The brief
The Institution of Engineering Designers – a professional body for designers working in engineering and product design came to me with a requirement for a press release.
Ordinarily they would create their own standard style A4 press release. This time the IED asked for my advice on creating a piece of communication with a bit more design ‘spark’. They hoped the press release might get picked up by some of the wider design world. The IED also wanted some other professional design bodies to feature the piece.
The IED initially only asked about design of a printed piece. To add more value to the finished piece and give more value to the client spend, I suggested creating a printed booklet which could easily be exported as a single page pdf document. This, in turn, could then be hosted on the IED website as a download. I also suggested that the download link or page could then be shared via the IED’s social media accounts on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. A simple idea, requiring little extra work once the finished booklet was signed off. This would allow the piece to reach a potentially wider audience than the mass-mailing of the printed piece alone.
The design
Image combinations of product designers, their products and relevant quotes gave gravitas to the importance of CIPD membership. This was especially important seeing quotes from luminaries such as Jaguar and Dyson. The final spread of the press release booklet gave readers easy contact details. These sat alongside supporting copy and a quote from the Design Council.
The result
The booklet was printed as an eight page document and shared online and via social media. As a result of this first design, the IED have since commissioned an updated press release and membership documents in a similar format.
