Perry Brown is having fun at his job.

As creative director for Troy Publications Inc., Brown oversees the design of ads for the core newspaper, The Troy (Ala.) Messenger, as well as its affiliated website, www.troymessenger.com, and niche publications.

But it’s the creation of TroyLife magazine that has proven to be a creative outlet for Brown.
“Creatively, it’s my favorite thing to do,” Brown said of the quarterly, upscale lifestyle magazine which first published in September 2010. “It’s our chance to brand our community.”
And that’s exactly what the staff has done, with Brown’s touch evident throughout the design of the magazine. Because Troy is home to a 6,000-student university and a community with deep traditions and roots, TroyLife’s design and branding focus on the energy, the diverse culture and the history of the community.

“So far with TroyLife, we have been able to bring to light parts of the community that might go unnoticed,” Brown said. “There have always been things that have gotten overlooked; now, we get to write about them.”

From the artist who creates pottery in a studio inside his a downtown building owned by his family for more than 100 years to a Troy University professor who shared his experiences after a month-long study tour in Sweden, each edition of the magazine seeks to tell the oft-overlooked stories through powerful photographs and well-crafted stories. And, of course, the design.

“It’s very much fun,” Brown said.

Brown, a Troy native and 2009 graduate of Troy University, is also a singer and songwriter in the band Fire Mountain. That experience lends to his vision for TroyLife. “There’s a lot of cool stuff going on here that no one really talked about,” he said.

That is, until TroyLife came along.