Mass Mutual is one of Hong Kong’s largest insurance companies and every year they hold a large awards presentation to honour the top agents in their company. 2015 was special because it was their 20th anniversary.

In addition to the awards ceremony, they make a book that is handed out to attendees. The book features those who were awarded that year. For their 2015 20th anniversary book, we were tasked with helping to design and produce the books.

The book features quite a number of people, so one of the biggest challenges was collecting and retouching photos, as it was impossible to get every single agent to do a professional photo shoot.

For the cover we had to design it in a way which incorporated Mass Mutual’s 20th anniversary. We also wanted to make it really pop and stand out, so we wanted to add hints of gold, but gold foil didn’t seem to be vibrant or eye-catching enough.

Because photos varied in terms of quality and colour, we had to heavily edit them to make sure that they looked like they were done professionally.  We looked at each photo and carefully changed different aspects so that when placed together, no photo looked out of place.

For the cover, we incorporated Mass Mutual’s iconic bird design to create a ‘20’ that was shaped like a bird to tie the 20th anniversary together with the company. In addition, we added several more birds to complete the association with the brand.

The cover was actually the most technically challenging part, as we didn’t want to use gold foil because it wasn’t shiny enough. Instead, we laser cut dots to form the ‘20’ in the anniversary logo and behind that, placed a gold frame underneath. Unlike foil stamping, this technique provides a unique feel but more importantly gives off a brilliant, vibrant shine that is eye-catching and captivating.

In the end, we designed and laid out every page and the covers and created a book that each attendee was happy to take home.