TORONTO—When economic times are tough, luxury and travel items are often the first things cut from people’s spending, a fact that suggests 2009 will be especially challenging for Butterfield & Robinson, a leading company in the luxury travel business. 

The piece was designed by Key Gordon creative director Grant Gordon and art director Joe Gorecki

To help keep business flowing, Butterfield & Robinson turned to Toronto-based marketing and design agency Key Gordon Communications, who in turn created a unique direct-mail piece for Butterfield & Robinson’s North American clientele.

Key Gordon’s founder and creative director Grant Gordon says his goal for the piece – a 34-page, perfect-bound brochure titled “10 Tip For Living in 2009” – was to “acknowledge the elephant in the room,” i.e. the global financial crisis. “We didn’t want to do anything that was perceived in any way as insensitive,” Gordon says. “We wanted to do something subtle, personal, and emotive.” 

Presented as a personal message from Butterfield & Robinson founder George Butterfield, the brochure uses spare and simple design and language to convey its message. Each tip (get a good night’s sleep, spend more time with family, make new connections) appears in Gotham Rounded on its own page, accompanied on the facing page by a photo taken from Butterfield & Robinson’s vast archive of travel images.

The agency chose uncoated paper for the cover because it “doesn’t feel extravagant and needlessly luxurious” and carries the “perception of being more environmentally friendly.” (The entire brochure was printed on FSC-certified paper.) Silk finishes were used for the inside pages while photos were given a gloss varnish to enhance their colour. Contact: www.keygordon.com