Selected work · Public Affairs
State Pensions in the UK & EU.
A printed and digital booklet that makes the post-Brexit state pension rules legible for the people whose retirement depends on understanding them.
- Client
- EU Delegation to the UK
- Discipline
- Public Affairs
- Services
- Strategic Direction, Creative Development
State pension rules for people who have lived and worked across the UK and EU are technically resolved and practically opaque. A pensioner trying to understand what they are entitled to is reading official guidance designed by lawyers for lawyers. The engagement built the publication that bridges that gap: a booklet that makes the rules legible at the level of the household they actually affect.
The brief
What the client arrived with.
The post-Brexit pension landscape is technically covered by the Withdrawal Agreement, social security coordination rules and bilateral arrangements. None of that helps a 68 year old trying to work out whether their UK state pension will be uprated each year if they retire to Spain. The official documents exist; the accessible explanation did not.
The intelligence
What we learned about the terrain.
Pension confusion is not a comprehension problem; it is a documentation problem. The information is correct and available, just packaged for the wrong reader. The audience needed a publication that respected their intelligence without requiring prior knowledge of Withdrawal Agreement Article numbers. Print mattered: the primary readership is people who prefer a booklet they can hold, mark up and return to, not a PDF they scroll past once.
The goal · one locked behavioural outcome
Produce a single authoritative booklet that lets a non-expert reader understand their state pension rights between the UK and the EU and act on them without needing a legal interpreter.
Everything that follows served this single sentence.
The strategy
The architecture we built.
Direction locked on the household-level reader as the audience, with every editorial and design choice tested against whether a non-expert could act on it. Meaning framed the work as rights made legible, not rules summarised. Expression chose a typographic and structural system that respects the seriousness of the subject (this is people's retirement) without becoming forbidding. Channel strategy covered both the printed booklet for the primary audience and a digital version for distribution and reference.
The work
What shipped.
A complete booklet, written and designed end to end: editorial structure, plain-language drafting brief, typographic system, layout, and final artwork ready for print and digital distribution.
What moved
What happened afterwards.
A single authoritative publication now sits between the official guidance and the household-level reader. The rules are legible. The booklet can be handed across a kitchen table or downloaded and printed at home, and the reader can act on it without needing to commission their own legal advice.
- 1Editorial structure and plain-language drafting brief
- 2Typographic and layout system
- 3Print-ready artwork for the booklet
- 4Digital version for online distribution
Next campaign · Branding
Reality Check Workshop Series.
Six issue areas held under one editorial identity, recognisable across the series without flattening the difference between subjects.
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