Ryan Schlesinger


Work

About





Noctulume - TREND Magazine

2026
Identity, Direction, Editorial, Video, DJ

Credits
Creative Executives: Roy Barron, Samantha Huynh
Editors-In-Chief: Genevieve Moritz, Peyten Schilling
Undergraduate Designers: Holden Smith, Jonathan Clark, Jennifer Ahn, Lauren Anderson
Photography: Logan Sobaski, Trinity LaKose

Project Description
Noctulume is the 37th issue of TREND Magazine a student-ran fashion publication at Iowa State University. Noctolume explores the human psyche and the restless urge to create in the face of the unknown. The issue champions sustainability through its Reworked Committee, upcycling existing garments, and revives its Graphic Design Committee to shape each page, uniting photographers, writers, and artists in one collective creative voice.

My Role
As the sole graduate designer, I took a leadership role in recruitment, identiy, mood, and design; working closely with the creative executives to design the wordmark, develop the theme and identity of the issue, and recruiting / supervising the revived undergraduate design team. I designed a select number of spreads for the issue, developed video content from the photography, and DJ’d the release party with a 3-hour set.










Noctulume IdentityNoctulume’s identity ebbs and flows between beauty and horror, comfort and unease, dream and nightmare. Drawing from the sustainabillty mission through the fashions reworked garments, the identity takes cues from victorian era elegance and dark gothic fantasy, where modern decor had not quite outpaced myth and superstition.

The wordmark sets this tone through ornate flourishes and ritualistic decor, establishing the mythos, drama, and elegance of the issue at large.

The type carries that same tone forward, shifting between delicate script and dramatic serif, a voice that whispers before it commands. Elegant curves give way to sharp, high-contrast strokes, echoing the pull between softness and severity that runs through the whole identity.

The color pallettes muted tones evoke age and decay: candlelit warmth shadowed by bruised greens, rust, and plum; romantic tones that imply ancient antiquity.
















The Fantasy Noctulume is as much of an identity as it is a story, setting, and character itself. Taking inspiration from fantasy epics such as The Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, and Elden Ring, the executive team developed lore that far outstretched the time and space of the pages of the magazine. What surfaced in the pages was deliberate and sparing, expanding the world while leaving its mysteries intact and alive beyond the binds.















Video




Due to the project being an editorial print piece, video was originally not involved in the scoping or planning for project deliverables. However, nearing the magazine release, I was asked to DJ the release party. To bring more life to the setting in a short time, I utilized Figma Weave to generate videos from the photography content of the magazine as a moving backdrop for the DJ set, projected on a wall behind the booth.

The photography used was strategically chosen to not include any of the models faces to protect their privacy and avoid the uncanny valley. Guiding the models, the videos expand on the source materials ethereal, otherworldy atmosphere through subtle hypnotic movements, matching perfectly to the tracklist for the set.

DJ Set