City of Seattle Small Business Handbook
ROLES
creative direction
longform layout
copywriting
copy editing
TIMEFRAME
9 weeks
TOOLS
InDesign
Photoshop
Challenge
The City of Seattle’s Office of Economic Development needed a comprehensive resource for new small business owners in the Seattle area, presenting complex information in a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate format. The handbook would serve as an all-purpose reference document while providing an accessible, explanatory guide to complex regulations and city codes.
They required a link-heavy interactive PDF for easy online use, laid out in a format that could be easily converted into an additional print version of the handbook if eventually needed by the OED.
While I was provided with a style guide for the City of Seattle Office of Economic Development’s logo, all other elements of the handbook’s design and layout were at my discretion.
Solution
I developed two potential creative directions for the handbook’s layout: a calm/quiet palette paired with an elegant serif typeface and black-and-white photography, and a rich/vibrant palette paired with a humanist slab serif and saturated color photography, which the client ultimately picked.
Just by its nature, a reference text made up entirely of government resources and regulations is text-heavy and not particularly visually inspiring — a great chance to make this handbook both approachable and easily navigable via design. I wanted make the user experience as intuitive as flipping through a physical book. Anchor links in the table of contents allow a user to jump directly to specific chapters or subsections, while anchor links next to the pagination on every spread take the user back to the chapter start (by the left page number) or the table of contents (by the right page number). Hyperlinks to outside resources are underlined for quick recognition, whether they appear in headers, subheads, or body copy.
When it came to building out the actual handbook content, my writing and editing background served me well. Collaborating with my contact at the Office of Economic Development, I sorted the pile of information into nine chapters (each with a quick intro), then into headers within each chapter, then into several subheads under each header, each containing a short explanatory paragraph as well as the link to the resource. From a design standpoint, I wanted to avoid any intimidating walls of text, so the funnel of information would lead the user to a succinct and relevant tidbit of information.
Photography added richness and visual interest, also helping to break up the text. I sourced a unified library of assets depicting Seattle small businesses and locations, as well as welcoming, inclusive shots that represented a broad range of industries, nationalities, cultures, gender identities, ages, and abilities. I wanted photos that truly reflected the diversity of small business owners in the Puget Sound area, so that users of this handbook would see themselves represented.
By existing in digital format, this handbook serves as a dynamic and evolving repository of online resources, allowing for easy updates to the interactive PDF as content and links change over time. If the Office of Economic Development ever wants to build a physical handbook in addition to the digital version, the established format and layout would adapt for print without much trouble.
