Cargo Facts Magazine

Cargo Facts – The Air Freight & Express Industry Newsletter of Record – has been published continuously since the spring of 1981. Published by Air Cargo Management Group (ACMG), when ACMG was purchased by Royal Media in 2010, I was immediately tasked with updating the publication, though the excellent content, written by my extremely talented colleague David Harris, continued unchanged.

Though Cargo Facts had acquired color photos in the early 2000s – originally it was black-and-white only – it had changed little visually since the 1980s.

The brief for refining the publication was to modernize the cover while preserving the newsletter/trade origins of the publication and update the interior only minimally to keep continuity for readers. The new format preserved the flexibility of the design, retained a cover-based table of contents, and kept emphasis on the most important story in the publication while looking far more modern.

Additionally, Cargo Facts did not have a large library of original photography and depended primarily on press photos for its visual elements, which often led to a stock, flat visual image or very limited options for providing visuals for stories.

After the redesign, I applied my photography skills to coverage of various events for the publication as often as possible, including the dual delivery of Korean Air’s first 777-200LRF and 747-8F – seen here on the cover of the February, 2012 issue. Roughly 60% of the Cargo Facts issues from 2010-2015 featured original photography from myself, while a smaller portion used original photography from a network of freelancers I established.

Cargo Facts was received by a wide swath of the top execs and players in the industry – their feedback on the design and content was consistently positive.