The Refficiency Collective based out of the Department of Engineering at the University of Cambridge challenged us to create a visually striking and engaging printed report based on the work that they had completed. This printed report would also have an online interactive story as counterpart on their website. The core aim was to create a compelling design that unified charts and figures and create distinct visual language that would support the narrative of the report and engage a wider audience outside of the academic circle. 

Conversing with Professor Jonathan Cullen (head of the Refficiency Collective) and the authors of the project we knew that they wanted to push the boundaries of standard academic design, which often can be very minimal and with little thought given to design and consistency. This would often lead to disconnected graphs and figures that felt at conflict with the each other and when viewed together would not compliment to the collective narrative. After receiving the first draft of the copy and the summary we worked closely with Jon as we drew together a visual style for the report. Given the nature of the report was focused on plastics and their pervasive nature we developed a broad colour palette and bold typography system to compliment this. The process of distilling the perfect narrative took time and many iterations in which worked alongside the team to make sure the report hit the right marks. 

The report was published in October 2020 and successfully conveyed the complex issues surrounding plastic consumption in the UK. Since then we have been fortunate to be working on a number of other projects with the Refficiency Collective.