SUMMARY

The Penn Treaty Special Services District was founded in 2006 and has approved more than 685 grant applications from more than 160 community organizations in the Philadelphia area since then. Penn Treaty’s funding addresses a wide range of needs and services, including, parks and greening, education, sports and recreation, arts and culture, infrastructure, and more.

I was hired by GD Loft, a Philadelphia-based design agency to design and produce the report. They were looking for a colorful and graphic design that would allow for many photos to capture the diversity of the communities served.

One challenge with this project was to sift through the many, many organizations with compelling stories to include. A second challenge, however, helped to address the first. A large percentage of the photos provided were not high-quality, professionally shot images. Because of this, I chose to focus on the organizations that had the highest-impact stories coupled with the highest-quality photos.

Each organization also required a paragraph of copy, usually a testimonial from staff or someone impacted positively by the organization. I decided to use color blocks to organize the copy, allowing for a collage effect while maintaining a clean and simple design that wouldn’t distract from the photos themselves.