Global Social Entrepreneurship Network

When GSEN approached us they had out-grown their existing website – a micro-site within their founding organisation UnLtd UK – and were ready to establish something new that could grow and change along an independent path. The upcoming public launch of their Impact Report was to mark a shift to a period of more intense activity, with the following few months likely to see a lot of organisational change, so they also needed a solution that would be flexible enough to adapt to that.

With budget and time both limited we knew we needed to take a streamlined approach to the design process, allocating the majority of resources towards developing a framework that would be as adaptable and fully-featured as possible.

By using Style Tiles to quickly narrow in on a design style and then collaboratively wireframing out the main pages we were able to quickly establish the key design elements and the overall design direction. From here we jumped straight into development, building out our pattern library and connecting up all the design elements with WordPress.

GSEN’s Impact Report brings together the findings from their investigation into global support for early-stage social entrepreneurs – the first initiative of its kind. Running to 40 content-packed pages it was a piece of work that remained pretty fluid right up to the print deadline, requiring design and final typesetting to run in tandem with content production.

Print production was also running parallel to the development of the website providing the opportunity for each to inform and impact the design of the other. Our style guide driven approach helped ensure consistency across the two media providing a central reference for colour palette, icons and typographic styles.

Infographics and charts bring the report’s data to life and through careful typesetting even very dense pages of text still have a sense of balance and considered design.

It was great to be able to see the report through to print and assist GSEN with selecting an appropriate format that would compliment the design. Selecting a slightly heavier than standard bond paper stock wrapped in a perfect-bound cover lends some added weight and texture that gives the report a real sense of substance.

Hopefully what we have created for GSEN will support them as they take forward their mission to empower organisations around the world to improve the reach, quality and sustainability of work with social entrepreneurs.