Infographics
Economic Snapshot
Prince William County
Works / Infographics
Infographics · Data Design
Economic Development Reporting
Prince William County — turning economic data into memorable, shareable visuals: newsletters, lead-gen emails, monthly reports, and director-facing presentations
A county with more data than almost anyone knew what to do with — employment, development, demographics, growth — and a business audience that would give it about eight seconds before deciding whether to keep reading.
15%
Increase in Brand Visibility25%
Increase in Engagement6 yrs
Leading County Visual Comms1
Reusable Reporting System
01
The Challenge
Rich in data. Starved for clarity.
Prince William County's Department of Economic Development had genuinely good numbers. Employment figures, sector growth, development pipelines, demographic shifts — the raw material for a persuasive case to any business considering the county.
But it arrived as spreadsheets and dense reports, and it had to travel through a lot of different channels — monthly newsletters, lead-generation emails, quarterly reports, presentations and speeches, talking points, and event materials built for directors. A county leader could not act on it at a glance, and a site-selection executive comparing three regions was never going to read it at all. The information existed; the understanding didn't.
02
The Strategy
One idea per visual. No exceptions.
The temptation with a rich dataset is to show all of it. I went the other way: every graphic makes exactly one point, and anything not serving that point comes out.
That discipline turned into a system rather than a set of one-off graphics — a consistent chart language, a fixed palette, and repeatable layouts so that reports, proposals and mailers all read as the same county speaking with the same voice, quarter after quarter.
03
The Process
Interrogate the data before designing it.
Each piece started by working out what the numbers actually said — which meant real conversations with the analysts who produced them, not just receiving a spreadsheet. Only then: hierarchy, layout, visual system, accessibility check, and production for both print and screen.
The same system carried into investor proposals, trade-show material, campaign design and the county's digital properties, so the visual language held wherever the audience met it.
04
UX Decisions
Four choices that shaped the work.
One message per graphic
Each visual answers a single question. Related points get their own graphic rather than a second axis.
Because a chart that needs explaining has already failedA fixed chart language across every document
The same colors, weights and shapes mean the same thing in a quarterly report as in an investor deck.
Because recognition is faster than readingContrast checked against WCAG, not taste
Palettes validated for legibility rather than chosen for looks — including in print.
Because public information has to reach the whole publicDesigned for print and screen simultaneously
Layouts that hold at tabloid size on a booth wall and on a phone in a meeting.
Because the same figure gets used in both, always
05
Tools & Technology
What the work was built with.
Design
- Illustrator
- InDesign
- Photoshop
- Infographic Systems
- Editorial Layout
Data
- Excel
- PowerPoint
- Data Interrogation
- Chart Systems
Standards
- WCAG Contrast
- Print Production
- Accessible Documents
06
The Outcome
A county that finally looked as competitive as its numbers.
The coordinated marketing effort lifted brand visibility by 15% and engagement by 25%. The infographic system became the standard format for economic development reporting across the department.
Every public-facing deliverable met WCAG contrast and legibility standards — which for a government publication is not optional.
07
Why It Matters
Public bodies publish an enormous amount of information that nobody reads, and it is almost never because the information was uninteresting. Making a county's own data legible to its own residents and investors is a small piece of civic infrastructure — and it is the most transferable skill I have.
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