Actioning Inclusion
Actioning Inclusion is an e-book publication commissioned by Diversity Intelligences, a diversity consultant company. This handbook was created for international higher education institutions and outlines best practices for handling diversity within those institutions. It is aimed at both faculty and students of these higher education institutions and contains case studies, interviews, and visual graphics.
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I illustrated and laid out the book, as well as created some illustrations for promotion on website.
Book Cover
I was tasked with creating a cover that would represent a diverse group and reflect Diversity Intelligences' principles. The people depicted also could not be photorealistic or else it would suggest a specific place or institution. An everyday American college would look much different from an everyday Chinese college, for example. Thus, the portraits do not have faces but do have unique elements that suggest a variety of features, religions, ages, and opinions.
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As for reflecting Diversity Intelligences' principles, I incorporated their logo into the shape of the cover and utilized similar colors to their logo. Aside from the light pink, these colors reflect the principles of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) that Diversity Intelligences focuses on.
Book Layout
The unifying element of the book cover, interior, and the web elements was always the colors reflecting the UN SDGs, the bird's wings-shaped logo of Diversity Intelligences, and the rounded hexagon shape.
I proposed the use of the hexagon not only because it's a very visually pleasing shape, but also because I felt it was more appropriate than a circle in order to reflect the ethos of this book. Circles, while already associated with inclusion, do not have distinct sides like a hexagon does. The presence of distinct sides that still combine smoothly into a whole shape suggests unity with respect for diversity. As this book outlines, handling diversity is not homogenizing people into a group. It is recognizing and embracing differences and accounting for them when working towards a greater goal.
Web Elements
Banner Icons
These banner icons were for promotion of the web copy of the handbook. They are sized differently for different parts of the main page.
With the web elements, I had more freedom to lay out the book cover differently, as well as add more elements, since I was not limited to the dimensions of a book cover.
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Taking advantage of this, I added more character portraits and also put more emphasis on the visual elements unique to this book and to Diversity Intelligences. Diversity Intelligences incorporates the colors of the UN SDGs into its logo, but the light pink wing shape is unique to Diversity Intelligences. The hexagon shape is unique to the publication itself for the reasons mentioned before.