Desired Hype Design & VIA Noke Magazine

In 2012, my best friend Chelsea and I had the idea to create a visual arts magazine for Roanoke. We quickly got to work, establishing an LLC under the name Desired Hype Design, and began planning and fundraising to publish our first issue. I had made many local arts connections through my job at The Arts Council, and we were able to sit down with various artists and leaders over several months to work out exactly what we wanted VIA Noke Magazine to be. We ran a successful Kickstarter campaign to fund our first issue, which we published that June.

I was responsible not only for half of the design work, but also ad sales, networking, interviewing, writing articles, photographing artists and their work, working with our local printer, distribution, advertising, and social media. We also attended and co-hosted art events and gallery openings and made wonderful connections with a wide variety of artists across the region.

We published four issues throughout 2012 and 2013 before my husband and I decided to move to Southern California. Funding VIA was already difficult and, even with help, it was a lot of work to produce each issue. Chelsea ultimately decided she didn’t want to publish without me, and we decided to close our business for good. (But wasn’t it fun while it lasted!)

This remains the project I’m most proud of.

Click here to read more about VIA Noke’s history and view digital versions of each issue

Below are a few of the spreads I designed.