Boeing Frontiers redesign

The magazine

Frontiers was Boeing's magazine for and about its employees. Eleven issues a year, 75,000 printed copies each. Online, more than 500,000 page views a month. It had to speak to everyone from the factory floor to executives.

The problem

Design took longer than anything else in an issue. In 2014 it took 162 hours an issue, more than writing (138) or photography (122). Once a story had a clean draft, the design team had two weeks to lay it out and start the approvals.

Design ran up against print deadlines every month. Hours went into rebuilding recurring pages instead of the covers and features. Department pages looked different from one issue to the next, so readers had a harder time finding their way.

Department templates

Department pages run in almost every issue, so I started there. Making them consistent would speed up design and make them easier to read. I templated them and set clear brand standards:

• A dot navigation that tells readers where they are in the book
• Circular drop caps and end stops that lead them through an article
• A grid with shorter line lengths, which readers prefer for long reads

Templates risked making every issue feel the same, so I kept covers and features custom. The refresh also needed buy-in at the top. I presented the design rationale all the way up to the executive level before anything changed.

Before and after

The same three departments, September 2013 against March 2016. I replaced the blue bars and blue pages of 2013 with a small label, one headline style and room for the photography.

Leadership message

Before

After

Snapshot

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After

Historical perspective

Before

After

Half the time

In 2015 design took 78 hours an issue, down from 162. I put that time back into the covers and features. Consistent department pages made each issue easier to navigate. Online page views grew about 5% a month.

My role

I art directed and designed Frontiers, working with the editorial team on photo direction and layout.

Walkthrough

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Walkthrough All screens

Boeing Frontiers issue with an employee portrait on the cover, beside an open spread titled Our Boeing

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