Q News 
The school magazine turns a new page

The client
Queenwood is an independent girls school based in Mosman.

The brief
Q News is a quarterly school magazine sent out to prospective parents, parents, and alumnae sharing Queenwood’s school news and student updates. Due to a combination of the immediacy of social media for updates and sporadic printing, this publication was becoming anachronistic and headed straight for the recycling bin.

The brief was to review and redesign the magazine to reflect the strategy of a bright, curious and contemporary brand. One that celebrated the full picture of Queenwood and its values.

The solution
The approach had to be a complete overhaul of format, content and grid, with the introduction of an editorial style to content and flow. Insightful thoughtful content is brought through each issue via broad quality writing which centres around a quarterly theme.

Accessibility of information was key considering the broad audience (students through to alumnae) as was ensuring modernity prevailed. This has been achieved through thoughtful typographic hierarchies, witty illustrations and considered content pace and grid system.

The results
The editorial style brochure has now become a much-awaited communication the audience looks forward to reading each quarter.

Part of the project handover was to work with the in-house marketing team, mentoring the designer on the craft of editorial layout design, the content producer on pace and pagination and designing a flexible template replete with stylesheets so the client could become self-sufficient and not need to invest in a redesign every issue.

As a side note, the magazine won a Merit Award in the 2019 AGDA Awards for outstanding design and brand work.

Sector
Education

Disciplines
Strategy
Planning
Editorial design
Art direction
Mentoring

Team
Design: Angela McCarthy
Cover photography: James Green
Illustration: Rosa Morgan
Printer: Hogan Print
Paper: EcoStar Recycled Offset by Ball & Doggett

Agency
am creative