Phobia. An editorial theme with a masthead you can hear.
Phobia is our most opinionated release: a high-contrast photo-essay theme built around a condensed serif masthead, asymmetric image grids, and long-form reading that doesn't reach for a lightbox plugin.
The brief
An independent photography quarterly wanted their print masthead to survive the move online, with issue-based archives instead of an endless blog feed.
What we did
We built issues as a taxonomy, gave each one a cover template, and designed nine gallery patterns that cover every layout the print edition uses. Full-bleed images ship responsive AVIF with native lazy loading — no lightbox script anywhere.
The design system
One variable serif at three optical sizes, a charcoal-on-bone palette, and hairline rules doing the work borders usually do. Reading measure locked to 68 characters.
The outcome
Average session duration on issue pages is 4m12s. The quarterly now publishes web-first for two of their four issues a year.
“It's the first time our website has looked like it belongs to the same magazine as the paper edition.”
