This was a project from 9 months ago, but I apparently forgot to include it on the new site. So, I’m going to recap this project now.

The original premise for this project was to give new Dunkin’ Donuts Franchisees a packet of information welcoming them to the Dunkin’ Donuts fold and giving them the general information that they would need to start up a handful of locations. The pages would be pre-printed and blank so that the department in charge of Franchisees (sorry, I don’t remember the name of this department anymore) could personalize the sheets to each Franchisee.

It’s surprising that this turned out good because it was designed COMPLETELY BACKWARDS. Due to time constraints, the first wave of these info packs were going to go out in a 3 ring binder. The first thing that was designed was the inside pages. I had some ideas about how the entire package was going to look, but initially we were only presenting the internal pages. Because the client didn’t get to see the entire project, they initially rejected my page layouts. Standing on their own, the pages might have seemed a little strange, but in the context of the entire package, it was going to look good. They weren’t buying this, so it was back to the Mac for me.

I had to tone it down and hope that some semblance of design would make it through to the final pages. As with any Dunkin’ Donuts project, I kept to the brand standard colors and used a lot of rounded-corner shapes. Since there were to be two separate pre-printed pages, I needed to come up with a layout that would work for both the introduction letter, as well as all of the interior pages. I was planning on using bolder Dunkin’ Donuts colors for the later parts of this piece. Luckily, I was able to use the Dunkin’ Donuts mustard color for these pages.

The next stage of the project was to create tabs for the three different sections of the package. The hardest part about these tabs was that they needed to work in two different forms. Initially the tabs needed to be visible on the left of the pages. The tabs also needed to work when they were viewed in a 3 ring binder. I decided to use the DD cup logo at an angle so that it would look okay when it was upright or upside down (depending on how you look at the pages.) For these tabs, I used the other three colors from the America Runs On Dunkin’ logo.

After printing up the internal sheets and the tabs, I then formatted the information packet so that the proper people at Dunkin’ Donuts could customize their Word document and print it on the sheets. For the initial group, there wasn’t enough time to create the pocket folder that would hold all of this information. That first group received a 3 ring binder with the sheets and tabs.

After this I began working on the pocket folder. I needed to keep it somewhat simple so that it fit with the previously printed sheets and tabs. I knew everything was going to be flat color created in Illustrator. We presented three different looks to the client. They picked their favorite one and we went to print. For the design that they chose, I added a slew of diagonal lines. These were reflected in the diagonal DD cup logo on the tabs, as well as the outside walls on new Dunkin’ Donuts locations. The folder needed two pockets on the inside. It was possible that there could be dozens of sheets in here, so we went with a box fold for the right side pocket.

Once the pocket folder was filled with the internal sheets and the divider tabs, you wouldn’t have guessed that each of the three steps were designed at different times.

This department was great to work with. It’s a rare day when you show some artwork and they just pick one. Often the client helps to work a design to where it works best for their mission, but it was a nice change of pace for someone to look at a design and say, “That’s the one. Go with it.” (I don’t know if that was the exact quote, but that’s how I pictured it in my head.)