(Re)Designing the Academic Journal: A Case Study of Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies

Academic presses typically publish journals with conservative appearance, conventional structure, standard page layout, and traditional typefaces. Paradoxically, academic journals that target art and design students, educators and practitioners are equally dreary, often implementing design in a manner that is not fit for purpose. This paper presents the methodology used and insights produced during a case study of the academic journal Camera Obscura: Feminism, Culture and Media Studies, describing how an academic journal may use design in order to become more attractive to its target audience, especially when it is from within art and design. More specifically, it demonstrates that through the skillful utilization of design fundamentals such as form, size, colour, typography, and gestalt, an academic journal can potentially appear much more appealing to its readers, resulting in a wider readership. This is a design-lead journey into the under-researched field of academic publishing, in order to better understand design application for academic journals, and how this may assist readers.