issentials was a quarterly magazine and marketing tool we didn't want, or require, to “look like our typically branded collateral” We felt it could minimize risk of being construed as marketing blather. Rather, it was strategically intentional, to create a primarily agnostic source for thought leadership loaded with SME’s perspectives on marketing, technology, creative, distribution methods and channels.
There are two or three key takeaways for this program.
1.) I wanted to give total freedom to our creative staff to create a feature style magazine with no particular style or design limitations, which could simultaneously and subliminally promote our skill-set to each receiver.
2.) As mentioned above, it was extremely light on self-promotion. Our name was small in the nameplate, we didn't even put our logo on it, unless it was on the “one and only ad-page” in the entire publication.
3.) Not in the beginning, but along the way, we decided every cover could highlight our ability to incorporate personalization with each receivers name. Sometimes it was clean and simple typography, and other times it was integrated into the graphic itself, like the Spaghetti-Os cover. Unfortunately at the time, Chef Boyardee’s alphabet version didn’t have special characters, punctuation or numbers, so we did a photo shoot to create the cover and story pull-quotes.
The recipients name was never gargantuan or gaudy, it was tastefully placed in the hierarchy. Occasionally their last name, company name, or city might be included somewhere small for fun – kinda like where’s Waldo?
A phenomenal advantage our team and company had was we also possessed enormous, advanced print production capabilities with high-end toner and liquid-based digital presses, as well as 12-color Heidelberg‘s and specialty presses like Scodix and others for special finishes like spot UV, soft touch, foils, embossing, intricate laser-cutting etc.
Our creative staff is not only exposed to these opportunities of freedom and production process knowledge they were expected to know them. It’s a huge advantage to 1.) be on the production floor and know the operators personally 2.) It allowed us the very rare advantage of testing our files on the press it would eventually be produced on in many cases.
So, if you needed to know how 85% black would perform against 90%
for a tone on tone treatment, you could test in advance for contrast, aesthetics and dot gain.
Anyone who’s ever been on a press-check and discovered the piece on press doesn’t match the proof, electronic file, or picture in their head, would more than appreciate this capability. Imagine being able to convey that unique expertise to your customers with confidence!
Check out the 2012, Vol. 2, cover and inside spread. It’s a great example of the tone on tone technique and process mentioned above, with the textured backgrounds we created out of the “@“ symbols.
If you've made it this far, the Retro Doughnut cover and Zombies cover were both for the same issue. I thought it would be fun to try two different stories and styles for the cover as an A/B Test and run a contest with online voting. All respondents received an 11x17 personalized poster version
of their favorite cover.
Which is your pick, and which do you think won?
