Event case study · 2025 North Central Chapter Symposium

Healing Hands, Joyful Hearts

A 12-page symposium booklet built solo in roughly two weeks, on a design system nimble enough to absorb last-minute speakers, sponsors, and a day-before addendum.

Wine & Roses Resort, Lodi · September 12, 2025

The setup

This was a project I did solo for the North Central ACNL Chapter. Some time in late August, one of the chapter’s leaders told the state office that they were hosting a big symposium event in mid September, about three weeks out. Getting the event created, billing set up, and sponsors wrangled was thankfully not my responsibility, but they did want a 12-page booklet with the agenda, chapter board, bios for all the speakers, scholarship list, and sponsor list. And they didn’t need it in three weeks when the symposium was to be held, they needed it in about two weeks so they could get it to the print shop in time.

For a project of this size I would normally work with our contract graphic designer, but it was too short of notice for him so I took it on myself. The event title had already been decided (“Healing Hands, Joyful Hearts”), but the chapter leader didn’t have a visual concept yet, other than, if I couldn’t help him, he would just type everything up and print it on blue paper. Which, honestly, almost felt like a threat.

The concept

I spent a lot of time thinking about the event’s title and how to match it visually. I decided it should be something simple, clean, relaxing. I settled on an abstract watercolor theme with ACNL’s purple and orange brand colors.

Booklet cover spread: an abstract purple and orange watercolor wash with the title Healing Hands, Joyful Hearts and, on the back cover, chapter contact details and a Circles of Giving donation callout — **The cover concept:** an abstract watercolor wash in ACNL's purple and orange, calm and clean to match the title. This is the full cover-and-back spread; the front cover is on the right.

The system

The design became a bit of a moving target. The chapter leader I was coordinating with was still in the process of adding last minute speakers, securing sponsors, and deciding how many scholarships they were giving out and to whom.

I took what elements I had and tried to at least get the system in place so it would be easier to add new elements as they came. I laid everything out in InDesign with clearly defined text styles for headings, speaker names, etc, as well as consistent sizes for all the headshots (which came to me in a dizzying array of formats).

InDesign layout spread: the agenda on the left, the president's welcome letter on the right, clean text on white before the watercolor was added — **The InDesign skeleton.** Every spread built on the same defined text styles (headings, speaker names, body) and one fixed headshot size, so a late addition could drop straight in. These are the clean, pre-design layouts.

InDesign layout spread: speaker bios set in the defined text styles, with uniformly sized headshots — **The InDesign skeleton.** Every spread built on the same defined text styles (headings, speaker names, body) and one fixed headshot size, so a late addition could drop straight in. These are the clean, pre-design layouts.

This gave me the option to shift things around as my contact added content. However, I also made sure to contact the print shop and find out when would be the latest they could accept the document for printing, and gave the chapter leader a hard deadline for when I would need everything to get it done in time.

The design

Once he had everything to me, I imported each InDesign spread into Photoshop and designed around the text layers.

Photoshop page art: a full purple and orange watercolor wash designed to sit behind the agenda spread — **The design layer.** Each spread came into Photoshop, where I painted the watercolor around the text layers, then exported the finished page art. Some spreads are full washes; others hold clean panels so the text stays readable.

Photoshop page art: watercolor with clean white panels positioned to hold speaker text legibly — **The design layer.** Each spread came into Photoshop, where I painted the watercolor around the text layers, then exported the finished page art. Some spreads are full washes; others hold clean panels so the text stays readable.

The booklet

Then I exported the blank pages from Photoshop and brought them back into InDesign to finish the booklet and create the PDF for the print shop.

PDF Healing Hands, Joyful Hearts — Symposium Booklet The finished 12-page booklet, reassembled in InDesign and exported print-ready, two weeks from a standing start.

The addendum

But my work wasn’t done there! One day before the event, after everything had already been printed and picked up, the chapter leader added another speaker and three more sponsors. He wanted me to create an addendum that they could just print out on an office printer and slip into the booklet. Because I already had the system in place, I was able to get it done in time.

Addendum page one: a late-addition speaker bio for Aron King, MSN, RN, set in the same watercolor system as the booklet — **The day-before addendum.** A two-page insert for the extra speaker and sponsors, built in the same system so it could run on an office printer and tuck into the printed booklet.

Addendum page two: the three additional sponsors, matched to the booklet's design — **The day-before addendum.** A two-page insert for the extra speaker and sponsors, built in the same system so it could run on an office printer and tuck into the printed booklet.

The flyers and poster

Along the way, he had also requested a couple flyers they could distribute, as well as a 36x48” poster for onsite registrations.

Distributable flyer: the title over a purple and orange watercolor wash, with venue, date, and a registration QR code — **The extras:** two distributable flyers and a 36×48" onsite-registration poster, all pulled from the same watercolor system.

Second flyer variant adding the featured speaker headshots and titles down the right side — **The extras:** two distributable flyers and a 36×48" onsite-registration poster, all pulled from the same watercolor system.