The first time I met Trinity Perspectives’ founder, Cian McLoughlin, through a business networking group, he explained that his firm essentially helps businesses understand why they win and lose business. Since then I’ve really thought about this important aspect of operating a business in a new light; how often do businesses move on to the next quote/sale/lead without stopping to review and learn from the previous outcome, whether negative or positive? When busily running a business it’s easy to rush on to the next thing or make an assumption about why a situation went a certain way, but what a wasted opportunity! I have certainly become more aware about the need to analyse outcomes in my business and in turn develop more effective strategies thanks to Cian’s insights.

So, being already suitably impressed in my dealings with Cian, I was quite delighted when he requested my services for a flyer design; essentially a double sided A4 promotional flyer outlining his firm’s services and philosophy. The final product is currently being distributed out into the world, where I hope it will be responsible for ‘winning’ some new business for Trinity Perspectives!

A promotional flyer such as this, incorporating concise information about the service or products your organisation offers, to whom and how it will benefit them, is a great marketing communication tool to have on hand. They’re perfect to send with quotes and proposals, popped in an envelope with correspondence and even attached to emails to prospective clients. If you are interested in developing a similar marketing tool for your business please contact me.

Infographics visually interpret factual information, such as statistics, comparisons or results, in a way that the reader can quickly engage with and understand. Designing an infographic requires deep interaction with the data and thinking outside the box to find a creative, meaningful way to deliver the information to the reader.

I created the following two infographics for Janaagraha’s I Paid a Bribe blog. They were a lot of fun to create, not to mention an interesting subject matter!

These little kid characters were created for a recurring exercise where students have to write down their opinions and ideas on nominated topics.

 I also created a series of graphics for recurring headings throughout the book; it was pure fun creating these.

The printed piece was a sign of the campaign’s success. Having gathered statistics that awarded the Bangalore Transport Department the number one corrupt department in India, the I Paid a Bribe campaign lobbied them to address the issue. The Minister for Transport got on board and requested a public education campaign through the Transport Department offices. A brochure explaining citizen rights and expectations of motor authority functions was commissioned, to be printed by the department itself and distributed through the offices, along with prominent posters proclaiming anti-bribe support. This was a huge step forward in the campaign and I was thrilled to be involved in designing the public information brochure.

It was an interesting experience as it was the first time I had designed a printed piece that would incorporate two languages – I designed a folding format with an English side and a Kannada side. I conceptualised the theme of bribery entwined with the process of accessing motor rights in India, creating a graphic which was a custom tyre mark made with the Indian Rupee symbol. I also focused on creating clean, streamlined flow charts as there was a lot of procedural information to communicate. It had a very tight deadline, resulting in the concept being pitched and approved and the artwork completed within a week. 

I was really happy with the end product as were both Janaagraha and the Bangalore Transport department. Fingers crossed the printed brochures will contribute positively toward eliminating the bribe system at motor registries in Bangalore.

The Janaagraha Applied Research Program are co-organising the India Urban Conference: Evidence and Experience, a 4-day gathering of academics, public and private sector practitioners, students, and citizens in Mysore, India which will culminate in a session focus on national policy in Delhi.

The project brief was set by the J-ARP team and the IIHS (Indian Institute of Human Settlements) following a brainstorming meeting I attended with representatives from both. This logo needed to convey a big message; the geographical focus, the academic angle and the urban theme. I presented three concepts tying these three aspects together, with an emphasis on connectivity.

Interestingly, there was no unanimous winner. With a number of people across the organising bodies providing input it was interesting to hear feedback from different perspectives with preferences for all. In the end the parties worked their way to agreement on the logo above; with urban icons connected together in the shape of India. It will be used on all conference collatoral including the website, invitations, signage and correspondence.

The Bribe Bandh campaign is a petition campaign collecting a target of one million names to put pressure on the Indian government to ratify the UN Convention Against Corruption. India is one of the 140 countries that has signed the UN Convention against corruption, but the government is under no pressure to make its anti-corruption laws stricter unless it ratifies the convention – something it has not committed to do.

The name Bribe Bandh combines two powerful words: Bribe identifies the form of corruption most rife in India and Bandh is a Hindi word that originally means ‘closed’ but is also the name for a form of protest in the way of a general strike by a community.

The logo needed to be bold and inspire action. It needed to convey the severity of the issue and well as incite a sense of responsibility in the viewer. I chose a stencil typeface for it’s confrontational, no-frills tone. For the word ‘BRIBE’ I developed a number of concepts incorporating the Indian Rupee symbol into the Bribe logotype. I then looked at a number of options for the word ‘BANDH’, using the A to create a symbol focusing on the action needed to see corruption outlawed in India.

