Earth Charter
About
I'll begin by stating very clearly that this is a personal project and was not produced in conjunction with the good people at Earth Charter International. In applying for this program, I saw that I needed a piece that showed my interest in sustainability since I didn't have any past work in the industry. After tossing a few ideas around, referencing the Earth Charter very quickly became my favorite, and ultimately the one I ran with.
I studied their site, thinking I'd try my own version of that, but when I saw the digital version of the charter itself I knew that's what I wanted to iterate on.
Tools
Methods
Graphic Design
Image Manipulation
Typography
Print Layout Design
Iconography
Challenges
Upon opening the Earth Charter digital document, the viewer sees everything it has to offer. It's very effective in its efficiency. But coming from the website environment that includes bespoke illustrations, color palette and fonts, none of those things make it into the digital document.
I began by roughing out the sections I would need in my notebook, then figuring out how I could organize those as a whole booklet including spaces for imagery. This turned out to be a prime example of my optimism getting the better of me as I needed to redesign the whole document after formatting the sections of text. After redistributing elements I came to a design that I was happy with and set to making the design cohesive with the Earth Charter website.
Sourcing colors was simple enough, and after healthy bit of googling, I found the typeface that was used and everything shaped up pretty cleanly by the end. Though now I just have to make another version for each of the other 64 languages they have the original in. Shouldn't take too long.
Deliverables
Impact and Learning
It had been some time since I had last made a print document in this format, so I had to dust off some old skills, remember some workflows in Indesign, and learn some new tricks as I came across obstacles that I didn't have answers for. My preferred way of learning is with hands-on work, and this project was great fun for that reason.
The Earth Charter's ideas resonated with me immediately upon reading them and the document is such a crucial guide to shaping our society into one that benefits and supports us all, so including my belief in its message into my application portfolio felt right.