Background

Breakthrough is an international NGO, which works for gender-based rights. It works through campaigns, such as against domestic violence, with the goal of sensitising men, and creating social change agents. They approached us to design publications on an ongoing basis.

Diagnosis

Breakthrough’s visual branding had been defined but failed to carry on to the publications. Without it, Breakthrough couldn’t harvest the credit for its campaigns, which were better known than the organisation itself. At another level, the communications weren’t always effective, as the understanding of audiences and objectives, language, tonality and messaging were not in place.

Problem finding

The publication effort lacked a programme, and was agency dependent; a better process would yield far better return. We proposed a one-time intervention to ensure that 1) the brand was infused and 2) the documents’ objectives were met.

The journey

A hyper-detailed trace of the campaign cycle from ‘idea to impact’ ensued, from its genesis, sharply clarifying objectives and audiences, as well how it’s distributed, read and responded to. This was presented as an actionable audit, with the needed improvements identified at both the brand and the effectiveness levels.

Next, we rationalized all the communication into just eleven items, ranging from street level ‘flyers’ to academic case studies. For each, we agreed on the intent, the publication owners, the users, cost, and means of production (identifying the resources needed for each).

Design

Finally, we created templates and guidelines for each publication, with design details and content sequencing, infusing the correct brand language as well as making it consistent, readable, immediately useful and deployable, and ultimately effective, with the Breakthrough tonality.

The architecture organizes and harmonizes Breakthrough campaigns, letting the campaign find its voice while reflecting credit to Breakthrough.