Level Design
Emily Johnston
Community Report
McCreary Center Society | August 2016
Project Brief
McCreary Centre Society is a not-for-profit that conducts surveys and workshops for youth in BC. They compile the information gathered from these efforts into reports, posters and infographics. These resources are then made accessible to communities, partner organizations and the government to improve supports and services for youth across BC. I was hired as a Community Resource Development Assistant to make McCreary’s stats more accessible to youth and lay readers by creating infographics and designing their reports.
McCreary puts out several reports a year using the statistics and comments they’ve received from their surveys and workshops. More than Grades was a report that asked youth with government care experience to define educational success for youth in care. McCreary staff wrote the document and I designed the report. More than Grades is one of several reports I’ve designed for McCreary.
Any resource that McCreary releases must align with the organization’s branding while remaining visually distinct. McCreary’s largest report, the BC Adolescent Health Survey (BC AHS), is put out every 5 years and is the primary representative of the organization’s brand. More than Grades had to align with brand image while retaining its own identity.
The cover of the 2013 BC AHS,
Cover Design
My idea for the cover was to incorporate typical school supplies, playing off the name and contents of the report. I kept the colour palate largely within McCreary’s usual cool blues and greens. I decided to incorporate orange to make the report more eye-catching; additionally, the blue and orange mimicked the blue and yellow palate of another McCreary report that also discussed youth in care. My hope was to visually connect the two reports as they covered related topics,
Cover option that wasn't selected (left); final cover for More Than Grades (center); McCreary report that also discusses youth in care (right)
Report
Layout
For each report McCreary releases, there are three major design elements.
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Style of headers, sub headers and body text
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Style of graphs and quotes
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Creation of any icons
It was decided no icons would be included in this report. I didn’t have to worry about designing or creating any but the lack of icons can make the reports dense, visually bland and unapproachable. To solve for this, I make other areas of the report more dynamic and engaging. For More Than Grades, a larger number of quotes was used than normal. This presented an opportunity to make them more visually engaging and solve for the lack of icons. Additionally, having large, graphic chunks of quotes prevented the report from feeling dense or compressed with too many individual quotes.
A page from the final report.
Reflection
Similar to other reports I’ve done for McCreary, More Than Grades required several iterations for both content and design work. I created the report under a tight deadline. While I would have preferred longer to polish the design, the final report is still an engaging and informative read that’s aligned with the organization’s branding.
A sampling of other work I've done for McCreary can be viewed from the links below:
Community Reports:
Blunt Talk: Harms associated with early and frequent marijuana use among BC youth
AHS Do-It-Yourself Workshop Manual
Infographics:
Online Safety for female youth aged 12 - 19