Northbound

Northbound is a long-form travel quarterly with a devoted print readership and a digital edition that read like an afterthought — the same words, none of the pacing. The editor was clear: the digital version had to feel like it was made by the same people, on purpose, for a screen.

The work was mostly typographic. We drew a display cut specifically for headline setting at large sizes, tightened for the long place names the magazine lives on, and paired it with a text face chosen for how it behaves at the bottom of a phone screen at night. Layout templates were built as a set of named spreads rather than a freeform builder, which meant the editorial team composed issues instead of pages.

The digital edition now ships the same day as print from a single production pass. Average read time went from just under two minutes to a little over nine, which for a magazine about slow travel felt like the right direction.