100 Years of Immigration

Overview and Client

This is an information booklet on the history of Canadian immigration. This project (if it were real) would have ideally been for the government of Canada to release to the public as part of a commemorative event or program that highlighted the history of the country’s immigration landscape.

Brief

As the designer of this project, what was needed was an informative and research driven booklet that informed readers on one of the most integral aspects of Canada’s cultural, social, and economic landscape from a historical perspective.

The project is research driven and incorporates data on statistics involving Canadian immigration (such as the fluctuating numbers on Canada’s immigration numbers on an annual basis and the geographical distribution of the country’s foreign-born population compared across the last century.) The data is complimented by research that aims to provide context which had an either direct or indirect impact on immigration (such as events and occurrences like World War I, the great depression, refugee crises and government policies implemented throughout history) to the numbers in order to support the data and provide a comprehensive insight into the topic.

The project is created as a booklet that is organized in an historical order (such as the book begins with information from the early 20th century and goes all the way until the late 20th century.)

The purpose of the project is to inform the reader on the subject of immigration in Canada and provide the reader with data that supports the context in an easily understood way.

Research portion

In gathering research for this project, I knew I had to find significant and meaningful data that would interest a reader and which would tell the story of Canada’s immigration history in an impactful way.

One of the early challenges I faced in this stage of the process was making the decisions on what kind of data that was to be used as part of the project. There are lots of datasets available to the public that show different information on this subject and it was part of my job to pick out what I felt were the most important and would be the most purposeful for this project.

In a similar sense, I felt it was important to not make this exclusively a booklet of infographics and charts. I wanted to include written, research driven content that supported the data by providing the reader with context to what they were seeing. The challenge that came with this was determining how much written content to find and include in the booklet. Finding the appropriate balance between infographics, data visualizations and written content was an important part of this process since it would determine how I would then approach the design and the layout of the content.

As my main sources of reference, I retrieved all the data that was used in the project from Statistics Canada. They had curated datasets on their website regarding Canada’s immigration history as part of Canada’s 150 Years anniversary last year, and the datasets that they had included ones such as population fluctuation charts, where you can see the number of immigrants that arrived in Canada on a year by year basis. They also had data outlining how much of the percentage of Canada’s foreign-born population were made up by a particular region of the world. These were the two major datasets and the ones I felt were the most inclusive and provided a thorough insight into the topic.

I also gathered research from a history book called Strangers at our Gates: Canadian Immigration and Immigration Policy, 1540–2006 — which included very detailed information that provided me with the context that I needed for the data that I had retrieved.

Design Process

Initially, this project was completed as an infographic poster. The purpose of the project was to expand on data visualization by incorporating some sort of narrative and story that supported the data. This would eventually serve as the basis in my attempt to amplify this idea by expanding it into a booklet.

I still feel like the poster works as something on its own, and I presented essentially the same data that I used for the booklet, but in a less detailed manner, and overall the content was not as comprehensive. This was the main thing I wanted to change and I eventually came to the conclusion that a more exhaustive method of delivering this content would be more rewarding for this type of topic, which is so broad and detailed in nature.

Once I decided to turn the poster into a booklet and had gathered all of the necessary research and data that I knew I wanted to include in the booklet, I then began the process of organizing layouts and visualizing the data in what I thought was the best way possible.

Some of the initial layout ideas that I explored included ones with different type treatments including font styles and type sizes. This portion of the project was the most challenging as it became increasingly apparent that organizing this type of content was difficult because of the sharp contrast of displaying information that was written and information that was strictly visual. Some of the challenges during this part of the process were figuring out how much content should be included on one page or one spread of the booklet, for instance. Some of the earlier attempts at designing the layouts were too cluttered and filled with too much content, and that led me to eventually making the decision to cut back on some of the content in order to create a cleaner and easier to read page.

Other challenges during this stage of the process were visualizing the data. I explored different ways of visualizing the information in the form of charts and tried different colour schemes, size adjustments and placement on the page to come up with the most effective solution.

Some of the things I learned from this process were how to determine the right balance of content on a page or on a spread. Finding the appropriate relationship between the words and the data and using both to create a layout that was at the same time cohesive and effective in communicating the content was what I felt was the most essential part of this project, and as a result was also the most challenging.

Solution

In my final version of the project, I created a minimalist layout which I felt would help the reader better interpret and understand the content that was being delivered. The red colour scheme was a simple reflection of Canada’s national colours and helps identify the piece as something that is distinctively related to Canada. I wanted to also visualize the data in different ways, using icons, bar graphs, and maps to help keep the reader as engaged as possible by showing similar information but in fresh and new ways.

The minimalist, clean layout I felt compliments the otherwise heavy content that the reader consumes. The red colour scheme consistently connects with the subject matter and the overall understated tone of the type treatment and layout allows for the content to be the focus of the booklet, since this is supposed to be something that informs the reader first and foremost.

In the end, I think the client would be satisfied with the result of the project because it achieves the purpose of providing the readers with important information on Canada’s immigration history. The booklet is supposed to be informative and the design reflects the purpose of the content.