Usecase: 10-year impact report
In September 2021, IDEO.org turned 10 and rolled out an impact report as a public measure of their work over the past decade. Beyond showcasing the amount of people reached with their solutions, the team wanted to tell a story about what it means to measure the impact of design and candidly reflect on what they’ve learned. “I think we probably used every possible tool available on Readymag. I would say the visual style of the report is very editorial. We used a combination of collages, videos, and photography to celebrate the diversity of our projects and the people we work with,” says Joan Encarnacion.
Before jumping into the design, our Director of Impact, Chris Larkin and Impact Design Lead Tasha Raman led a rigorous research and reflection process where we looked at the data and impact from the past decade and identified key stories and lessons learned. This phase set the foundation for the narrative and navigational structure of the site. Then a design team consisting of myself, Joan, illustrator and animator Adriana Crespo, and Senior Writer Emily Sadeghian brought the story to life on Readymag. Throughout the process, we brought partners in to reflect on their experience, as well as the wider IDEO.org design community to help explore and push the final product. — Kristin Riger, Design Director at IDEO.org
Workflow for the impact report
To organize their workflow, different designers duplicated the working project and then brought it all together into a single site at the end. “Being able to experiment with different layouts separately while keeping duplicate versions of the test site also allowed us to iterate, and have backups in case we made mistakes along the way,” says Joan Encarnacion.
The ability to prototype page flows and navigational structures in Readymag was crucial to the design process, particularly in terms of merging visual design and content development as well as receiving design critique from outside parties. Instead of viewing page mock-ups, we were able to see how the story was evolving on the platform. We were also able to test Readymag’s unique capabilities—particularly in animation—which influenced the way we told the story. — Joan Encarnacion, Senior Communications Designer at IDEO.org
Joan Encarnacion’s favorite Readymag features
Animation
This is my most used Readymag feature.
Drag-and-drop interface
I love the freedom to drop in images and gifs, then place them wherever I want in the grid.
Fixed widgets
They help create immersive interactions.
Page transitions
I love toggling between the horizontal and vertical page transitions.
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