Wellspring, 2000–2005

opportunity

Existing publication did not engage its intended audience and segregated bilingual content sections. Front page reminder of disease status indicated readership as those Living with HIV. Thin uncoated paper, poor printing, and poor use of whitespace all contributed to declining interest by readers and contributors.

Schwadesign solution

We engaged the writers, readers, and publication advisors in three focus groups to find out what they wanted to see and understand and experience. A strategy was then designed to speak to readers in a less clinical, and more humane way. A new voice for the publication was born, featuring the tagline: Survival Skills for the Community.

Dynamic template and ongoing publication design includes: author photographs allowing readers to connect writers with faces upon their visits, integrated English and Spanish content running side-by-side, community gallery space created solely for readers to express their voices through art and writing portfolio, cross-processed use of two colors printed on coated paper yielding expressive color range, and dynamic scale shifts between spreads. For the same budget and pagecount as its prior design, we produced a publication that’s not only more sumptuous to look at, but also more effective: readership went up, and more education was disseminated into the community for survival.

providing

Marketing strategy, focus group facilitation, template design, quarterly publication design (from 2000–2005).