Client

Obvious Ventures

Year

2024

Type of Work

BrandingStrategyVisual DesignEditorial Design

Obvious invests in businesses solving complex problems.

Each of these challenges is like a vast, intricate jigsaw puzzle.

Context

Obvious, now in its 10th year, invests in businesses tackling the world's most pressing issues, like the climate crisis, chronic disease, and financial insecurity. Each of these challenges is like a vast, intricate jigsaw puzzle. Like solving a puzzle, their work requires the ability to see the big picture while attentively analyzing the details. By decoding the minute connections among social, environmental, and economic factors, they can invest in the most scalable answers. Each puzzle piece represents a unique investment opportunity, and only when they place them thoughtfully together can they witness the complete picture of transformation.

Solution

The San Francisco Design Week 2024 Award winning Obvious World Positive Report 2024 was a collaboration between Obvious, renowned puzzler, Scott Kim, and Pineapple. Scott created the mechanics for the puzzles and Pineapple expressed the puzzles in the overall designs of the book, disguising the puzzles in the stories, the margins, and the physical printing of the report. The resulting design is a serious report highlighting Obvious’ portfolio companies' successes while hiding the puzzles in plain sight (in the illustrations, the text, the page footers, the removable die-cut code key, and the conclusion of the book).

01 Editorial Concept

On top of designing and developing what needed to be a world-class report that positioned Obvious’s portfolio of companies as agents of world positive change, Pineapple also needed to underlay the thematic element of “Solving the Puzzle'' throughout the book without undermining the seriousness of the content. The challenge was to make the World Positive Report 2024 both a serious report and an intriguing collection of connected puzzles and cyphers without it coming across as an activity book. To do this, Pineapple collaborated with Obvious and Scott to develop a collection of puzzle mechanics that could be designed (or hidden) into the book in a way that enhanced the design and didn’t take away from the overall experience. The puzzles and cyphers needed to be intriguing to find intrinsically connected, and ultimately solvable.

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