Bank of Canada Style Guide

I came to this project late in the game. It had been floundering for three years, languishing in a prison created by entrenched positions, power struggles and resentment. I won't bore you with the details ... I arrived as a fresh face, unencumbered by history, and ready to put this to bed.

My first step was to interview all the stakeholders. To my surprise, everyone wanted very similar things. So as I started in on the designs, I made sure to focus all my language on outcomes, kept the conversation away from the personal and always on the product.

My experience in dealing with editors allowed me to speak their language and translate their vision to the layout. The previous version had the most atrocious clip art and editorial was adamant that it stay. Moving the conversation away from the art, I had them talk about itsfunction. They wanted to break up the text and add humour and colour to the pages. I suggested we find some art that could be repurposed to our needs, creating the feeling without creating clutter. I met Hazim Jalil through iStockphoto, bought some illustrations there and commisioned the rest.

Being a reference book, it required quick and easy navigation by the reader. I colour-coded the chapters and text elements so that every usage could be instantly identified.

The text contained inconsistencies in its information architecture, providing a clear set of rules to editorial moved my changes from personal opinion to functional decisions. If one item had to be changed, all similar items would need to be changed too ... all small scale changes were checked against the big picture.

This was one of the last pieces I completed for Kayak magazine. Also one of the most difficult and most successful.

The Challenge here was to fit the entire spectrum of ingenuity of the the Inuit into six small pages. There was a lot of ground to cover. My first step was to create a page architecture, for the editor. Working together, we molded it into shape using a series of storyboard prototypes, test several different ways of organizing the information. Initially we had had the inventions listed encyclopedia style. This didn't work as it gave two much weight to some items and not others (as well, it was a bit boring).

In the end we found that an architecture based on themes worked best. It allowed us to deliver the information in a more conversational, kid-friendly, manner.

The article was then story-boarded and sent to the the illustrator, after which I completed the final design based on his excellent interpretation of the text.

Interior Design for Nelson Science Connections

These are some pages recently completed for Nelson Education. They are from a text book for the applied science stream in grades 9 and 10. For this job, I had to take and existing academic design and adapt to facilitate easier reading.

The text was broken into discreet sections and boxed to give students more digestible bites. Elements from Web 2.0 style design were sneaked in to give a sense of familiarity with the medium of choice.

The treatment of the page title and section introduction was taken from the magazine world, to give students an immediate overview of the forthcoming text.

Wayfinding elements have all been colour-coded, each unit has its own colour and each page, whether it belongs to a unit, a chapter or an appendix, were coloured accordingly.