I was approached again in early 2018 to update the design of the newsletter, which had now become a 16 page A5 booklet; a change I had planned in 2016, but never implemented as the Academy had not approved this move while I was doing the design.
For the new design, I wanted to create a clean, rationalised design based on a grid, with a limited palette of colours and with just one typeface in different weights throughout. By keeping – almost – all of the typography aligned to the same baseline grid the newsletter looks ordered and rationalised.
Taking visual cues from the design of the RSA Friends membership leaflet that I had designed the previous month, and using the burgundy that I had used in my refresh of the RSA Friends logo (which appears top right on the masthead) as an accent colour alongside an extended palette of greys. I typeset the newsletter in Aktiv Grotesk, a typeface that sits well with the Akzidenz Grotesk that I used on the RSA Friends logo and that is easy to read, even at a small scale. In 2020, the logo was dropped altogether to reflect the fact that the newsletter was being sent out to a wider audience of RSA members. The design and layout has constantly adapted to include different types of information and new features – the only real constant has been the design and layout of the covers.
The newsletter is 210 x 148 mm with 16 pages and is printed on an uncoated paper by Events Armoury in Edinburgh.
