United Nations – Harnessing the Blue Economy in Central Africa

UNECA commissioned TEA to design and produce a flagship 62-page policy report on the Blue Economy in Central Africa. The publication needed to serve as a credible, data-rich reference for policymakers and development practitioners across 11 ECCAS member states, while adhering strictly to UNECA's institutional brand guidelines.

Brett developed a visual system using a navy, orange, and white palette – incorporating multi-country bar charts, governance diagrams, SWOT layouts, icon-led infographics, and photography overlays with pull-quote boxes. A consistent navigation bar system ran throughout to support readability across the report’s broad scope.

The report was designed and typeset in Adobe InDesign, with data visualisations created in Adobe Illustrator. All assets were produced to print-ready specifications, including bleed, crop marks, and CMYK colour profiles.

The primary challenge was presenting complex economic and environmental data — spanning 11 countries and multiple sectors — in a way that was both visually compelling and easy to navigate, all within strict institutional brand guidelines.

The project was delivered on time to meet UNECA's publication schedule. Given the scale — 62 pages, 16 data visualisations, and multiple rounds of content revisions — the timeline required close coordination with the UNECA team throughout.

TEA was selected for our experience handling complex, data-heavy publications for international organisations, our track record working within strict institutional brand guidelines, and our ability to deliver print-ready work to international publication standards.

Success meant delivering a publication UNECA could confidently present as a flagship reference document — one that communicated complex data clearly, looked authoritative and professional, and was ready for both print distribution and digital hosting through the UNECA repository.

Start the design process earlier than you think you need to. Large policy reports involving data visualisations require significant back-and-forth between content and design teams. The cleaner and more finalised the content when it arrives with the designers, the better the outcome — and the smoother the production process.

Yes – the report is available to download through UNECA’s official online repository at uneca.org. It was published in October 2025 and serves as a reference document for policymakers, researchers, and development practitioners across Central Africa and beyond.