns, in this case, 4 text-based posts are in each corner of the grid.
Below is a substitute illustration for A.M. Gittlitz's travelogue in Argentina. Captivating illustrations are statistically more likely to engage readers. The Protean landing page must support promoted stories, while a linktr.ee link in bio may serve as a temporary touchpoint (at the trade of retrieving zero analytics for zero cost) with a text-formatting system (essentially, a social media house-style) will users be able to identify the story in the linktr.ee list as the same one from the gallery.
Patreon Strategy
As Protean is classified as a non-profit, in order to empower the editorial board, the current crowd-funding platform will need to be promoted in the form of a campaign. In terms of brand positioning, the magazine and website content caters to the same readership as that of Jacobin and Catalyst. Presently, the Protean Patreon plans range from $2 to $50, with various rewards at each step.
Fellow Traveler offers only Discord Server access. Revolutionaries and Comrades get roughly the same rewards with exclusive podcasts and content, though the latter will get early access to digital editions of future zines.
Apparatchiks get the magazine in print and PDF as well as exclusive podcast access, for the exact same amount that back issues of print editions are currently priced.
The Dear Reader plan is the highest in price, inclusive of all previously mentioned rewards, as well as the option to get future zines in print. Essentially, this plan is for an eclectic collector, one who may be in the millennial age bracket, or a senior connoisseur of alternative literature, narrative non-fiction, long-form journalism. Protean should be targeting specifically such a profile while also upping the ante on its social media strategy given the anniversary of its maiden issue is due soon in February 2020.
In this vein, I propose friendly but templated illustrations for each specific plan, with textual copy adapting to the respective rewards under each programme and with tonality being sensitive to each respective amount.
Twitter users often simply like and retweet an article rather than follow the link to the website, making Twitter a prime platform to ambush with a visual-led crowdfunding campaign. Visuals break the clutter of a text-heavy platform, especially one which is used as a personalised news app.
In the Instagram context, weekly Insta-Stories of the Podcasts can end with a CTA to donate on Patreon, and leaving the link in the bio. The communication will regularly be consumed, opening an opportunity to build a constant dialogue with listeners.
