The Research Alliance for New York City Schools is an important part of NYC’s civic infrastructure. It conducts rigorous studies on topics that matter to the City’s public schools and provides credible, nonpartisan evidence about policies and practices that promote student success. So, this organization is all about the numbers, generated by its extensive research. At five years, the Research Alliance published a “greatest hits” compilation of what it had learned. (It is the second publication in the slider.) But no one had ever thought to consider the report’s visual identity beyond, “Not an apple.” This first major publication—designed by non-New York-based M&P—established a look and feel that says “credible,” while doing the very tough design job of communicating about data.
At its 10-year anniversary, the Research Alliance wanted to update the findings from its previous publication. Although not originally intended as a series, we were asked to continue and extend the first graphic brand we created to communicate the cohesive nature of its work. If we do say so ourselves, this gets the job done, beautifully.
