“They say that readership in Poland is dropping, that the printed press market is shrinking… The era of Internet and fast communication forms has come. Is that really so? ATLAS Fachowca, a sales and guidance magazine, proves the contrary. The publication by ATLAS has been on the market for four years and is constantly developing. We have 63,000 readers, who regularly read, write and contribute to the magazine, for instance by providing subject ideas and opinions on www.atlasfachowca.pl – says Anna Durajska, editor-in-chief. “Those readers are with us every day and that closeness has been a challenge to us since the very beginnings of the magazine. How do you meet the reading expectations of such a large group (of tilers, painters, plasterers, thermal insulation engineers), at the same time remembering about the magazine’s sales goals? How much and what kind of content should we provide in order to encourage to buy our products, but not to discourage reading?” – asks Anna Durajska. “Aude has been supporting us in taking care of the right proportions and a new, attractive form of the magazine since September 2015.”

Last December saw the 21st issue of this well-known magazine, but this time the readers received an almost entirely different paper.

“The magazine and the accompanying website atlasfachowca.pl always seemed like a great marketing idea to us. When Atlas contacted us and asked for refreshing the communication, we decided it was worth emphasizing the guidance and informative character of the magazine. We also suggested to introduce some order and peace in the graphic elements, so that the magazine can acquire an even more scientific and instructional look” –  says Marcin Rutkowski, Art Director and co-owner of Aude, responsible for the design of the new layout. “We started to introduce a few editorial, graphic and concept changes, primarily to emphasize the guidance character of the magazine. Improved content perception is definitely going to affect the marketing goals Atlas sets for the magazine.”

New solutions were often developed through the trial (to meet the expectations of many people) and – gradually eliminated – error method. Both many minor elements of the layout and the concept of the whole sections needed a different approach.

Refreshing the magazine is more than a graphic change. After all, content is most important: advice and expert knowledge, so it is important to provide it in an easily accessible form. The greatest advantage of ATLAS Fachowca is that most of the articles are written by experts, sharing their knowledge with their colleagues. Since most of the contributors lack any journalistic experience, it was Aude’s task to provide editorial support. “We were often getting texts with a request to improve them. Technical text on things we did not know much about in the beginning, so it was quite a challenge. But after one or two more issues we should be able to talk about renovations like real experts” – laughs Iwona Derda, editor. “Our support was mostly with the construction of the texts, not the content. We advised on dividing the text into blocks or putting some of the issues in a chart in the form of questions” – she adds.
The person responsible for coordinating the project was Kasia Petruk. “Ettringite was the word that killed us. Unfortunately, the author misspelled it and we just followed, but I hope we will be able to eliminate such slip-ups in the upcoming issues” – she says.

Anna Durajska adds: “From the beginning I knew Aude’s care for details and creativity are going to add much to our magazine. And I was right. We are on a good path to change the magazine and there are many new challenges ahead.”