Layouts & Content

Working for Tees Valley Wildlife Trust, I had a recurring opportunity to create their members’ magazine ‘Wild Tees’. I took on this role at the magazine’s inception in 2011, and am still doing it today! It has been a fantasitc learning opportunity, as I’ve been responsible for overall layout, design, and editing, as well as contributing to article writing, proofing, asset management, creating artwork, and working with printers.

Creating three issues of the magazine each year, I came to see how important it is to their mission: ‘Protecting wildlife for the future’, and the part it plays in educating, campaigning, connecting, and reporting on all the amazing work they (and others) are doing. It’s a medium that energises its readers, giving them ways and means to get involved in the movement, showing how valued their membership donation really is, and what great things it helps the Trust to achieve.

It has sometimes been challenging, as in the case of the ‘Busy Bees’ article above. Here I was working with a youth community project that had decided against taking photos of the young participants because of safeguarding issues. With very little imagery to go on, I worked instead with colour blocks and creating simple assets to help tell the story.

I have always felt a great sense of satisfaction seeing the magazine come back from the printers, knowing that very soon thousands of members would be reading it from cover to cover. Being an addition to my main responsibilities (I was the Trust’s Reserves Manager, after all - my duties were out on our nature reserves, creating brilliant stories in the real world with amazing volunteers at my side), production time for each issue was always very limited. I have developed an efficient style and process that balances visual accessibility and appeal (important to the Trust’s audience demographic), quickly sourcing or creating images and assets, and managing the submissions process for articles authored by the Tust’s small and equally busy team.

If you’re looking for a way to forge a deeper connection with your audience, get in touch and see how I can help you reach further and do more.