MLBF – Insurance Update Bulletin

The MLBF Health and Welfare Benefits Bulletin was an exercise in intention and balance. Creating an informational healthcare document that was as easy to read as it was visually appealing was a challenge, but I find I enjoy this kind of long form project. It gives me plenty of leeway to experiment with layouts, secondary design elements and the new ways to display hard to understand information.

For this piece I pulled inspiration from existing healthcare materials by providers such as Cigna and Blue Cross Blue Shield. The idea was to create a friendly and transparent document that would allow viewers to understand the programs their union provided for them. The primary challenge for me as the designer was to keep the clutter to a minimum while honoring the clients request for the document to be visual heavy.

I chose to use weight as the foundational element on which to build the visual hierarchy of this brochure from. Once I established this I was able to experiment with what weight ment. Dark heavy fonts for section headers, bold blocks of color to highlight key information and lighter color blocks to subtly distinguish information from the rest of the copy. Incorporating icons and photos to reduce excess white space became fundamental in fulfilling the clients need for this brochure to feel weighty and substantial.

MLBF’s branding has been elaborated upon by many different hands over the years, and I’m very glad to have had the pleasure to work with them to create the vibrant and compelling aesthetic they have today. The beautiful thing about collaborating with other designers is that if you know someone well enough you can pick out the pieces of themselves they left in the product. I see Rose in the illustration style we use that speaks to the friendly and relaxed nature of the brand. Rachel remains in the soft edges and overlays, and Sasha in the crisp clean typography inherited from her elegant logo. Though these pieces all stem from one initial place, this brand wouldn’t look the way it does without all the different hands that have contributed to it along the way and I think that suits the client a lot.  Laborers and unions in general rely on teamwork to make the biggest impact, and having a brand built in the same manner is a beautiful testimony to the power of community.