The Guildsman Magazine - The Q Guild Butchers

The Q Guild, established in 1987 to represent independent butchers in the UK, recently approached us for a brand refresh and a new website. The final piece of the puzzle for The Q Guild's brand refresh was a new look for their established magazine, The Guildsman.

The Guild encourages its members to meet, share ideas, and support each other in developing their businesses. They even organise tours across the UK for members to gain valuable insights into how other businesses or trade suppliers operate and see first-hand what makes them successful.

The Challenge

The Guildsman magazine is an essential element of The Q Guild brand. Published for the Guild members, keeping them updated on the latest news, stories, and information from the committee, other Q Guild members, and the industry beyond. Our challenge was to design a new look for The Guildsman magazine that ties in with their new brand colours, typography, and overall contemporary feel.

What We Did

We're delighted to have the opportunity to work on this annual project with the Q Guild for the last two years now. For both issues of the magazine, we worked closely with the Guild committee to ensure that we included all the necessary elements for the publication to meet their objectives and goals, of being a leading voice in their industry. We adapted their new brand colours, typography, and design elements into the magazine, ensuring that it was still a nod to their traditional roots, but with a contemporary look and feel.

The magazine is a tangible, unified vision of The Guild's brand, and we printed it in-house at our Penrith printing facility. Using high-quality, silk paper stock to represent the seal of quality and approval of the Guild. The paper is also sustainable, sourced via our carbon-captured scheme, in partnership with The Woodland Trust. The scheme is funded by a levy paid by Reeds upon purchasing paper for printing. The money is donated to the Woodland Trust, which uses the levy to fund the planting of natural, deciduous woodland trees in Britain.

The magazine is sent out to all members of the Guild, including a free gift of a wall planner, designed and printed here at Reeds. The wall planner is designed in the Q Guild branding and highlights food-related holidays throughout the year as well as key events for the Q Guild members.

The Outcome

The result was a contemporary look and feel for The Guildsman, tying the magazine in line with their brand refresh and new website. The new colours and clean layouts ensure that the content is engaging and a pleasure to read, modernizing the magazine while still upholding its long-standing heritage, quality, tradition, and values. The design will be used as a template for future publications.

Following the success of our recent projects with The Q Guild, we continue to work with the organisation, designing and printing more marketing collateral for their new brand.

Discover our Q Guild projects, including a to find out how we developed the Q Guild brand and adapted the brand for a new website.