Case Study on Magazine Layout Services

The Customer

The customer is an entrepreneur in the U.S., who started a monthly magazine on golf, targeted at children.

The Requirement

The customer initially approached us for a redesign of the magazine’s cover page. Based on our interaction with the customer, we realized that a lot more work had to be done with regards to magazine production. Thus, we helped the customer fulfil all her requirements related to publishing the magazine.

The Challenge

Although the customer had ventured into the magazine publishing space, she was unaware of many of the norms and standards involved in this domain. The customer did not know about details such as page flow, page plan, design plan and so on. She was clueless about the procedure to be followed to produce a magazine. Content for the initial issue was also inadequate. To top it all, there was no brief given to us for the cover page design.

The Solution

Outsource2india’s designers did what they do best in the face of such ambiguity.

1. Flesh out the real requirements: They held a series of tele conferences with the customer to understand the real requirements. They educated the customer on the various facets of magazine publishing. They worked with the customer to produce not just the cover page, but to also nail down other critical elements such as page flow, page plan and design plan.
2. Help with content: We also helped the customer build up content for the magazine. For instance, the customer did not have access to high-quality images as related to the magazine’s focus. We procured the necessary high-quality images that exactly matched the requirements of the customer.
3. Look at the whole picture: Having realized that the customer needed handholding to get the magazine out of the door, we went out of our way to ensure that it happened. All designs were submitted to the customer in the software format she could easily work with. The entire magazine was given a facelift and made ready for publishing. We even made suggestions with regards to advertising, and had the customer reserve pages for advertising.

Benefits

The magazine was out on the stands within a month of the customer engaging with us!

Despite the challenging circumstances, we discovered that the customer was very receptive to suggestions. Thorough interviewing and analysis helped us discover that the real requirement was magazine publishing assistance, not just cover page redesign. Drawing upon the wealth of diverse talent we could tap within our employee pool, we worked diligently with the customer to make this happen.

What the customer most appreciated about our services was that she was able to tap into all aspects of magazine publishing assistance under one (virtual) roof. Outsource2india proved to be an able magazine publishing partner, ensuring that the customer’s magazine was out on the stands within a very short period. What’s more, the magazine conformed to the current international design standards.

A delighted customer and a job extremely well done!