Rethinking
Each quarter Macquarie Bank Financial Services publish a magazine highlighting the knowledge and insights gained; analysing past and future issues that are relevant and affect their clients financial interests and circumstances. The financial market is awash with austere papers, magazines and collateral, yet they are an important and relevant marketing asset, made more so by the GFC and the ripple effect since.
To underpin the cornerstone of Maquarie's positioning, the title has always been called forward thinking, yet despite the depth of thinking and the committment and editorial energy that went into the publication, the innovation and the forward looking aspect, wasn't part of the design and layout DNA. String Theory were briefed to bring the design in line with not only the newly created brand guidelines, but in line with the innovative content.
To that end, the internal layout took on a far more editorial personality rather than a corporate personality, with a view to engage the reader each time the page was turned or a new article appeared.
Designing and artworking the magazine usually takes 3-4 weeks, a tight timeframe but one we have got more practiced at over the six or so issues we have done todate.
The process begins with the cover concept once all the articles have been received. Up to six concepts are either hand rendered or quickly mocked up on a Mac. While these are with the client for approval, the remaining articles are conceptualised and rendered up again by hand. There can be up to four or five concept layouts for these two and the reason for that is there are intially two recipients of the concepts, the marketing team and the authors/writers. The authors are usually senior directors of Macquarie and their take on their own article is invaluable, even though I thouroughly read the article and base the visual concept on the depths of the material, rather than just the headline, it is still a matter of interpretation.
Client: Macquarie Bank Australia
Agency: String Theory
Lead designer: Nic Hall
Mac designer and retoucher: Adrian Fitzgerald
Principal typeface: Helvetica
Cover typeface: Origami by
All the layout concepts include any typographic and graphic treatments that illustrate the content, this is forward thinking on my part - to lay out the content foundations and theme for the client and the designer - is done so the visual intent is clear, sppeeding up the approval process later.
The time elapsed at this stage is usually a week to ten days. What follows is a brief lull of a couple of days for the concepts to be approved - usually with only one or two of the ten or so articles needing further concept development.
While the client has been signing off the concepts the text is laid up based on the initial scamps to give an indication of layout, space and potential supporting graphics and pull-outs.