The final logo took the form of a strike slashed across the A, winning out over the other options which included a mouse cursor arrow and a mouse click hand icon that pointed to the word bribery. I personally preferred the hand icon version (the last in the images below) but I think the final logo does work well for the campaign.

Let me know what you think!

After all the hype and hard work last year I am finally in Bangalore! Today I am four weeks into my ten week internship in the Communication Department at an NGO - Janaagraha, Centre for Democracy and Citizenship.

The experience working in Janaagraha for the past four weeks has been brilliant. The team environment is really dynamic, fuelled by the passion and enthusiasm of the people who work here. The projects are based on a meaningful philosophy and it is a privilege to be here working towards the common goal of improving the quality of life for so many people.

A bit more about the organisation:

Janaagraha was founded in 2001 as a movement to enable citizen participation in public governance. Its mission is to change the quality of life in urban India by improving governance and encouraging citizens to participate in civic issues. Although I arranged my placement through the Youth Challenge Australia program in Sydney, volunteers are welcome to approach them directly and are always needed.

I’m interning in the Commmunication Department with a lovely group of people; I’ve had a very warm welcome to the team and they have PLENTY of work to share with me. I have a lot of opportunities to get involved with different projects and they are already stacking up, both print and web work.

The department works in a support capacity for all the various campaigns projects at Janaagraha. Some of these and the work I’m doing, are:

‘I Paid a Bribe’

The mission of this campaign is to ‘uncover the market price of corruption’ by giving citizens a voice against bribery in government departments, a significant problem in India and one that every Indian has had to deal with at some point. There is a website set up where citizens can anonymously report a bribe they have paid, or a bribe request they resisted, with details of where, how much and why. No names are given as the focus is not on identification or reprimanding. The campaign collects statistics to present to the government departments involved, with the aim of working with them to identify and change the processes that enable this system to continue.

The campaign is only about 9 months old but already they have had a breakthrough with the Transport Department willing to tackle the rather dismal reflection of bribes paid at the motor registries. I have just finished the artwork for a brochure that will be distributed at motor registries to inform citizens of their rights, how to respond to bribe requests, and the options they have to deal with it. It was a really interesting project both design and content wise, and one that will hopefully have quite an impact in disrupting the bribery cycle.

Bala Janaagraha

This campaign is a citizenship education programme that is aimed at empowering young Indians with the knowledge of their rights and responsibilities as citizens in a democracy. The programme educates children in the classroom on how government and societies work, and encourages them to use their voice to improve their community. The curriculum is taught by Janaagraha volunteers and involves identifying local issues and working with the local authorities to get it fixed.

The curriculum is currently being overhauled and I will be responsible for the redesign of the new student resource book. It’s a big project, a 70 page book of activities and information. The creativity potential is unlimited, so I’m really excited to get started.

Janaagraha Applied Research Program (J-ARP)

The Research Programme at Janaagraha is focused on 3 areas – Political and Social Research, Economic Research, and Legal Research. In each of these areas, partnerships are formed with globally recognised institutions, so that the research output can contribute to a greater collective understanding of the particular theme being studied.

J-ARP are one of the organisers of the India Urban Conference: Evidence and Experience, a conference in November 2011 beginning with a 4-day gathering of academics, public and private sector practitioners, students, and citizens in Mysore and will culminate in a session focus on national policy in Delhi.

I will be creating the collateral for the event including invitations, programmes, brochures etc. Event design work is always good fun, so I’m full of ideas already! 

The new logo set the tone for the whole website look and feel, so the earthy but edgy style continued through the evocative header image which fades out into the black site background, and a vibrant, eye popping menu navigation boldly jutting out of the main site content. The awesome subject material made it easy to introduce photos that conveyed the sense of adventure and wonder accessible through the adventure gear market. Read on for site screen images.

My clients were very happy with the final result and feedback across the board has been very positive.

The founder of this new e-commerce store contacted me after liking what he saw of the work I did on the Kool Kitchen website. Their first priority was a new website design for their BigCommerce hosted online store, but I convinced them first on the necessity of investing in a solid brand identity from day one.

So we embarked on a brand identity project and from three concepts quickly identified the perfect logo direction. I really love the slightly grungy style of the logo type and the illustrative representation of ‘Adventure’. It was a great brand psyche to get into, and was a great opportunity to tap into my own great outdoors experiences camping and bushwalking in our Aussie ‘big backyard’.