About the time PlanetOut decided to close down Out&About, the publication I was hired to art direct, the sales department for PlanetOut was in need of a new sales kit. Another creative group within the company had been working on the project for three months, but had little to show for their efforts. The project was given to me to complete, which I did within two weeks. The kit went on to win a design award from Graphic Design USA and ad sales increased 20% after its introduction. After this, I was placed in charge of corporate design, including brand ID, business-to-business advertising and investor-facing communications, as well as advertising sales support materials.
The kit was comprised of a folder, an overview booklet, a sheet about advertiser’s vertical, case studies, and additional sell sheets to backup the sales proposition.
Planetout Partners, “About Us” overview booklet
Each PlanetOut Partners sales kit included a “Your Business” vertical sheet—there was one for each of the major industry vertical— and “Success Story” case studies. To the far right is an example of a supporting one sheet, there were a number of auxiliary sell sheets that could be added as needed.
PlanetOut Partners went public as PlanetOut, Inc., which facilitated the need for an updated corporate ID.
New PlanetOut sales kit, post IPO and rebranding. I wanted this sales kit to stand out as well as leverage the PlanetOut logo in a bold way. This kit included a booklet with overview, place for a personal note, one sheets and a sales presentation.
Advertisement celebrating PlanetOut reaching over 5,000,000 unique visitors per month—at 5,000,000 uniques, PlanetOut had the greatest reach to the gay market, thus the concept that they were now the “5,000,000 lb. gay gorilla.” Concept, copy and design (including illustration) were all executed by me.
