Designing resources for feminist organizing. Learn how graphic design translated CRIAW-ICREF’s feminist research into accessible Action Guides and worksheets.
Advancing social justice and equality for women requires more than strong ideas. It requires tools that organizations can use to organize, educate, and mobilize their communities.
For nearly five decades, CRIAW-ICREF (Canadian Research Institute for the Advancement of Women) has played an important role in advancing feminist research in Canada. Founded in 1976, the organization works to strengthen feminist movements by producing research that supports gender equity, policy change, and collective action.
Through their recent initiative, “Countering the Rise of Anti-Feminism,” CRIAW-ICREF set out to equip organizations with practical resources that help them respond to the growing presence of anti-feminist narratives in public discourse.
CRIAW-ICREF selected See Girl Work to design a series of Action Guides and Worksheets that translate research into accessible tools organizations can use in their everyday work.
This project reflects a core belief in our practice: design plays an essential role in making research accessible, usable, and impactful.
Project Overview
The Countering the Rise of Anti-Feminism initiative focuses on strengthening feminist organizing by providing organizations with practical, actionable resources.
Rather than producing research that remains academic or theoretical, CRIAW-ICREF designed this initiative to support organizations that are actively working in communities, advocacy spaces, and policy environments. The goal was to create tools that help organizations understand the current landscape and take meaningful action.
The project resulted in three core Action Guides:
- Convening Feminist Conversations on Social Issues in Canada
- Putting Feminist Intersectional Solidarity into Practice
- Advocating for Institutional Change in Canada
Each guide provides frameworks, prompts, and practical guidance that organizations can use to facilitate conversations, strengthen alliances, and advocate for systemic change.
These resources are designed to support the real work of organizing — from community discussions and workshops to strategic advocacy efforts.
Scope of Work
See Girl Work supported the CRIAW-ICREF team through the design and production of a series of publications and accompanying materials.
The project included the design of:
- Three Action Guides, each approximately 9–10 pages in length
- Five complementary worksheets designed to support reflection and group activities
- Bilingual layouts in English and French
- Accessible page structures and typography
- Print-ready PDF files
- A cohesive visual system connecting the guides and worksheets
The worksheets were an important component of the project. While the guides provide context and frameworks, the worksheets were designed to help organizations translate ideas into action.
Each worksheet was structured to support group work, discussion, and reflection. They encourage participants to engage directly with the concepts in the guides and apply them to their own organizational contexts.
The goal was to create materials that feel practical and engaging, rather than dense or academic.
Design Approach
Designing advocacy resources requires careful consideration of accessibility, clarity, and usability. These materials need to work for a wide range of audiences and settings, from policy discussions to grassroots organizing.
Our design approach focused on three key priorities.
Accessibility
Advocacy resources are often used in workshops, community meetings, and training environments where participants need to quickly understand and engage with the material.
In these settings, clarity and ease of navigation are essential. When information is presented in a structured and readable way, it allows facilitators to guide discussions more effectively and helps participants focus on the ideas rather than struggling to navigate the document.
When designing this series of feminist Action Guides, accessibility was a key priority. To support this, the design emphasizes:
- clear visual hierarchy
- readable typography
- structured layouts that guide the reader through each section
- consistent formatting across all guides and worksheets
These elements help ensure that the resources can be used by community organizations, facilitators, and participants with varying levels of familiarity with the material.
Visual Clarity
Feminist research often addresses complex ideas, systems, and frameworks. Thoughtful design helps make that information easier to absorb.
The layout system for the guides was designed to:
- break down complex content into manageable sections
- highlight key ideas and prompts
- create visual structure that supports comprehension
By simplifying how information is presented, design helps readers focus on the ideas and how they can apply them in practice.
Why Design Matters for Advocacy Work
Advocacy organizations often produce research that contains important insights, analysis, and policy recommendations. But research alone does not always translate easily into action.
Reports can be dense, text-heavy, and difficult for broader audiences to navigate, especially for community organizations that are working quickly and often with limited resources.
Thoughtful design helps bridge that gap by making research easier to engage with and apply in practice. When information is clearly structured and visually organized, it allows readers to move through complex ideas more confidently and focus on how those ideas can be used in real organizing and advocacy work.
Design plays a critical role in helping organizations:
- make complex ideas easier to understand
- increase engagement with research materials
- improve usability for community groups and facilitators
- translate research into practical action
At See Girl Work, our work focuses on helping organizations transform ideas into tools that support real change. Design is not just about aesthetics. It is about helping information move from the page into practice.
Impact
See Girl Work is proud to have supported CRIAW-ICREF in bringing these resources to life. We remain committed to designing resources to support feminist organizing and advocacy.
Advocacy work depends on collaboration between researchers, organizers, and the communities they serve. Thoughtful design helps bridge those spaces by making knowledge easier to share, understand, and act upon.
You can explore the Action Guides and worksheets here: https://www.criaw-icref.ca/publications
