COSMO study
2023, The Sutton Trust
template design
The COVID Social Mobility and Opportunities (COSMO) study looks at the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the cost of living crisis on the life chances of young people. Working for Soapbox, I was tasked with creating a publication template for The Sutton Trust to use in-house to produce their own reports.
The design had to merge the branding of the COSMO study, which was a collaboration between several organisations, with The Sutton Trust's own style guide. As a digital publication, on-screen readability was a key consideration. The client also wanted some playful elements in the design, but it was important that the template be user-friendly for their in-house team who had limited knowledge of InDesign.
I created a comprehensive template, with all styles fully set up, and accompanying template files for different chart types to enable them to produce their own from Excel data. The design incorporated the signature swirly lines from the COSMO study, but with a two-colour palette comprising The Sutton Trust's royal blue with a soft teal in different tints to make it distinct from their other publications. To accommodate the web-only output, I opted for an asymmetric design with wide margins and larger type size to ensure optimal readability, with pull quotes and graphics providing a means to break up the text and make it more visually appealing.
