Things: PR & Marketing

Challenge

Our client, Guardian Building Systems, approached us with a brief to create a sports-themed newsletter in celebration of their 30^th business anniversary. Sport has always been a part of Guardian’s culture, with professional athletes not only on their board of directors but also within their staff and Certified Installers.

The client wanted a newsletter that would:

• Highlight their sporting culture by featuring staff and affiliates with professional sports backgrounds.
• Celebrate their anniversary in a way that felt authentic and aligned with their brand identity.
• Deliver company updates in a fresh and engaging way that still appealed to their audiences.

The challenge was to design a newsletter that reported Guardian’s business updates in a distinctly sporty style.

Solution

For the newsletter, we took inspiration from vintage 1990s sports magazines like 90-minutes and Score. These publications were known for their bold layouts, pull quotes, column-style interviews, and a punchy tone of voice. This versatile approach gave each spread its own distinctive personality while maintaining a cohesive overall style.

Key elements we included were:

• Feature interviews: We interviewed key figures including Ross Darcy (ex-Tottenham Hotspur and Guardian Director), Niall and Mick Kearney (sons of the CEO and a professional golf player and rugby plater), and Dave Grace (Guardian Certified Installer and professional British Superbike racer). These stories were written in the authentic style of sports journalism.
• Sport-themed business updates: Company milestones and updates were created with sporting language and design. For example, the Guardian Reward programme was styled like football card collecting, TrustMark Scheme Provider status carried the headline “On your marks”, and new branding guidelines were introduced with the phrase “Wear your (tool) kit with pride”.
• Retro styling: We drew inspiration from the action-packed pages of iconic football mags, using our research to create a series of bold layout structures in this style. This included columned grids with overlapping elements, asymmetrical placements, and pop-out image boxes. The newsletter also carried oversized headlines, striking pull quotes, and vintage ad spots. The compositions were then topped with a texture designed to emulate the traditional printed magazine paper weight.
• Tone of voice: We studied classic sports features to capture their style of writing and rhythm in an authentic way. For example, the Ross Darcy article began with a narrative reminiscent of vintage match:

“When Guardian was first starting out, there was a young Irish footballer gaining recognition – Ross Darcy. From Balbriggan, the tough-tackling Irish defender joined Spurs in ’94 after turning heads at the Milk Cup. A strong player in the 1996 FA Youth Cup final, Darcy also starred for Ireland U21s. After brief stints at Barnet, Dover Athletic, Darcy swapped boots for boardrooms, joining Celuplast in 2003 and later becoming Director at Guardian Building Systems. We caught up with Ross to hear his journey.”

This approach ensured the newsletter celebrated Guardian’s anniversary and sporting culture but felt fun, nostalgic, and memorable.