Global Alliance for the Future of Food
Two storytelling projects, one growing partnership: giving frontline food leaders a platform, from a digital gallery to COP30.
Project Details
Client: Global Alliance for the Future of Food
Sector: Charity & The Third Sector
Services: Editorial Design, PDF Design, Social Media Design, Web Design
Year: 2025 to ongoing
Since 2023 we’ve been the Global Alliance for the Future of Food’s studio for turning complex food systems work into stories people actually stop and read. Two projects show that well: Rooted in Justice, a digital gallery giving frontline food justice leaders a platform in their own words, and a companion project profiling 20 frontline leaders ahead of COP30 in Belém.
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Frontline leaders given a platform across both projects, 8 in Rooted in Justice, 20 at COP30
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Storytellers and interviewees for Rooted in Justice spanned 14 countries, five continents, from Ethiopia and Benin to Nepal, Argentina and Iran
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Six weeks from brief to launch for the COP30 profiles, building on the visual language from Rooted in Justice
Rooted in Justice: a wall of stories, not a report
The brief was to showcase the abundance of material from GA’s food justice project, profiles, group conversations, sensemaking sessions, an essay for Langscape Magazine, even a literature review and data science study, in a way that felt evocative, like a wall of artworks, not a repository of documents.
We designed the gallery in Shorthand, building the visual language around collage, texture and typography drawn from GA’s own line drawings and refreshed identity. Eight frontline leaders were profiled with equal care, their stories woven through with quotes, audio, video and links to their own work, because part of the brief was demonstrating the relational, not just the outcomes, of food justice work.
Contributors spanned more than a dozen countries, and the project drew on data science partnership from UC Berkeley’s Schmidt Center for Data Science & Environment. When GA came back to launch a social campaign, we extended the same collage and texture treatment into LinkedIn carousels and quote cards, so the whole rollout read as one story rather than a website and a separate marketing push. When GA published their credits, Out of Place was named alongside that research partnership, rare recognition for the design side of a project this rooted in research.
COP30 Frontline Leaders: a platform for the people going to Belém
GA was supporting 20 frontline food leaders to attend COP30, and wanted to introduce them properly before they got there, not just as a list of names, but as a set of stories. The previous year’s version of this had been a static PDF; this time, the brief was to make it feel like storytelling rather than a directory.
Having already built the visual language for Rooted in Justice, we were able to move quickly, adapting that same collage and editorial approach to a new brief and GA’s brand guidelines. Each leader was given a full profile, photograph, bio and quote, built into a single Shorthand story rather than 20 disconnected entries.
Alongside the Shorthand build, we designed a downloadable PDF version for offline use at the conference, and a set of social carousels giving each leader their own moment on GA’s channels in the run up to launch. All three formats launched together in mid October, in time for COP30.
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