ABOUT

The brief
To redesign the flagship magazines for the six countries managed by Euroconsummers: Belgium, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Luxembourg and Brazil.
A six month project commissioned personally by the overall Design Director based in Portugal. I was approached because I had extensive experience at Which? and therefore knowledge of their specific subscriber base and how these information based magazines are structured and produced. Also the different problems that arise from the testing information and reader interaction that is included. I split the project into four stages for invoicing and to give structure and pacing to the project. I also asked a colleague from Which? with solid magazine experience to join me and work as partners on this complex and diverse project.

Research: An important stage for all projects so enough time was allocated for this to be completed in some detail. I collated piles of magazines that are close in content to look at what they are doing and how it would be possible to improve the Euroconsumers magazines, including foreign and English magazines to give a broad view. Having immersed ourselves in the sample magazines we presented our findings and ideas to the Portuguese team to share our thoughts and plans and get agreement before we started the actual design work.

Design: Split into three – initial concepts, design development and design solutions. Having produced a variety of design styles for the initial concepts stage of the magazine design and presented them to the Portuguese team it was very clear what the direction was that we needed to focus on for the overall design styling. We had started with the cover and masthead and worked through the sections of the magazine from contents, news and features through to the testing section with tables, infographics and product images. There was a lot of detail to be considered and developed for the second part of the design work which was the most extensive. We worked towards a consistent style and feel through the magazine but with clear visual references to the changes of content and pace required for the specific testing information. We also thought about how the changes would affect the editorial team and how the redesign altered the copy lengths and structure. This was included in the presentations we sent to Portugal and the content of the meetings with the team there. Design solutions were concluded and we structured a presentation of the complete magazine for detailed discussion so we could move on to the next stage with full client
in-put and agreement.

Refine: It was clear from the start that we needed to work in English so the five countries did not feel that any one country was controlling the redesign work. There were a couple of refinements for the project to get all the detail complete. Once we had finalised the design work there was a lengthy face-to-face meeting to discuss and finalise.

Templating and Guidelines: Whilst the bulk of the time was spent on the actual design work this was the most intense area of work. From checking the templates and standardising all areas across the sections to designing and laying out clear guidelines for their use. We also produced a detailed guide to choosing ‘Great Images’. We suggested to them that this needed to change across all the magazines, just working with the new layouts would not be enough to improve the styling of the magazines – the images were critical to make the difference they required, the existing style of images would not inspire the subscriber base.

What’s next
Having completed this project we were also asked to cost design work on the cross selling ads within the magazines and to run workshops with each of the five countries design teams to talk through and advise on the redesign work and new imagery styling, so the project continues.