A national (UK or US?) petrol company hires a clueless student for a one-time job like redesigning their stationery? Can't they afford a professional? This is the world economic crisis.

Whatever you do, forget Avant Garde when legibility is a point.

more help and less criticizing would be much appreciated guys. i thought this forum was meant to be inspiring!

Point well taken. Student does not necessarily equal clueless. The fact that you are here asking for advice over-rides the naivity in thinking Avant Garde is suitable for text. But I work at a place where the "professional designers" think Century Gothic is a good text face in print and web. (Compare AG and CG and you will see they are very similar).

A good starting point is to determine the type of message that you want the newsletter to take. Is it to be formal and old-school business, or more modern and up to date? Do they want to convey a feeling of "green" which many petroleum companies think they can pull off?

Once you have set down your parameters, then you can delve more wisely in the choice of typeface and format.

I suspect the company has a standards manual for its corporate identity.
Try to get hold of that and see what it says.
Although you may want to "try something new", it would be more professional to adhere to the corporate standard.

Look around. Visit a local Borders or Barnes&Nobles (or library) and check out the design annuals and design books. Analyse the stuff you like. Make notes. Decide what way you will go. Do it.

That’s called learning by example and works like a treat.

. . .
Bert Vanderveen BNO

Thank you all for your constructive comments! i appreciate the help and advice that you are giving. i can tell i will be learning alot from here in the future.

>Dom: I would like the newsletter to have a modern and up to date feel, without being boring and too 'corporate'. At the moment the newsletter looks like its targeting 10 year olds!!! so there is a lot of work to be done!

>Nick: i was briefed that the clients themselves are totally confused about content, they have no sense of order ie. they tend to slap things on on whatever page they wish. They dont even stick to their brand guidelines! This is what ive been told by people who did work for them first hand. So i basically have free reign to do whatever i want but i want to be in keeping with their clean and elegant image that they try to convey ( sometimes successfully and sometimes not so) so in that respect i want to adhere to the corporate standard, definately.

>Bert: Im on it! Sifting thru the stuff i have at home at the mo. just really stuck with typography, an area i need to practice more often. like i said its quite text heavy and im finding it challenging fitting a lot of different info on an a4 format.

> They dont even stick to their brand guidelines!

That doesn't mean that you shouldn't, if they were developed by a professional. They might give you a solid starting point on your exploration.

> without being boring

Boring to whom? Designers worried about being boring are the reason that work gets set in Comic Sans, one of the least boring typefaces around. Hopefully you are well past that stage.

But I never consider "being boring" to be a deficiency. A designer is basically a problem solver. You need to determine what the problems are in the work, and then prepare something that will solve the problem. If boring is the only problem, then there is not much to do. It sounds to me like there is much more here that you have to solve.

thanx don! i appreciate your comments. ive re-read the brand guidelines and have made a few typefaces choices.

the brand's image drivers: Young, Energetic.
a few keywords used to describe the brand: Trustworthy, Innovative, Fast

I have chosen frutiger for the headline+bodytext as i like the wide range of weights available and that it is clean, simple and does not distract from content. im setting the headlines in italics ( to reference movement,innovation,speed) and the body text in regular. im hoping that would creating a touch of dynamism in the text. also the newsletter is text heavy so frutiger seems to work as well in regards to legibility as small as 9 pt.

the title of the newsletter i have thought about setting in clarendon for these reasons:

a) the newsletter is for an arabic oil company, therefore i felt that the serifs work beautifully in hinting a calligraphic touch whilst still remaining contemporary

b) the newsletter will be read internally only. again the masthead set in clarendon i feel will appear inviting, friendly and familiar.

altho it is a corporate newsletter i feel the masthead provides a humanistic touch, making it less intimidating and more approachable.

if you guys have any other typeface suggestions or comments, id love to hear them!

Am I reading that you are going to set Frutiger and Clarendon on the same document?

You should look through corporate brand identity designs on the Behance Network, specifically the work of Sebastian Gram, an art director of Hello Monday. His complete corporate brand identity designs are beautiful as well as inspiring.

http://www.behance.net/legarconbleu

thanx for the link iamcorey!

incredible work, love how he shows the processes.

your comment 'Am I reading that you are going to set Frutiger and Clarendon on the same document?' sounds like i shouldnt be using the 2 together, would u care to share your thoughts as to why? would be very interested to understand more. thanx!

Be more subjective.

From what I've read you are all over the place. You are certain that they don't know what they want. But are you certain on what you -REALLY- want? Be more specific, it's one way to start and tell your client what you can bring to their table.