I was commissioned to produce a newsletter booklet for the National Distribution Centre of Shop Direct, a major online and catalogue company based in Shaw, Greater Manchester. The staff there are regularly informed of the monthly sales figures and other such relevant statistics; as well as notices of in-house events and many other items specific to this one enormous site. The Communications Manager, aware that such information can often appear dry, asked me to present the text in a visually-arresting manner, which she hoped would encourage the staff to read the newsletter more readily.
My idea was to walk around the storage rooms and warehouses, collecting labels, packaging, barcodes and other bits and pieces familiar to all the workers on site there, and then to incorporate those visual elements into the overall design. I presented all of the neccessary information, but added quirky touches of humour by using little icons, faces and figures to highlight certain areas of the text. Here's a selection of pages I designed for the booklet. I particularly like the rough, pulpy texture of the images. I wanted it to appear like the information was actually printed onto the boxes and packaging found in the warehouse.
The management team at Shaw NDC were extremely happy with this approach and they now intend to produce more illustrated newsletters in the coming months, each with a different visual style to present the statistics and information in a fresh and inventive manner.
