Newsletter Design Layout: Reflection

Hello again!

This week in my PR Publications class, we were asked to design a dummy layout for a newsletter that would be created for a Fortune 500 company.  We were asked to create a minimum of 3 pages and allow space for 4 stories.

The company I chose was Whole Foods Market.  While I personally do not shop/support this business, I am in the process of creating an advertising campaign for Whole Foods as my group’s final project of my Intro to Advertising class here at OU.  I thought that a little more time engaging with this brand would be beneficial to my work in both classes!

Here is the design that I have drafted for the newsletter:

Interestingly, in this design, one of the hardest things I did was create the wood graining in the frame and in the darker green areas.  I initially tried to create a grain pattern in Illustrator but failed miserably, and then went to photoshop and achieved bit more success.  I also added some three-dimensionality to the white circle behind the logo to create a “button” appearance.  Spacing has been tricky, especially with the filler text, but I hope it will be easier once I copy, paste and edit some articles to fit in the layout.  As you may have noticed, I did not replicate any pages.  I thought that this publication was too short to have the same layout on multiple pages. If this were to be a longer work, I feel that adaptations of page 2 could be easily reused.

 

Now, let’s take a moment to reflect!

1. How did you respond to what you were asked to do?

After I realized that I could use Whole Foods as my organization, I began scanning their website.  I knew immediately that I had to incorporate a sense of healthiness and an organic quality.  I expanded on their color scheme by adding a lighter green in addition to the darker green and I also added a wood grain frame and undertone.

2. How did react to what you actually did?

I like what I’ve done so far!  I am worried that I will have made my newsletter to ‘word-heavy” but that might change once I actually add the articles and info.

3.  Now go one level deeper: Why do you think your reaction was what it was?

I put in a lot of work, so maybe my reaction is simply a result of exhaustion?  But seriously, I think this design is functional and reusable, so that is exciting to me.

4. What benefits to do you see of creating a mockup or dummy layout before getting started?

I like the idea of drafting a layout before adding actual articles because once you have a basic framework, it is easy to customize your design without losing the uniformity that you gain by making a mockup.

Until next time!