Dividing line.
Design visuals 
One of the newsletter's cover designs.

Above (and following): Some cover designs from selected newsletters. 

One of the newsletter's cover designs.
One of the newsletter's cover designs.
Client testimonial 
“I have no hesitation in recommending [James Armstrong’s] design agency. I have always found them to be excellent on all the projects I have worked with them on — high quality creative work, attention to detail, excellent customer service, always prioritised work, very transparent pricing and always delivered great value for money.” 
Manager Workforce Communication (project manager for Little Red Book and Horizons newsletter) 
Double-page layout design showing performance graphs.

Above (and following): The editorial design followed a seven-column grid which accommodated a variety of content. 

Double-page layout design showing a feature world map with airline-specific reports overlaid.
Double-page layout design showing a new range of internal communications posters.
Double-page layout design.
Double-page layout design.
Double-page layout design.
The story behind the design  
Qantas is a large organisation. The volume and reach of employee/internal communications produced by Qantas rivals the audience size of many consumer brands. 
To distinguish employee communications from consumer-facing material, distinct internal communications brand guidelines are used. 
We were tasked to create a unique look for one of Qantas’s business units — the ground operations that service Australian airports — but our creativity was restricted by brand design guidelines. 
The newsletter design 
The motif
The newsletter’s name, Horizons, masthead, design, colours and layout use the horizon as a motif. 
The horizon is the point at which sky meets Earth and was chosen as the symbol for the business’s ground operations: the place where aircraft (from the sky) meet the support facilities (on the Earth). 
Colours
A dozen possible Qantas brand colours were available to designers (from Qantas’s internal brand guidelines) but we chose a simplified, restricted palette. Qantas’s ‘Sky Blue’ and ‘Red Earth’ brand colours were abutted to create a stylised horizon.
The colours formed a banner for each news article and decorative elements.  
Masthead design 
Negative space cuts into the masthead’s letterforms to imply the horizon.  
The newsletter's masthead design.
Editorial design 
A seven-column grid allowed for subtle variety in layout design and use of white space. 
Specifications 
> Two-year design and production contract  
> Horizons quarterly report covering major news topics and long-term developments (16–28 pages) 
> Horizons Monthly Updates for brief updates on progressing stories (2–8 pages)
> Horizons Newsflash for urgent news releases (1–2 pages). 
Creative awards
Gold Award — Creativity Annual Awards.
Want to know more?
Contact James Armstrong for a chat about this project, your project, or a design quote. 

View another design project

Financial literacy infographic design
An entertaining insight into the financial strains that Fido and Felix can place upon pet-loving Australians.
Annual report design for government
How do you portray health complaints as something positive? As this annual report design demonstrated: quite happily.
Textbook design and company promotion
A clever design merged this company’s marketing promotion and coursework textbook into a single solution.
Suite of brochures for designer products
These brochures were a balancing act between aspirational imagery and a need for detailed technical information.
Label designs for wine range
Each label is an illustrative chapter in the winemaker’s story, celebrating each milestone with tongue-in-cheek humour.
Guidebook design for Qantas employees
Qantas’s impressive brand story, history, culture and values feature in this handy guidebook for employees.
Product launch campaign for Qantas
Workplace changes can be hard. This awareness campaign emphasised the benefits for workers, not the corporation.
Newspaper design for Qantas employees
A five-year contract designing the monthly editorial for ‘Qantas News’: Qantas’s flagship newspaper for employees.
Dispute resolution infographic design
This infographic is helping the regulator help financial services firms develop better dispute resolutions for consumers.
Label designs for water range
With a complex proposition to communicate, this water also needed a unique design to stand out in a cluttered category.