National Union of Journalists’

The National Union of Journalists (NUJ) is a trade union for journalists in the UK and Ireland, with 38,000 members. Members receive The Journalist, a 32 page colour magazine, six times a year. The client invited us to tender for the project. They wanted the magazine to appear clearer and be more coherent, feeling that it was too colourful and ad hoc in format. The brief also requested advice on giving the magazine greater presence online as part of the NUJ website.

Having won the tender, we created distinct sections in The Journalist to reflect the different parts of the union, such as for national press, broadcasting, magazines, books, press and PR, and youth/students. We also gave greater presence for regional work such as from the Scottish, Irish, and northern offices. Because the weight of news and interest varies from issue to issue, the sectionalising needed to be fairly flexible. Their previous page three devoted a lot of space to listing contents which was wasteful, so we changed this to instead kick off with a strong news story. Other changes included having just three elements on most pages for clarity and introducing a contacts page for details of officers, branches and upcoming union and political events plus NUJ courses.