In every publication design at the Lab that I’ve done far, I know the co-authors of the content are very close to the work itself. They are the knowledge experts, so I ensure they’re involved in my process to align my design with their vision of how they want their research to be presented.

The co-authors provide their content in a Google Doc, allowing all contributors across our remote organization to suggest changes. By the time 80% of the content was solidified, the team had already divided it into sections, allowing me to start storyboarding the publication in Adobe InDesign.

I leverage our organization’s brand style guide and our previous publications to aid in my design decisions for use of color, accessible color combinations, typography, and overall style. Regarding size and orientation, I decided to stick to 11x8.5” in case our audience would like to print these pages for themselves. The landscape orientation would also allow the project team to convert these pages into Google Slides for future conference presentations, with minimal editing.

From there, I allot myself space towards the beginning and end of the publication for front and back matter respectively, then plot the major sections in first. The number of pages between sections is determined by how much copy it has and how much weight the team wants the visuals to have, like a big headline, a callout quote, an image, or a graphic. From there, I get granular, dividing each page to troubleshoot placement of said content.

I recognize not everyone at our organization has an Adobe Creative Suite license, nor are familiar with Adobe design software, so I export each draft as a PDF and upload it to Google Drive so that the team can view it and comment any changes they would like me to make. Whenever a copy change was made in the original Google Doc, I would also reflect this change in the InDesign file.

Leading up to the public release, this publication was redesigned 7 times over the course of the month. Drafts 1–4 was largely troubleshooting agreement of content, placement, overall flow, and any visual aids I created. Draft 5 was a final review for copyedits by my Communications Director. After implementing those changes, Draft 6 was sent to the funder for approval, with the 7th iteration as the version launched to the public.