Modernizing Development

Creative direction for UNDP's flagship publication on the portfolio approach

MOTIVATION
Condense more than four years of practice into one publication. Build a consistent and coherent visual representation of system portfolios. Tell stories of how the portfolio way of working is different, in an engaging and concrete way that helps UNDP teams and partners better understand what it is.

MY ROLE
As creative director, I was responsible for the form and the architecture of information across the volume:

Editorial concept, information architecture and briefing for the illustrations (Asdrubal) and briefing for visual identity (Beatriz)
Production choices, including the open-spine binding, that match the object to the argument.
Project Management with Parima.
Content review and coordination with copyeditor.
Content production of portfolios I was responsible such as (São Tomé and Príncipe, Venezuela, Mozambique...)

CREDITS
Chief Editor: Milica Begovic
Content Orchestrator: Parima Suwannakarn
Editorial Designer: Beatriz Janoni
Illustrator: Asdrubal Fabris
Copy Editor: Romilly Golding
Production Support: Emre Ertas

This publication codifies what UNDP and its partners have learned from shifting toward a portfolio way of working: holding many interconnected interventions as one long-term mission, rather than a collection of separate projects. It draws on experience from more than 100 countries and cities, where governments, communities, and development partners are turning system and portfolio approaches into action alongside UNDP Country Office teams.

Modernizing Development — Introducing Portfolios.
Format: 226 pages, coffee-table proportions, open spine
Completed in 2025 → Read the publication

Editorial Concept: three sections

Development Intelligence

Thematic chapters synthesise learning from using a system and portfolio approach for tackling "green transition," "demographic futures," "future of place,"... They introduce a living metamodel of the emerging areas of work that practitioners surface when working through this systemic lens.

System Change Stories

Twelve country portfolios at the heart of the book, each rendered as an illustrated double-page spread. Text on one side, a commissioned illustration on the other. The illustrations carry what makes the portfolio way of working distinct from a traditional project setup. Often these illustrations demonstrate the system reframe: how different actors and interventions touch different parts of the system to produce deeper, long-term impact.

Portfolio Library

A directory of more than 70 additional country and city portfolios in a condensed format. The library shows the breadth of the practice across the UNDP network and lets a reader see how their own context compares with others. To keep the directory from reading flat, each UNDP regional bureau uses its own derived colour palette, and the portfolio architecture shifts slightly from entry to entry while keeping the essential elements: intent, system effects, shifts, strategic areas, and interventions.

Visual Identity

The publication needed a visual language that could hold twelve country stories, dozens of illustrations, and over two hundred pages of running text without flattening any of them. The visual identity rests on a distorted mesh that signals movement and uncertainty, a bold colour palette that represents the diversity of people and countries UNDP serves, and a coffee-table format with an open spine that lets the book lie flat on a table.

KEY VISUAL ELEMENT: MESH
The publication uses a distorted grid as its visual signature; the grid runs across the cover and section openers and appears in many illustrations throughout the publication.

COLOUR PALETTE
Each thematic chapter has its own colour, helping the reader navigate between the content. The publication has a bold and vibrant colour palette to represent its people's diversity.

FORMAT
Coffee-table dimensions, open spine that lets pages lie flat so readers can take in the full illustrations.

Backstage:
Project management & prototypes

The biggest challenge was getting the content from more than 100 countries and cities into one coherent volume. From kickoff to the printing house, we had five months. To make it work, the editorial design and illustration tracks ran in parallel while content was still coming in because we could not wait for everything to land before starting to produce.

The prototype lived in Google Slides as an open document, available to every UNDP colleague contributing. Around 30 to 40 people edited the same file at different points. Working in one place meant they could see how their story sat alongside others. Two workflows ran in parallel:

Library with 70+ country portfolios: the country team input the initial content in the prototype >> a first illustration draft went into production >> UNDP colleagues reviewed >> the visualisation was corrected, then the entry went to the copy editor.

12 System Change Stories: Once a first draft of content came in from the country team, I drafted an early visual concept and handed it to the illustrator. The draft went back to UNDP colleagues for revision and approval, then on to the copy editor.

Challenges along the way.

Content arrived longer than the word count allowed, in other cases portfolios were still in the design stage with not all the narrative developed, which made difficult to arrive in an information architecture that could fit both scenarios;
Translations from local languages into English produced subtle mismatches that demanded multiple revisions from the copy editor;
Approvals were the slowest moving part of the process. We absorbed delays by keeping editorial design and illustrations running ahead of final sign-off, rather than waiting for clean content before starting to produce.

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“I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her chains are very different from my own.” Marielle Franco