I was lucky enough a little while ago to be found online by a company called Auto-Maskin (pronounced Auto Machine), a Norwegian company with its marketing department based in Kettering, Northamptonshire. Auto-Maskin produce systems for the marine industry and other industries. I was asked to come up with some concepts for a new look for their literature. After taking a brief and being given competitors literature with a guide to their likes and dislikes I began brainstorming and initial scribbled ideas for their corporate brochure.

I took the three rough brochure designs which I thought had the most potential and worked them up into computer visuals which you can see below.

1. The first option I used the “O” from the logo which looked like an “on switch” and tried to make it look like when activated it would show all the features/benefits of Auto-Maskin

2. The second option I tried to combine a circuit board with waves to give the idea of controlling the waves

3. The third option used a shape similar to the “A” in the logo to show images relating to their industry

The first option was chosen to be developed. I was asked to introduce the circuit board image into this option and some more colour (blue) in addition to the black. The final brochure design can be seen below.

Following on from this I went on to design two further range brochures, adverts, screen savers as well as an exhibition design and product sheets following the same style which I will post about at a later date.

Last year I was asked to design a direct mail brochure, DL leaflet, poster and presentation for Perkz Ltd based in Northamptonshire. Perkz offers an online employee benefits scheme, this allows business owners to offer an incentive/discount scheme to their employees to help encourage loyalty.

My brief from Perkz was to initially design the look for an A5 brochure, this style would be then followed through to the other elements. Perks wanted to look trustworthy/serious, but also fresh, modern and approachable (corporate handshakes etc were definitely a direction to avoid).

Stage 1: I began the design work as I usually do by looking at the websites of Perkz competitors, and then starting to brainstorm and sketch out ideas. I generally start looking at cover options first to get an overall feel for the design. Amongst other ideas I thought about the concept of a box full of goodies/the excitement of opening a parcel, employees standing at the end of a rainbow (waiting for the pot of gold) and the use of typography with a face and think bubble.

Stage 2: The next stage was to develop my preferred brochure design sketches into visuals created on the computer. Again I started with the cover designs and then when I was happy with these designed a sample inside spread. I presented cover designs and sample spreads for the different options to the client. The covers are shown below.

Stage 3: The client chose their preferred brochure design option and with a few minor amendments this option was then artworked, you can see the result below.

Stage 4: I then followed through this style to the design of the DL leaflet, poster design and powerpoint presentation.

David Tedford, Managing Director of Perkz, Northamptonshire, was very happy with the design work and kindly gave me this testimonial - “I was delighted with the work that Tara produced for us. It met our needs perfectly in terms helping us stand out from the competition and giving a more professional look to our literature whilst at the same time not compromising on our desire to remain a fun, fresh-faced organisation. Tara’s work has resulted in our most successful direct mail campaign to date. Tara was a joy to work with and I hope that we will work again soon.”