Tuesday 8 November 2011

Chugging away

We've all been there - you're trying to get to where you're going down the high street, and you can't walk five steps without the man in the red coat stopping you. You know the one - he carries a clipboard, pushes his face right in front of yours, and won't take no for an answer.


A writer in the Metro a few years back coined the term "chuggers" - a combination of "charity" and "muggers", as what they appear to do is forcibly take money of people in the name of charity. Anyone who has ever visited Wolverhampton will probably know that here it is a problem more prevalent than in a lot of places. When our editorial piece was to be on "social, political or economical issue" in the city, then, it didn't take me long to decide on this as the topic to design for.


Three double-page spreads were wanted for the problem we were dealing with, and three were wanted for our response, or a potential solution. Each set of three was to contain between 2,500 and 3,000 words of body copy. I've mostly designed chapter 1:






The red mirrors the mental image we have of the man I mentioned earlier. Plenty of charities use it as their primary colour - it's distinctive and bold, as well as iconic. I wanted to book-end the piece with the large red pages at either end to ease the transition from chapter 1 to chapter 2, and also to keep the design from looking too similar throughout. This way, the central spread is more of interest due to the photograph.


I need to start designing chapter 2 now. Hmmm, solutions to chuggers...? Should be fun.