Second Step® Products
Industry: Nonprofit / EdTech / Education
Services: Brand Design, Print, Digital, Presentation
Crafting social-emotional learning (SEL) educational curriculum deliverables for multiple Second Step® products, based out of Seattle, WA.
The brief.
Committee for Children (CFC) is a nonprofit dedicated to the safety and well-being of children through SEL, as well as the creator of the Second Step® (research-based programs/products) brand.
Building on the foundation of their trusted SEL programs, CFC saw the need to create a new product specifically to meet the needs of out-of-school time settings (where technology and/or educators aren’t always readily available). And while the focus of this product were the activities themselves, the style for the product needed to be consistent with Second Step®’s brand style, which is vibrant, and playful.
The design solution.
A tangible object that would be easy to use for an after-school/out-of-school facilitator and that would give kids a fun, active way to understand their emotions and create a kinder, more empathetic community across three grade bands and four units. This resulted in a total of 12 spiral bound notebooks with 147 activities focusing on teaching SEL skills, known as Second Step® Out-of-School Time (OST).
The Indesign template itself (with the usage of master style sheets that were then imported into the layout) included over 200+ combined and properly labeled character, paragraph, and object styles for each grade band. This expedited the process of the content being added into each template and allowed me to lead contractors in building the assets from those templates.
Physical functionality of the notebook design.
Covers are wrapped with cover stock paper over wire-o binding, that’s cut to reveal a second cover stock page with the grade band label.
This unique design enables the wire binding to have a spine that easily displays information of the notebooks in the slipcase boxes, keeps the wire-o from catching when being removed or put into their boxes, as well as having the cover at a length that’s comfortable to handle and display activity images for users.
OST: From English to Spanish.
The request from clients to have newer products also available in Spanish became very important and a passion of mine. As a native speaker and an active member of the community, plus having designed the template itself, this felt like a must-do project. This became a way to empower Spanish-speaking adults and youth to practice social-emotional skills in any OST environment.
For a detailed glimpse what some of the pages from the templated layout actually look like (in both English and Spanish), click on either one of the buttons available below.
Second Step® Elementary & Middle School
Upon completion of OST, a new opportunity was presented: to help elevate the reinvented curriculum through visuals, interactives, and a library of supporting video aids all hosted on an online platform.
As part of the design team, working closely with educational designers, researchers, and developers, each of us would be responsible for the visual application of one or more grades. And while the foundational elements were already set in place, visual creativity and exploration were still a part of the discovery process.
The visual components for Kindergarten and Grade 5 were my direct contribute to the English version of these programs. However, when it came to the Spanish version of all of the grades, that became part of the translation workflow that I’d be included in for the following year.
Live sample lessons can be seen by clicking on each of the buttons below. And to see how the designs and content appear in Spanish, please select that language from the drop-down menu in the upper right corner that’s set to ‘English’ by default.
Time for Reflection.
Through these projects, I honed in on my project management capabilities, leadership skills, and creative capacity. For it wasn’t easy developing this InDesign template from concept to prototype in about 45 days, especially with all of its intricate styles and for three grand bands. I even challenged myself to create GREP expressions that would help alleviate some of the issues that I kept facing. And in the end, they worked!
It definitely was a learning experience designing educational tools for kids because I was used to designing for adult audiences. However, the process was fun and it was impressive to see how each designer approached and solved this challenge. And in the end, the lively designs that came out and how everything integrated together became our reward.
Becoming the lead project designer for the Spanish translation work of the three new Second Step® products truly allowed me to bring all of my skillsets to fruition. From working directly with internal stakeholders, partners, and vendors to refining, adapting, and delivering materials for use in classrooms as well as online in U.S. markets, it ignited my passion even more.
And although not all of the components in the media player were translated effectively (due to some technical challenges/constraints), the translation team realized the areas of improvement and provided recommendations as to how to go about them for next time.