Mark: Africa Dispatches focuses on brand building in key African markets

South Africa’s authoritative online marketing news and analysis brand ventures into print with the launch of Mark Magazine’s Africa Dispatches, a design-intelligent annual print offering authored by top journalists.

Mark: Africa Dispatches — the first of what will be a series of annual print products from the publishers of MarkLives.com, the authoritative online voice on marketing and advertising in South Africa — has been launched.

Mark Magazine, a content-rich and design-intelligent print magazine, premiered at the end of May 2014, when it was mailed directly to an audience of senior marketers and agency executives. This first print issue focuses on the growth of economies in Africa and brand building in key markets on the continent.

Mark: Africa Dispatches is published in tabloid format on newsprint and has been carefully designed not only to carry insightful content but to pull readers in visually through the smart use of fonts and colour.

“The global map is changing”

Explains project editor Mandy de Waal: “The global map is changing. Africa’s growth rates speak for themselves, and so the world is moving to a new future where there will be two brand binaries: those who come open, curious and excited to grow with Africa, and those who are chained by legacy perceptions, projections and prejudices.”

“Mark: Africa Dispatches delivers thoughtful content to marketers with design prowess. It is speaks to the marriage of the ideals that considered content and thoughtful design will redefine what ‘trade’ publishing is all about,” she continues. “At MarkLives.com, we believe that publishing in the marketing sector needs to be redefined and that smart people in the industry will orbit to intelligent publishing and reward it.”

Mark: Africa Dispatches is the first of several planned forays into the print environment from trade website MarkLives.com. The intention, according to publisher Herman Manson, is to differentiate starkly from other titles in what has been a staid trade-print environment. Breaking news, investigative content and design excellence has proofed the success of the news site; the same investment in quality content and design characterises this first issue of Mark Magazine.

“Inspiration from African graphic language”

The design team for Mark: Africa Dispatches was headed up by Dani Loureiro of Machine. “The design of the first issue relies heavily on illustrated typography to engage the viewer while speaking to the content of the article,” she says. “The typographic direction takes inspiration from African graphic language like geometric patterning, irregular hand-drawn letters and spaza shop signage, which works nicely with the bold colour palette.”

The first issue contains:

An exclusive excerpt of Nigerian-American journalist Dayo Olopade’s debut book about breaking the rules in modern Africa. Called ‘The Bright Continent’, in the book Olopade offers a refreshingly hopeful view about the commercial map of Africa.
The inside story of HKLM’s growth in Africa from Sean McCoy.
Brand confessions from Romeo Kumalo, chief operating officer of Vodacom International Business, who discusses the primary mistakes the mobile giant made in Africa.
The territories Celeste Fauconnier, Africa Analyst at RMB, recommends for brand growth, and much, much more.

“You can’t ignore Africa. You can’t ignore Mark Magazine’s Africa Dispatches, which has the smartest thinking and insights about branding on the continent delivered with design that will take your breath away,” says De Waal.

An electronic edition of Mark Magazine is available for preview and purchase here.

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Images: Machine

Buy a digital copy of Mark Magazine: Africa Dispatches — the sister print magazine of marklives.com – for only R30. Sample or buy the launch issue of Mark: Africa Dispatches #1 here.

Project Editor: Mandy de Waal. Curious scribbler. Born-again atheist. Author on training wheels. Thought activist. Amateur human. Collector of stories. Lover of the long form. Consulting editor to MarkLives.com. Editor of Mark Magazine: Africa Dispatches.