Bertelsmann Foundation
We design systems to help think tanks streamline their digital products
Federalism in Crisis
Federalism in Crisis is part of the Bertelsmann Foundation’s Newpolitik project, devoted to exploring the most pressing challenges facing the United States and Germany. This publication covers how these two federations have had very different pandemic experiences.
The challenge was to create a design that showed two different faces of the same problem: Two federations facing the Covid-19 challenge. The visual concept should guide the reader through the report, keeping the central theme as the key point and illustrating historical and particular aspects of each nation.
The red/blue/white transitioned to the black/red/yellow, keeping the same design reference but allowing different perceptions as the reading develops.
Design System
The BFNA is a think tank that produces multiple digital products. It is extremely important that their website has a simple and intuitive structure. That was CCM's main contribution to the new BFNA website - a well built "information architecture", where all the projects are accessible in an easy and clean way.
From a simpler category structure for the organization itself, CCM team was able to create in collaboration with BFNA, very clear groups of products, articles, publications, etc. Now, instead of dozens of categories and post-types, there are four 'buckets' to accommodate every new product they create.
The colours and graphic elements should be neutral, but at the same time modern and noticeable, in order to create a 'home' that accommodates the different projects from the institution. Key elements like the buttons and the bars follow the same aesthetic CCM team designed for independent projects from BFNA and also presented in its website, creating a bond based in the institution visual identity.
People-led Innovation
This project started as a publication created from a partnership between The GovLab and The Bertelsmann Foundation(BFNA) and designed by CCM.
The publication itself got a lot of attention and in 2018 it was selected for the Paris Peace Forum. For this award, working together with The GovLab and BFNA to transport the publication to the web, CCM created alternative views for the main sections, and an easier way for users to interact with the content.
As it happens with online publications, when working on a text-heavy environment, it is very important to be accurate in the information architecture and typography, and also keep it attractive with a clever use of colours.
Transatlantic Cities and the Future of Work
The BFNA's project the "Future of Work | Transatlantic Cities" develops case studies analyzing how technologies such as Artificial Intelligence, Automation, Robotics, etc. will impact cities across the US and Europe.
This project has a very interesting research approach and the information presented demanded a design that "illustrates" how the future of each city will be impacted differently by each of these technologies - one city will see a deep impact from Robotics, while another won't suffer much, but instead will be striken by AI usage.
Being case studies, there is a lot to unpack for each city, with long form texts. Information Architecture was really key here, in order to have these case studies easily scannable by the readers.
CCM team decided to present these case studies with a fair amount of visual information, and an easy to read interface with lots of white space, giving readers a comfortable environment to sit back and read through the content.
How to Fix Democracy
Briefed as "the Netflix of Democracy" this project gathers interviews with high profile democracy experts from around the planet, trying to tackle the big question of "How to Fix Democracy".
Hosted by Andrew Keen, this project is a huge success and is now on its second season. The episodes are available in video and podcast.
For this project, the design team main objective was to highlight each video interviewee as the star of that single episode. The interface concept revolved around the idea of a tv show that builds up around a central theme.
Leveraging the general knowledge of how to browse a streaming service, CCM designed an interface that is most of all intuitive.