IAFC Infographics

CHALLENGE: Public Policy staff requested graphics for an upcoming presentation to the Illinois Commission on Equitable Early Childhood Education and Care Funding. The goal was to convey a better understanding of the complexity of funding challenges that exist for families and providers. The graphics needed to distill input from child care providers, IAFC’s community partner organizations, and staff in the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development.

SOLUTION: Catherine Lange has worked with Illinois Action for Children since she began her design firm in 2001. Even with that depth of familiarity with IAFC’s mission, Lange wrestled with the rough sketches and background documents provided by the team. The breakthrough came in leaping from the team’s initial visual direction, which portrayed data for multiple families, independent of each other in their own “silos,” when in fact the message needed to key into joining multiple families into one “pie chart” of funding streams which any single child care provider or center is likely to encounter. In the conference call with the team after they received the first design drafts of the infographics, Lange was gratified to hear the team leader say, “First of all, I want to say these graphics are brilliant!”