The challenge: Live up to Martha's exacting visual standards
Designing across Martha Stewart Living's line of coffee table books like GREAT AMERICAN WREATHS, monthly magazine layouts, and direct mail campaigns for Martha-by-Mail and Everyday Food—all while ensuring each piece felt cohesively "Martha" yet served distinct business objectives. Success required balancing artistic excellence with commercial performance across multiple simultaneous projects.
My Strategy
I treated each product as part of an integrated ecosystem while respecting each format's unique needs. The coffee table books balanced instructional clarity with beautiful aesthetics through meticulous photography. Magazine layouts used sophisticated typography with breathing room that set us apart from cluttered competitors. Direct mail paired aspirational lifestyle imagery with clear product presentation and conversion-focused hierarchy.
My design systems helped establish Martha Stewart Living as the gold standard in lifestyle publishing, with response rates proving that premium design directly impacts commercial performance.
