Designing Our 150th Fiction Special


150th Fiction Special

After we poured through the Archives to find all the right stories for the 150th Fiction Special, it was the Design team’s turn.

They were responsible for turning a collection of words and illustrations from throughout our magazine’s history into something our readers could read and treasure.

Take a look at how they did it below:

This video makes it look easy, but they had a lot of hard work on their hands!

“We enjoyed designing and laying out the 150th Fiction Special, which followed very much in the same vein as our 150th Anniversary edition,” Moira from our Design team said.

“It was fascinating to see how the magazine had evolved over the last 150 years.

“This could also be said for the timelines. We certainly learned a lot from them — they were so interesting. A lot has happened over the years!

“We also searched our picture agency library to find the right imagery to illustrate the poetry in the Special,” fellow designer Nicole said.

“It was quite poignant and thought-provoking.

“Placing the lovely archive story illustrations, which had been expertly coloured by our Illustrations Editor Sarah, was really fun.

“It was nice to see the black and white ‘before’ versions against the sympathetically coloured ‘new’ versions.

“All in all, it’s a lovely look back at an amazing 150 years of ‘The People’s Friend’ fiction.

“We’re sure all our readers will enjoy it.

“Happy reading, everyone!”

To buy your copy of our 150th Fiction Special, click here.

For more on how we created the Special, click the tag below.

Iain McDonald

Iain is Digital Content Editor at the "Friend", making him responsible for managing flow of interesting and entertaining content on the magazine's website and social media channels.