In late 2014, the advocacy group Roots of Change hired Watershed Media to produce its annual report on California”s food and agriculture bills. Changing the food system is currently a hot topic in California politics. Last year’s proposed bills ranged from carbon payments to nutrition assistance to fair labor regulations and many other relevant issues. The state already has 25 food policy councils in cities large and small forming a united front for a more ecologically and socially responsive approach to agriculture. Watershed Media’s job was to make the California Food Policy Council (CAFPC) technical report come alive on the page. We created a “word cloud” cover as well as a series of icons to illustrate the values and principles the CAFPC stands for. These went along with a chart detailing how the state’s entire legislature voted on a series of bills related to the food and farming issues. The report has garnered a lot of attention, at least some of which comes from making technical information accessible and visually dynamic— one of Watershed Media’s specialties.
