A Graphic Language for The Guardian
The Guardian has a wide range of newsletters covering many topics. I was brought in for 3 months to lead design in the newly formed Newsletters team and create a graphic language and design system. The goal was to bring together the existing newsletters into a cohesive product offering with an exiting and recognisable style and support the creation of new newsletters.
Guidelines
Previously, any given newsletter would handled by the editorial team responsible for the content and would use visual assets that varied wildly, from photography to simple graphics to commissioned illustrations. Viewed on the Guardian website, it was hard to tell a newsletter promotion from a random news article. To address this I created a graphic language that would allow for creative and thematic freedom, while maintaining a cohesive visual identity. Graphics can scale up and down in complexity while following the overall guidelines.
Components
To make creating new Newsletters faster and simpler, I developed a library of content blocks that the designers and journalists could use to build up a newsletter in a consistent, structured way. Some have coloured elements that can be altered to suit the style of the specific newsletter or editorial category.
Illustrations
During my time at the Guardian, my team launched a number of new Newsletters, testing the new design system. We also created sign up pages for each, which included a set of illustrations I created in line with the graphic language.
