Designing the INVENT Output Guide: Making European Research Easier to Explore
Updated: Jul 27
The INVENT project brought together researchers across nine European countries to explore how people understand, experience and value culture, and how cultural policy can become more inclusive.
Over three and a half years, the consortium produced a significant collection of research. This included a large-scale European survey, interviews, focus groups, case studies, digital data research, policy briefs, reports, articles, videos, newsletters, a book and an interactive inventory for cultural-policy professionals.
As the project approached its conclusion, we faced a familiar communications challenge:
How do you make years of complex research easy to understand, navigate and use?
The answer became the INVENT Output Guide, an interactive document that brings the project’s major findings, methodologies and resources together in one place: From a collection of outputs to a clear journey.
Research projects often produce valuable knowledge across many different formats. The challenge is that, once those outputs are distributed across reports, databases, articles and webpages, it can become difficult for an external audience to understand how everything connects.
Rather than expecting readers to already know what they were looking for, it introduces each major part of the project, explains its purpose and directs readers toward the relevant resources. The guide covers twelve central output areas, ranging from the quantitative survey and qualitative interviews to policy recommendations, audiovisual content, academic publications and the European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture.
Designing around the INVENT identity
INVENT’s visual identity is built around an iceberg, a fitting representation of culture, where much of what shapes our values, identities and behaviours exists beneath the immediately visible surface.
I wanted to extend that metaphor throughout the guide.
The reader begins above the water, surrounded by a lighter sky, before gradually moving deeper into the ocean as they progress through the document. The background becomes darker and marine elements begin to appear, creating a visual sense of travelling further into the project’s research and outputs.
The intention was to make a research-heavy document feel approachable and exploratory without compromising the seriousness of the subject matter.
I used:
a consistent blue colour palette connected to the existing INVENT identity;
rounded content areas to separate information and make longer sections easier to process;
images of reports, infographics, videos and digital platforms to give each output a tangible presence;
hyperlinks throughout the text and visual elements so readers could move directly to the full resources.
The result was designed to function less like a static report and more like an interactive map of the project. The published guide allows readers to select linked text and icons and go directly to the related studies, reports, publications and tools.
Making complex research accessible without oversimplifying it
One of the most difficult parts was deciding how much information to include.
Each output represented years of work from researchers across multiple institutions. It was important to reflect that depth accurately while keeping the guide useful for people who might be encountering INVENT for the first time.
The structure helped create consistency across very different subjects—from a survey involving more than 14,000 participants to focus groups, digital data scraping, policy recommendations and the project’s interactive cultural-policy inventory. The guide gives readers enough context to understand what is available and decide where they would like to explore further.
A resource for different audiences
The guide was created for several audiences, including:
researchers and students;
cultural-policy professionals;
cultural organisations and practitioners;
policymakers;
citizens interested in culture, inclusion and social change.
That variety influenced both the writing and design. The language needed to remain accurate enough for academic and policy audiences while being accessible to people without a research background.
The document also needed to accommodate different user intentions. Some readers may want to understand how the research was conducted. Others may be looking specifically for policy recommendations, data, educational videos or examples of inclusive cultural practices. Creating one clear entry point made those different journeys easier.
The culmination of a European research project
For me, the Output Guide represents the culmination of the communications work developed throughout INVENT. During the project, I worked across website content, social media, newsletters, visual materials, events and research dissemination. The guide brought all these different strands together and created a lasting overview of what the consortium had achieved.
It is also an example of the kind of work I enjoy most: taking a large amount of complex information, understanding the relationships within it, and turning it into something structured, engaging and useful.
Research creates impact when people can find it, understand it and apply it. Good communication cannot replace strong research but it can help that research travel much further.
Explore the complete interactive INVENT Output Guide here.
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