The Project: The County of Frontenac is committed to promoting responsible and sustainable development. In 2009, it released its long term sustainability plan, a document that outlines the economic, social, cultural and environmental future of the County.
Because this was such an important record, Frontenac County called on BmDodo Strategic Design to create a document that would have appropriate impact and capture the County’s vision for the future.
The Challenge: The sustainability planning document needed to achieve three goals:
First, the long term sustainability plan was of particular importance to the County, and its presentation required the right impact. “The significance of the contents needed to be reflected in the presentation”said Elizabeth Savill, CAO for the County of Frontenac “it needed to be more than a typed document.”
Second, the document had to capture the County’s vision for long term sustainability in the region. “Our long term plan was wide ranging and included social, cultural, economic and environmental initiatives” said Elizabeth “we wanted to illustrate the plan in a way that would allow others to share our vision.”
Finally, this was a deep, lengthy document and it had to be laid out in a way that would make it easy to navigate.
The Solution: In order to meet these objectives, BmDodo created two documents: a text‐only document with a well designed navigation scheme, and a smaller booklet that would fully reflect The County’s vision. The text only document could be updated annually and would outline the entirety of the long term plan; the smaller booklet would be more widely distributed.
To break up the many concepts in the County’s long term plan, BmDodo built a navigation scheme which would make it easier to follow. It was employed in both the two documents that make up the plan - the long-term vision booklet and the more text-oriented actions document. BmDodo designed icons for each different focus area in the plan and added navigation at various points to help orient readers. “Good web navigation can help you find your way around a deep website” said Jen Cameron, Strategic Designer at BmDodo “this was like web navigation for text.”
The booklet version of the plan was designed to complement the text only document. It would illustrate the County’s long term vision in a different manner. “We employed a professional photographer to take photos across the County so we could show off its natural beauty” said Jen. The end result was a visually stunning, guide to the County’s future. “The photos made the plan accessible outside of municipal councils and would allow more residents to share in the County’s vision” added Jen. This more permanent, booklet part of the plan will be displayed throughout the County and is more likely to be shared than the text document “it was designed like a coffee table book. We wanted to create something valuable that people would want to hold onto.”
The booklet was mailed to key people in the County’s municipalities and residents could request a copy online. The plan recently won the inaugural Capacity Building Award from the Association of Municipalities of Ontario (AMO). Winning projects in the Capacity Building category demonstrate excellence in long term sustainability planning.
As an additional part of the community outreach program, BmDodo also developed roll‐up banners. The banners are being used at trade shows, economic development events and any other venues that would showcase the County.
The Results: Frontenac County has had excellent feedback after releasing its long term sustainability plan “we engaged a lot of our residents and businesses” said Elizabeth “and the release of the documents has definitely helped heighten awareness of our long term goals.”
Additionally, the design of documents established a look and feel for the County which had not previously existed. “Brian and Jen made use of some wonderful photographs taken throughout the region. They were able to set up a look and draw it right through the documents” said Elizabeth “we have begun to build a look and feel for the County that we are now using in other materials and on our website.”
The roll‐up banners helped generate additional awareness and reinforced the County’s new look and feel.
Brian Dodo, Principal and Strategic Designer at BmDodo also used this opportunity to create design guidelines for the County “we made them a good template for projects going forward. The guidelines will help them maintain a consistent look and feel across multiple applications.”
The County of Frontenac is very happy with the finished product “We have found the experience of working with BmDodo very positive” said Elizabeth “they are always open to hearing what we want to achieve and helping us reach our goals.”
