The City of Thousand Oaks Climate & Environmental Action Plan (CEAP) Goes Live
“We can think of a Climate and Environmental Action Plan as ‘Putting Sustainability into Practice’. It needs to address all 3 components of sustainability – equity, the environment, and the economy.” The City of Thousand Oaks.
McGregor Shott was contracted to create the City of Thousand Oaks new Climate and Environmental Action Plan (CEAP). The graphic design and layout project consisting of a 108 and a 128 page book with a large amount of informative text and charts. The agency first met with city staff to discuss the goals of the printed and digital report to not only be informative, but also captivating and visually engaging. The writers, analysts and marketing department at the city worked together to create a document to grab attention and to provide easy reading and navigation.
Understanding the City Brand: McGregor Shott began with an understanding of the city’s brand identity. This involved use of the city logo, fonts and colors. More than a logo, the Thousand Oaks brand encompassed a vision and a unique story surrounding their success as a popular, upscale and vibrant community, in tune with the challenges environmental changes will bring to the city government, businesses and residents. This meant creating a look and feel with a high-quality, professional and clean layout.
Design and Layout Approach: Rather than a standard report format, the agency opted to break up blocks of text with tasteful and colorful graphics and to weave in infographics, charts, and illustrations around the information. Bold type for headers and colored tabs helped to guide readers through the different sections. Pull out quotes and text highlighted key facts and goals. McGregor Shott continued regular meetings with key staff and the City’s communications department through design presentations and the revision process.
Visually Engaging: The use of graphics, colors, type treatment and flowing text worked well to keep the data more readable and aesthetically pleasing. A color palette of greens, blues, yellows, oranges and grays evoked a sense of outdoors, nature and sustainability.
“Yesterday evening our Climate and Environmental Action Plan was adopted by City Council. The document was received with a lot of praise – both for content and also for its look and feel. We wanted to thank Beth Shott and Lois McGregor for the wonderful job you both did in creating a document that the City is very proud of. The product you produced is engaging and attractive with its vibrancy, color and organization. You have been a delight to work with – proactive, responsive to our requests, great attention to detail, creative, and fast turnaround to meet our tight timeline. Thanks so much for your great work.”
The Outcome: The response to the Climate and Environmental Action Plan design and layout has been overwhelmingly positive. Stakeholders, including business and city council have approved the report and it has been praised for its well-formatted pages and engaging design.
“McGregor Shott is honored to have been a part in designing such an important document.” said Beth Shott, senior designer and creative director at McGregor Shott. “We hope it has resonated with readers and stakeholders and will be visually informative for years to come.”
The Climate and Environmental Action Plan reports were perfect bound printed and also made available digitally on the City of Thousand Oaks website at https://toclimateaction.squarespace.com/
McGregor Shott, Inc. is an acclaimed creative and branding agency located in Santa Clarita and Atlanta. They have over 20 years of experience in designing identity systems, campaigns, website design, trade show graphics, collateral, posters, logos, and many other related materials. McGregor Shott specializes in creating award-winning work for cities, colleges, and economic development agencies. For more information, contact Lois McGregor lois@mcgregorshott.com.