American Montessori Society

The American Montessori Society is a New York City–based nonprofit that advocates for the Montessori method of education in both public and private schools across the U.S.

I’ve collaborated with AMS on three projects:
– Annual Report Design
– Event Merchandise Design
– Bilingual Flyer Redesign (Simplified Chinese)

Project 1: Annual Report Design

I designed AMS’s 73-page Annual Survey Report of 2023/24.

Data Visualization

The report was full of various formats of data visualization, so it's important to establish a cohesive design system to be applied throughout different charts, tables, and graphs—all while maintaining the original brand voice.

For an easier customization process and factual representation of the data, I asked AMS to share with me their original survey counts and numbers. Using these data, I custom-made over 40 infographics in Google Sheets.

To color all the infographics, I picked 4 of AMS’s brand colors and built a designated palette on a gradienting saturation and value to make it easier on the eyes. Lastly, I made sure these colors were color-blind-safe and contrast-proof.

1 – 50 students_N = 45, 51 – 100 students_N = 46, 101 – 150 students N = 47, 151 – 200 students N = 36, 201 – 250 students N = 12…

One of the bar graph infographics

Workflow Optimization

My go-to tool for designing documents, reports, and books is Adobe Indesign. But this time, I chose to work in Figma for two reasons: First, AMS only planned to distribute this report digitally. Second, I found the workflow between Figma and Google Sheets(both web-based) was slightly smoother than Indesign and Google Sheets after testing.

To manage a consistent design treatment to all the tables in this report, I used components and auto-layouts in Figma to streamline my process.

Before vs. After

(drag the middle bar)

Use the arrows to flip through the entire report (this feature works best on desktop)

Project 2: Event Merchandise Design

For The Montessori Event this year, which took place in Orlando from March 7-10, 2024, I designed the booklets and button pins for AMS. This letter-size booklet was composed of 8 pages of “Offerings and Events”, informing event-goers of AMS’s latest updates. The button pins offer 4 design combinations and 12 different phrases, such as “for compassion”, “for empowerment”, and “for inclusion”.

Check out #TheMontessoriEvent on LinkedIn!

Project 3: Flyers Redesigned in Simplified Chinese

I redesigned and helped translate some of AMS’s program flyers into Chinese versions. Since I’m bilingual and know how to design with Chinese characters, I took over the original design files and inputted Chinese characters over the English texts. The key was to choose a suitable Chinese font that was highly legible and matched the original aesthetics, to make sure the hierarchy was the same (what to bold, font sizes), and to double-check for the smooth and accurate readability for the native audience.