THE PROJECT
While company newsletters are a great way of keeping employees informed on what is going on in the company, whether by email or print, for larger organisations, something more substantial is often required.
Company magazines are effective for companies with more to say and can provide a professional-looking piece of a literature that would look impressive to any potential-customers.
Law firm Wright Hassall recently asked us to help them with their newly launched company magazine. They had created the first two editions in-house, but felt it needed a more professional touch to bring it more in line with their current branding and marketing materials.
Woah, you are fast! Thank you for your speedy work on this.
Charlotte Bowler, Senior Business Development & Marketing Executive
THE WORK
Having had experience with producing a company magazine for Quiss, we were confident we could produce something that would inform employees in an easy-to-read, engaging way.
Having worked on other marketing materials and other design work for Wright Hassall in the past, they trusted us with the design, giving us free rein on the look of the magazine – the only request being to keep a similar style header for each department.
We decided to keep some of the elements from the previous magazines for consistency, such as the cover layout from the first issue and the page numbering layout. For the team updates, we adopted a grid structure to give it a more corporate feel and make the copy easier to follow, still using boxes and coloured backgrounds to avoid it looking too formal.
The rest of the magazine was given a more ‘magazine’ feel. For the feature articles, we took a more design-led approach, with big images, bold headlines and using images that the text could wrap around. This helped differentiate these articles from the other, more business-led content and show a more informal, personal side to the company.
The client was keen to include a puzzle page, to add something fun and entertaining among all the serious articles. We collaborated with them to take their suggestions for content and expand on it to create a layout centred around that month’s theme.
While we were provided with the majority of the content at the start of the project, the busy nature of such a large company meant that the content was often changed or updated, with articles being added or changed right up until the publication deadline. We were able to quickly adapt to any changes though, and rework pages when necessary to ensure that everything could be included.
THE RESULTS
The magazine was sent out and well received by both the marketing team and the employees of the company.
“Thank you so much for your work. It looks great! It was amazing when I looked at the puzzle corner for example, as I had really wanted what you have done, it was in my head to make more of a display of it, and then I thought it would be too cheeky to ask given time frames. I love it!”
We have since produced further company magazines for Wright Hassall, using the style and framework we have put in place to keep the magazine looking consistent and professional.