“Can you make finance look sexy?” – that was the question posed to Parker Design Consultants by AstraZeneca’s Finance department when looking for someone to take on their staff newsletter design. Never shy of a challenge our reply was “…of course we can!”. That’s the incredible thing about great design, however sober the subject, get it right and you can elevate things to a whole new level.
Rather than the usual approach of diving into designing the page layouts, the first thing we considered with the newsletter design and print was ‘What do we want it to feel like?’. It had to feel different, look different and challenge people’s expectations of a traditional newsletter design. Taking the old adage of less is more we went for a bespoke size smaller than A4, giving the newsletter a unique and very noticeable appearance.
We also wanted it be more tactile and feel different to the touch so we selected an uncoated cartridge style paper for the print.
Print and format established it was now down to the newsletter design. The majority of articles were treated as feature spreads and designed with bold, contemporary typography, strong use of colour and brought to life with eye-catching, evocative imagery. Using a mixture of photography and illustration throughout the staff newsletter design we created a truly appealing finance newsletter.
