Design in the Age of COVID

It has been a constant in every annual report that I have ever worked on. (And, no, I am not referring to the actual financials). The Board photo. Along with the CEO image, it is probably the most politically sensitive item in the whole report. If you don’t think your picture is flattering, then you will probably sour on the entire project, no matter how great it all looks. It is just human nature.

For the past several years, I have created an annual report for the Valentine Foundation, a group that provides funding for social change for women and girls in the Philadelphia area. They are a wonderful organization and fund some amazing projects. The annual report is only four pages long, and the board photo is pretty important to the overall look of the book. And, each year they send me a fun, funky, hip photo of their board of trustees, a group of women who look like they enjoy each other’s company while making a positive impact in their community.

That is until the 2020 report. All they had was a bad photo of a Zoom meeting because, like so much that year, their board meetings went virtual. What to do? Over the years I have found that some design solutions come to me in a flash. I just know what to do and where to start. Others take a lot of time and effort and patience. This was one solution that just seemed obvious. And the fact that none of the individual pictures are really flattering. That works too, because, really, who looks good on a Zoom call. I know I don’t.

And so it goes in the age of COVID. When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. When clients give you a bad Zoom picture, you find a way to make it work and, if you are lucky, you make a bad photo look like it was planned all along.