parenting piecedocumentation

Parenting Piece Co. needed a plug-and-play template system built on their updated brand, which I helped develop with co-designer Brynn Lacey. We were working on a budget.

Their clients are people taking parenting and social work classes, often while dealing with something difficult, like supporting a troubled child. Some of them may be feeling distressed or overwhelmed. The existing workbooks held a lot of valuable content, packed closely onto each page.

My job was to give that content a structure that is easy to read, easy to process and visually soothing, with plenty of room for reflection.

I read through Parenting Piece's existing workbooks and presentations to understand what they are really trying to convey. I wasn't designing finished workbooks. I was designing templates they would fill in themselves, so I needed to know what kind of content every workbook holds.

I also consulted with Parenting Piece and their team to find out what they needed from the templates.

Alongside this, we developed the key brand imagery. Parenting Piece is about community and bringing people together. Through ideation, concept work and looking at other brands, I asked questions that brought out what the brand really means. We landed on stitches and threads, and then the quilt: your life is interconnected, like a quilt you are building and trying to make beautiful. A quilt of care.

I delivered an easy-to-use client workbook and a presentation template, built with strong hierarchy and clear information architecture. They bring together the brand rules I set and Brynn's foundation of colours, fonts and icons.

The workbook template is 34 pages, ready for both screen and print. It covers every kind of page their content needs: an intro, a table of contents, and section pages that make the existing sections visible for the first time. There are concept pages that explain an idea and help the reader reflect on it in their own life, and pages for frameworks, steps, processes and theories. It also includes definitions, writing exercises, checklists and activities like circles of control, side-by-side comparisons, strategies and tips, scenario practice, making a plan, quotations and key takeaways.

Each page type comes in a few variations, so the team can show different kinds of content. Some build on pages they already had, and some are brand new, designed from my understanding of what they needed.

The templates are plug and play, so Parenting Piece staff save time and energy when designing their classes. The workbook also works as a facilitation guide: facilitators use it in class to walk clients through each exercise.

The project came in on budget.

The feedback from Parenting Piece was very positive. They are just getting started with the rebrand, so the workbooks are only beginning to be used.

The project gave the company a foundation of brand rules and a set of clear, readable assets, which brings more structure to how they create materials. The aim is for clients to find the new workbooks more welcoming and easier to understand.

Working within someone else's rules and constraints can be challenging, but this project felt like a natural fit. I felt a strong connection to the brand, its purpose and the design direction, and I'm grateful to Brynn for setting up such a fun brand kit of colours, fonts and icons to build on.

The team was excited to receive the templates, and the project seemed to spark new energy around their business and mission. That was great to see. I wish every project let me use my whole skill set and feel this connected to the work.