Circulate! Gala

the challenge

Design an informational brochure for Vascular Cure's annual Circulate! Gala. Vascular Cures is a non profit organization committed to fighting vascular disease through awareness campaigns, fundraising, and research. At the Circulate gala, Vascular Cures invites doctors, potential sponsors and donors, and researchers to meet and discuss the current vascular landscape. The timeline for this project was a little over two weeks, and was focused on highlighting the progress of the organization and the doctor-patient relationship. On a more personal note, this was one of my first chances to apply my visual design skills outside of the classroom.

building a background

As an established organization, Vascular Cures already had a color scheme in place, which gave me a starting point to begin designing. A focus of the background design was flow, conveying the vascular system circulating blood throughout the human body. Both backgrounds utilize low opacity to convey flow without distracting from the brochure's content, as well as a gradient between blue and red, a nod to the classic textbook illustration of oxygenated and deoxygenated blood circulation. Lastly, one background has an intertwining ribbon to display a timeline of the growth of Vascular Cures.

flow & Gradient

The design began with building a gradient with Vascular Cure's blue and red, soft enough that it would allow text to still be legible on the brochure. I also created sets of curving "net" lines that could tie the panels of the brochure together in the background. Initially, these sets of lines were to have the reversed gradient of the background. However, these nets were eventually changed to white with a low opacity to be easier on the readers eyes and stay in the background of the content. To the right are initial drafts of both of these features.

Timeline Ribbon

One of the requirements of the brochure was that one side of the pamphlet would display a timeline of the organizations growth over the years. Because there was a significant amount of information required to be displayed, the design used a curving ribbon as a timeline, also tying the brochure together. This version of the background can be seen below.

background rendering

Combining the elements mentioned above, the background tied together each panel of the brochure and the core of Vascular cures. Below on the right is a plain background of net lines and gradient while the left side displays the timeline ribbon.

Doctor-patient perspectives

In addition to the timeline, Vascular Cures wanted to highlight the success of 'Project Voice', a program that encourages patients to manage their own health and and report information to doctors themselves. While the project had other assets, this was the aspect the organization wanted to highlight the most, with the benefits each side felt. This was achieved by having one panel dedicated to each side, flanking a center panel with the purpose of the gala. A rendering of this side of the brochure can be seen below.

The purpose of the gala, and the perspectives of doctors and patients.

the timeline

Lastly, the organization wanted to highlight its progress over the years. This was a key aspect in attracting donors, so presentation was important to demonstrate the effect of possible donations. The design utilized white bubbles with a lowered opacity to highlight each year of progress, but not distract from the accomplishments, and an intertwining red and blue ribbon to tie the bubbles together. A difficult aspect of the timeline was that some years needed to be ranged rather than a specific year, which made it difficult to fit in the provided 'bubble'. A rendering of this side of the brochure is below.