Designer: Rachel Frantini

The Community Market Cooperative (CMC) is a local, organic grocery store whose business model is a cooperative, in which all profits stay within the community. The store’s newsletter Healthy Happenings educates the public, provides progress reports on projects, offers healthy recipes, alternative health information and political activity affecting the food chain and organic standards—in only two pages.

To give the newsletter some breathing room and the ability to add more imagery and advertising, designer Rachel Frantini added pages to the design. CMC creates the newsletter using Word and prints it in-house at 11 x 17-in. For her redesign, Frantini turned the newsletter on its side, so that each page is now 8½ x 11 in. when folded.

“I wanted the entire newsletter to have a crisp, clean and modern look, so I kept the layout simple and easy-to-follow,” says Frantini. “A clear typographic hierarchy establishes different levels of information. Common OpenType fonts were used—Adobe Garamond Pro for body text and Myriad Pro for headlines and sidebar information. Both of these have a good range of OpenType features, such as Old Style numerals, true fractions and small caps.”

Frantini used a six-column grid, which allows for both two- and three-column pages. Pull quotes are used to break up the pages, as well as draw attention to key facts in the articles.

“The masthead includes a photo to give the definite feeling of fresh, healthy food. The font in the masthead is Century Gothic, which I think contributes to the crisp feeling. Both the green and maroon colors were picked from the image, and those colors are used throughout the newsletter,” says Frantini.

1. Original newsletter
With so much information packed into two pages, the Healthy Happenings newsletter—produced by the grocery store Community Market Cooperative—needed to add more pages and make better use of the space available.

2. Redesign
Designer Rachel Frantini used a simple six-column grid that will be easy for the store’s in-house resources to lay out. The new design, with eye-catching imagery, will help the store raise awareness in the local community.

3. Fonts
The new masthead uses the font Century Gothic. Text is set in Adobe Garamond Pro. Headlines and sidebars are in Myriad Pro.

4. Colors
Frantini sampled colors from the image in the masthead to use for the newsletter.

5. Images
All images shown in the newsletter are from www.jiunlimited.com, a low-cost, royalty-free images subscription site. The store can also incorporate high-quality images of local products and producers.

6. New fold
Designer Rachel Frantini created a new layout for the publication that can still be printed on the store’s 11 x 17-in. in-house printer. Her redesign allows for advertising and imagery to grab viewers’ attention.