QMAG – 30 Year Anniversary photobook

Telling the story of 30 years of QMAG

This project has so much to love – research, storytelling and a killer final product (with gold foil on top!). Joyful Communications was part of a team set up to tell the story of QMAG, a Rockhampton-based magnesia producer celebrating 30 years since the establishment of their mine and processing plant. We worked with a photographer and external designer to create a 120-page document that was distributed to international owners, customers and employees to commemorate the occasion. 

From cover to cover, planning to print

Using the large publication expertise we’d gathered through the BBMC Yearbook we sat down with the QMAG team to find out the story we needed to tell. Through three owners, a public listing (and de-listing), and market ups and downs, the challenge was to tell the story without whitewashing the tough times, but focusing on the people who made the company what it was over three decades. Incredibly, we got to talk to some employees who had been there since the very first day the plant opened, plus the explorer and mining pioneer who found the deposit – which, fun fact, is the largest cryptocrystalline magnesite deposit in the world. 

We dug into annual reports, archives and interviews to mine (pun absolutely intended) the highlights and lowlights of the company. We also managed deadlines, edited existing content and gave the book its overall structure and layout. Through a flurry of last-minute changes and reviews, the book made it to print on time, and is now proudly displayed in foyers and bookshelves across the company.