Cooperative Academy Infographics
Brief
As a student at UC Davis, I worked part-time as a designer for the Community Economic Development Lab, specifically for an initiative called the Cooperative Academy. The goal of this initiative is to further the development of cooperatives and independent businesses.
I was asked to create two infographics to educate stakeholders and the general public based on the following academic papers: “An analysis of the entrepreneurial institutional ecosystems supporting the development of hybrid organizations: The development of cooperatives in the U.S.,” published in the Journal of Environmental Management and “The stakeholder-empowering philanthropy of Edward Filene,” published in the Journal of Institutional Economics. These papers are quite dense and long, but I had to convey their key takeaways in the form of clear, informative, and eye-catching infographics.
Brainstorm
I started by reading each of these papers carefully. As I read, I took some notes and made some quick sketches of key points in my sketchbook.
After doing so, I reread my notes and began to conceptualize the infographic by creating some low-fidelity sketches. I kept in mind that the infographics had to be comprehensive enough so that viewers could understand the concepts without prior knowledge; but at the same time, I had to ensure that the infographics were as concise as possible and easy to understand.
Paper to Illustrator
Using these sketches as a base point, I began developing the infographics further, using Adobe Illustrator.
The Veterinary Cooperative Infographic
For the first paper that was published in the Journal of Environmental Management, the professor I was working with asked me to focus on explaining what cooperatives are and showing why they work, using The Veterinary Cooperative as an example. (The Veterinary Cooperative is one of the case studies in the paper).
To visually provide the background on cooperatives, I illustrated a common analogy used to explain the concept: the big fish and small fish. I also tried to keep the text as succinct as possible without diminishing the clarity of the concepts.
To illustrate the effectiveness of cooperatives and quantify the positive impact of this kind of business structure, I also included some statistics about The Veterinary Cooperative, along with some simple icons that I created myself.
For the colors, I used the Aggie Blue and Gold from the UC Davis branding. All of the tints of the Aggie Blue that I used are included in the brand guide as well. For the typography, I used Proxima Nova, which is also a part of the brand guide. The font has various weights, so I was able to easily establish type hierarchies within the content. This also helped make the infographic easy to read.
Edward Filene Infographic
For the second paper published in the Journal of Institutional Economics, the professor asked me to focus on telling Edward Filene’s story and how his work led to the rise of credit unions.
I started by providing some background on Filene’s story along with a photo of Edward Filene. I then detailed the impact of Filene’s philanthropy. Each of the three impacts has a clear heading, a short description, and an icon illustrating the impact. For consistency, I created all of these icons using hands. I then detailed the four pillars that Filene established. I also illustrated the pillars to visually support the content and help the viewers better understand the information.
After establishing these overarching ideas, I provided more specific information pertaining to Filene’s impact on the credit union sector. I included a timeline showing significant events in the credit union movement along with some icons illustrating each of these events. I also included a graph showing the growth of credit unions. Finally, I concluded with a statistical summary, as I did in the previous infographic.
Overall, I visually illustrated as many of the ideas as possible and established clear textual hierarchies to ensure that the infographic does not seem overwhelming to the viewer, but is still informative. In longer paragraphs, I also bolded some keywords in the text to increase readability. As with the last piece, I created all of the icons and illustrations myself.
What I Learned
Creating both of these infographics was quite challenging in that I had to figure out a way to visually convey complex ideas from academic papers in a simple, yet informative manner. I had the opportunity to practice creating icons and illustrations that are specific but not complicated. Layout, typesetting, and visual hierarchy were also key skills for this project.