HOW - a handbook about
development processes
and creative courage
Background
After a long career in management, change management and development processes Ulrika, the author, decided to share her experience as a book. Me and Ulrika have a history as colleagues and friends so she reached out to me for the visual design and concept.
The design process
Based on Ulrika's idea on how to work with creative courage, I took on the challenge to visualise her processes, concepts and methods. We’ve created this book in tight collaboration throughout the creative process.
Approaching the graphics I had to internalise the concepts and find the underlying meaning of the text. I wanted the book to have a look and feel that would reflect the content while also being stylish and approachable. We used the phrase “a coffee table book with substance”.
A guiding principle was “Talk the talk and walk the walk” where we challenged each other to step outside our comfort zones, in my case to step outside my professional style and embrace my artistic side.
Starting out with pen and paper – purposely making the geometric shapes imperfect to achieve a vintage – modern look. Looking at art deco masterpieces, they’re all hand crafted and exhibit small imperfections, that’s what the visual profile strives to mimic.
As the visual design set itself, I moved on the digitise and iterate on the shapes, while keeping the overall hand-crafted feel.
The Book
In "HOW - a handbook on development processes and creative courage" Ulrika shares her experiences, thoughts and ideas - as well as tools and methods to help teams and organisations achieve their goals and implement change. Using development processes characterised by strong communication and creative courage.
The book focuses on the "how" - it is for those that seek to develop their ability to manage creative processes so that they are successful. It is for those who want to mobilise commitment and create progress power - in a world that perhaps more than ever cries out for smart and transformative solutions.
Next steps
The first edition was a labour of love, we could have gone on longer but decided to put it out there. There’re plans for an exercise book for teams to implement the processes from the book.
And, of course the work on the second edition will start as soon as the dust settles from the first one.
Photo from the book launch in november 2025
