DNDi
Canva Identity System
Global Health Social Identity
One visual language. Three disease worlds. Built for everyday use.
DNDi needed to replace an earlier social template set with a stronger and more scalable visual system.
Returning as Consultant Senior Art Director, I developed a bolder identity for disease education and organizational storytelling. The system combined expressive typography, human photography, vivid disease colors, modular layouts, and clear narrative structures.
Built entirely within Canva, it gave the internal team a practical way to create recognizable communications without relying on a designer for every post.
PROJECT DETAILS
Client: Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative
My Role: Consultant Senior Art Director, Brand Systems Lead
Disciplines: Social Identity, Content Systems, Creative Direction, Disease Education, Template Architecture, Visual Governance
Deliverables: Instagram Carousels, Social Templates, Disease-Specific Families,
10-Page Usage Guide
From template set
to identity system
The earlier templates provided a functional starting point, but the communication needed a stronger visual spine.
The new system introduced larger typography, sharper contrast, clearer hierarchy, more purposeful image treatments, and a repeatable story structure.
What had been a set of individual posts became a recognizable visual language capable of carrying many diseases, messages, and content needs.
Not simply a new look.
A new way to organize the story.
DISEASE.
BURDEN.
PEOPLE.
TREATMENT.
PROGRESS.
Every carousel was designed to move from scientific complexity toward human understanding.
The disease creates the entry point. The burden establishes urgency. People make the issue tangible. Treatment reveals the challenge. DNDi’s work brings the story toward progress.
This sequence became both a narrative framework and a design principle.
Urgency without losing humanity
The system needed to command attention without sensationalizing the subject.
Oversized headlines and numbers established urgency. Black-and-white photography kept people at the center. Vivid color fields created recognition and momentum. Simple arrows, circles, and image overlaps helped readers move through the information.
The result was direct, expressive, and serious, without becoming clinical or emotionally distant.
One voice.
Three disease
worlds.
Each disease family received its own visual rhythm.
Sleeping sickness moves through orange and black. Leishmaniasis carries a yellow urgency. Chagas disease appears in clear blue.
The colors shift, but the underlying identity remains consistent through typography, image behavior, information hierarchy, modular framing, and tone.
The system creates distinction without fragmentation.
SLEEPING SICKNESS
Bold, immediate, high contrast
LEISHMANIASIS
Urgent, human, atmospheric
CHAGAS DISEASE
Clear, clinical, direct
Rules strong enough to guide. Flexible enough to adapt.
The identity was built from a concise visual grammar:
Headline zones created recognizable entry points. Circles framed people and information. Oversized numbers gave statistics immediate weight. Fine rules separated supporting copy. Disease-colored dots connected the system to DNDi’s visual language. Arrows created movement between frames.
Each component had a purpose, but no single layout was treated as fixed.
This gave the team structure without turning every story into the same composition.
Every carousel
has a narrative arc
The templates were organized around a repeatable editorial sequence:
Introduce the disease
Create a clear and memorable entry point.
Reveal the burden
Use statistics and context to establish scale.
Center the people affected
Move from abstract information to human consequence.
Explain the treatment challenge
Clarify what patients and health workers face.
Show the work moving forward
Connect the story to DNDi’s research, partnerships, and progress.
The sequence helped each post communicate a complete idea rather than presenting disconnected facts.
A system built
for many stories
The final template families supported disease introductions, key statistics, patient context, treatment history, research updates, partner contributions, and closing messages.
Across every format, the same visual principles remained visible:
Bold type.
Clear hierarchy.
Disease-specific color.
Human photography.
Modular composition.
Consistency made the system recognizable. Variation kept it alive.
Designed
to be used,
not merely admired
Canva was both the production platform and an important design constraint.
The identity needed to remain expressive while being practical for internal staff working across different diseases, messages, image sources, and levels of design experience.
Editable headline zones, image frames, color fields, statistics, and modular compositions gave the team flexibility while protecting the system’s visual character.
To support consistent use, I created a 10-page guide explaining how to select layouts, prepare images, apply color, handle typography, build large-number treatments, and construct continuous carousel compositions.
The templates made production easier. The guide translated the creative direction into repeatable decisions the team could apply without requiring a designer for every post.
A flexible toolkit.
A clear set of rules.
One recognizable identity.
One identity.
Many stories.
A recognizable voice.
Across individual posts and complete carousels, the system remained recognizable without becoming repetitive.
Typography established the voice. Color distinguished each disease family. Photography kept people at the center. Modular composition organized complexity. Narrative sequencing turned information into understanding.
Together, these elements gave DNDi a clearer and more cohesive way to communicate serious health stories, balancing urgency with humanity, creative expression with consistency, and visual distinction
with the practical realities of everyday Canva use.