The Economist Educational Foundation
2013 – ongoing // economistfoundation.org
In a divisive world, young people need the skills to identify fake news, make up their own minds and have their say about the big issues affecting their lives. The Economist Educational Foundation empowers young people with the skills to challenge misinformation and enables inspiring discussions about the news to take place in schools.
In 2012, a friend set up the Foundation from within The Economist and I’ve been involved ever since. To start with I volunteered by designing logos and helping to stage their annual event. As the Foundation has grown, so has their need for design. I now provide freelance design work across range of projects including brand, learning resources, educational content, impact reports and website design.
Below is a sample of projects and work.
Topical Talk
Topical Talk is the Foundation’s flagship programme – free, expert-led weekly lessons created by teachers and journalists from The Economist. Each Headline lesson is designed to spark discussion and build students’ critical-thinking and communication skills.
Every week, thousands of teachers rely on Topical Talk Headlines to bring clarity to a fast-moving world. The lessons tackle the global news shaping students’ lives – from climate change and democracy to AI, conflict and culture – with the accuracy, depth and independence you expect from The Economist.
The lessons
From a design and process perspective, there’s a lot to unpack. Firstly the speed. The process for each one takes ten days, from concept to publication, involving experienced teachers, Economist journalists, topic experts, fact-checkers, designers and proof-readers.
The process works because I’ve built the following system:
Brand guidelines that allow for flexibility in design theme but with rules on how to keep our resources at a high standard
Underlying typography system
InDesign templates with frameworks for core activities that are repeatable.
Core content in Google Slides to speed up edit turnarounds
Accessibility guidance
Annual surveys to account holders that get teacher feedback on the lesson design so that we can iterate.
A commitment to excellence and not designing “down” to students.
“The topics were relevant and exciting, the lesson designs were excellent, and they encouraged students to explore different viewpoints and engage in meaningful discussions. As a teacher working in Poland and often managing long working hours, finding the time to create high-quality original materials can sometimes be challenging. Your resources have been an enormous support and have helped me bring fresh ideas and meaningful discussions into the classroom.
– Topical Talk teacher, Poland, 2025
The website
The Topical Talk website is the Foundation's digital home for teachers and young people – providing free access to weekly lessons as well as hosting ambitious projects such as the Topical Talk Festival, which connected students around the world to discuss global news and share their perspectives.
I've been involved in building and evolving the platform from the very beginning, from the first WordPress site built with a freelance developer to the complex digital product it became. For more than a decade, I owned its development, working closely with our digital agency to turn the Foundation's ambitions into practical solutions. I scoped new features, mapped user journeys, created wireframes and designs, prioritised development and managed the annual budget — while helping build a platform capable of supporting global student discussion alongside the safeguarding and moderation needed to make that possible.
“Taking part in the Festival gave us a real platform to share our perspectives on global issues with students from across the world. It showed us that young people have valid, powerful ideas that deserve to be heard on an international stage.”
– Topical Talk Festival student, Greece, 2026
Leadership for Change Prize
2024
The Leadership for Change Prize, a partnership with Rolex, empowers students to build the skills and confidence they need to tackle global challenges. I led the design and digital development for this launch, which used nearly every skill up my sleeve.
From pitching a vibrant, student-focused visual identity to Rolex to building a modular design system that scaled across everything from social media to curriculum materials. I also handled the technical side of things, building a custom submission journey using Tally and Zapier to manage global multimedia entries and creating a microsite within our main programme website. And most importantly, with a structured, phased design project plan, the Leadership for Change Prize is now built to be repeatable for years to come.
The final deliverable for the Prize was a multimedia showcase summarising the winning students’ mentorship journey. It won the Shorthand Best Events and Awards story in 2025.
Digital brand guidelines
Any designer knows that brand guidelines are the lifeblood of their job, and also that they have a habit of becoming out of date almost as soon as they're published.
The Foundation has an unusual set-up. They are governed by many of The Economist Group's core brand fundamentals, including its fonts and logos, while speaking to a very different audience: teachers and young people. That means their guidelines needed to go beyond simply explaining how the brand looks. The guidelines also help define how they choose imagery, represent complex news topics and create content that inspires and empowers young people to understand the world around them.
In a small, stretched team working at speed — sometimes collaborating with freelancers and partner organisations — we needed a more practical way to keep those guidelines relevant, up to date and easy to share.
I led the move from a static PDF to a living digital set of brand guidelines, built using Standards. This new format brought together the essential elements that keep us aligned with The Economist Group, while also setting out our own approach to areas such as photography, illustration and representing news and current affairs for young audiences.
And, because even the best guidelines shouldn't sit untouched for years, I also built in a process for reviewing and updating them annually.
Topical Talk Projects
Topical Talk gives teachers free teaching resources for weekly classroom discussions about current affairs. The adaptable activities help the news make sense for learners aged 10-16. A Topical Talk Project lets learners discuss one news-issue in depth over five weeks, and sequenced session plans build towards a creative Final Piece. Every Project is designed to make the teacher’s job as easy as possible, with fun games and activities, easy-to-follow lesson plans, and clear links to curriculum and skills. Not only that, but every Project is fact-checked and edited by The Economist’s expert journalists.
Designing a Project is challenging. Because of the timely subject matter and the tight editorial process, the whole thing has to be done over three days, from initial concepts to published resource.
The News Show
The 2014 event turned 300 primary school children into young journalists, and invited them along to The News Show. The Foundation worked with PunchDrunk to put on a live news show to inspire the children to be more interested in current affairs by giving them a magical, unforgettable experience that shows how exciting the news can be.
