Design a corporate bio (that feels like a fresh magazine profile)

Harmony Agency

We help individuals and teams communicate with audiences. In this case, we're creating a short, magazine-inspired document to tell the story of a corporate leader. This will complement a more formal resume and cover letter and will be sent out to this individual's vast network as he weighs future business opportunities.

This will be a short, attractive document (US letter) designed to look like a glossy magazine feature package. (I come from the magazine world, and I'm looking for some of that editorial flavor.) The project has four key pages and a cover page. It will be distributed digitally, not in print. I'm fairly clear on my preferred layout for pages 1-3 (described below). I definitely need some creative input with the cover page and page 4. Please note that I'm turning this project around on deadline, and my team is still creating copy and gathering photos, so I'm asking for Greek text and stock photos for round 1. (Not ideal, I know, but thank you for understanding and please ask all requisite questions ... I'm here to help!)

Here's a page-by-page of what I'm looking for:

Cover: I'm looking for your take. This document will accompany a resume. The client is a businessman who's headed companies with $500M+ revenue. He's now retiring, but he's seeking opportunities to mentor people, to advise companies on a range of issues, and to be of service in the business and charity worlds. So the document you're designing will be a polished profile that will catch eyes and quickly tell his story. The cover could be simple or more elaborate, but it needs to set the tone for what comes next: A profile of a successful business person.

Page 1 (following the cover) will include a half-page photo (attached) and a half-page of body text. Think of this as the opening page of a profile in a magazine--it should have that glossy magazine feel. Please check out the attached reference for guidance.

The next page will be divided into two unequal columns (1/3 width and 2/3 width). Three text chunks will run down column 1, while a Q&A will fill column 2, which is the bigger column. The next page should be laid out basically the same way. I'm looking for some creativity to make these pages pop. I don't have a preference on color schemes. I'd also hope to find a creative way to use a few graphics (for example, the text chunks in column 1 may have different bullet styles to designate that different kinds of information is being presented). Some of the work will be figuring out where and how to use photos throughout the document. Available photos include press photos of our subject shaking hands with Bill Gates, photos of various electronics products our guy has created, and various newspaper photos.

Page 4 will be a visually interesting timeline. I have some reference art, but I'm very much looking for a creative take on a timeline. Here's the challenge: Some points on the timeline will simply have a few words of description (e.g., "1985: Jim led Company X to develop this technology). Other points will go a deeper, with perhaps 25-50 words of text. Along with the cover, it's this last page that allows the most design freedom, and I'm looking for some great takes. The timeline will span about 50 years of our subject's life and there will probably be ~25-30 points that will require some text, so this will be a spatial challenge.

Attached is some reference art for each of the pages above (note that pages 2 and 3 are laid out more or less identically, so only one reference is included for those). These are just amateur versions of what I've described, and all the text is dummy. These references aren't meant to be templates, exactly, but poorly thrown-together examples of the kinds of elements I'm looking for. Please feel free to include photo opportunities with stock photos.

As far as the contest, I'd first want to see the design with stock photos and Greek text at the target word-counts.

Many thanks! I can't wait to see what you come up with.

This is a corporate project, but I'm looking to bring some editorial gloss to it. I'm hoping for a designer with some chops matching attractive magazine design with editorial voice and vision.