JOHNSTON PRESS

Launching a local publication with a global outlook

Johnston Press is the second largest publisher of local newspapers in the UK. With audiences and approaches to content changing, the media company asked us to help form the strategy, naming, branding and guidelines for a new online and offline newspaper. The title was aimed specifically at millennials and devised for launch in a number of UK cities, starting with Belfast. As a new publication, the editorial style was intended to offer a global outlook with a local accent.

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Brand strategy • Naming • Visual identity • Digital guidance • Editorial design • Brand guidance • Copywriting • Photography

A photo of a girl against a pink wall with her arms outstretched above her head, small white arrows outline her silhouette

We developed the idea for BelfastVibe – a new, dynamic, digitally led offer for Belfast’s 18- to 35-year-olds, celebrating the city. We created an identity and visual language that could work across all platforms and touch points, as well as guidance for content creators. The result was a free sheet distributed in bars and clubs around the city, and a website that was updated daily.

Magazine cover titled Vibe, with a man in a colourful t-shirt leaning against a green background, his head is partially covering the title
Magazine cover titled Vibe, with a woman in big sunglasses against a yellow background, her head is partially covering the title
Typographic treatment (Love - Hate) white text on a black background in a modern gothic font

Working alongside Johnston Press, we took a strategic approach to engaging younger audiences through tone of voice, content guidelines and social media. The ideas distilled from workshops with marketers, journalists and the business team were the driver for all output. A key deliverable for this project combined our findings, workshop results and audience research into a brand book and style guide.

We positioned the publication to cross boundaries and to be entertaining, informative, collaborative and current. Each channel for the brand varied to provide content in a positive and appealing way that encouraged sharing and consuming content. The brand book and style guide that we created also served as a key reference to check that content was accessible and on-brand.

Collage of two images - the one on the left shows research into audience and competitors, the image on the right shows some hand written ideation and exploration around the brand and audience.
Image shows a list of rules for making content, including to keep it ‘Human and personal’ and to ‘Chunk and link content together.’ List is positioned over the top of a pattern consisting of small blue squiggly lines.

Millennials make up the largest generation alive today. In order to establish how to talk to them, we had to understand what unites them as a diverse and open-minded group. We learned that inclusivity, diversity, curiosity, collaboration and authenticity are the values they tend to share. When it came to connecting the people of Belfast through the things that matter to them most, these findings shaped our strategy.

A mockup of a poster in the window of a blue building, the poster consists of a woman in blue lipstick with a large overlapping letter V filling the frame.

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