Discover RSA | Issue 103 | Winter 2016
Designed by James Brook for the Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh, 2016
297 x 210 mm folded to 210 x 148 mm | 8 pages
Printed by Events Armoury, Edinburgh, on Vision Superior
I was asked to re-design a newsletter, published three times a year, for the Friends of the Royal Scottish Academy. The newsletter needed refreshing and updating to attract a new generation to join the Friends, but without isolating the current membership. The format of the old newsletter had been 8 pages, A4 folded to A5: I would have liked to have re-launched the newsletter as an A5 booklet, which I think would be more user-friendly, but, after discussions with the Friends, we decided to keep the size of the newsletter and refresh the design, retaining certain elements such as colours, with an option to change the size once the design had bedded in and been accepted by its audience.
I wanted to create a clean, rationalised design on a new grid, with a limited palette of colours and with the same typeface in different weights throughout. By keeping – almost – all of the typography aligned to the same baseline grid the newsletter looks ordered and avoids the feel of 'shrink-to-fit' typography.
I designed a new distinctive Discover RSA logo that aims to be recognisable both when the newsletter is opened but, more importantly, when it is folded and placed on its side in racks throughout the galleries. Rather than the previous generic silk paper stock, the newsletter is now printed on Vision Superior giving it a tactile touch and a sense of quality fitting to a visual arts organisation. The new design has, by all accounts, been incredibly popular, flying out of the gallery, and having to be re-printed.
