The Case for the Humanities — UCL
Urban Good worked with Benedict Richards of Graphicay to design UCL’s An Enquiry on the Case for the Humanities: Preliminary Findings, published in March 2022. The brief was to create an easily readable online PDF, with clear, clickable tabs along the bottom of the pages so readers could jump directly to chapters.
An easily readable online PDF for a conversation about what makes us human.
Supported by UCL’s Grand Challenge of Cultural Understanding, the Enquiry explored the value of the Humanities and their place in a changing world. Its discussions connected five themes: arts, the economy, education, politics and sciences. Together, they considered how the Humanities help us interpret experience, question assumptions and understand one another.
Urban Good’s contribution
We were asked to create an easily readable online PDF that would help readers find their way through a wide-ranging academic discussion. Working again with Benedict Richards of Graphicay, Urban Good designed and laid out the March 2022 preliminary report.
The design gives a consistent structure to material that moves between introductory arguments, shared insights and detailed reports from the five thematic groups. Clear typography, generous margins and a restrained palette help organise the longer passages. Deep teal section openings give key statements space, while coloured icons introduce the pressures shaping the debate, from market forces and big data to the climate emergency.
Designed for reading on screen
Clear tabs along the bottom of the pages act as live links, allowing readers to jump directly to chapters. This navigation makes it easy to move between the main findings and the thematic reports, or return to a section without scrolling through the whole document.
The result brings the care of publication design to an online reading experience: a report that can be read from beginning to end or explored chapter by chapter.
A continuing conversation
The March 2022 publication presented the Enquiry’s preliminary findings. UCL subsequently published a major report in June 2024, continuing the discussion about the Humanities’ contribution to research, education and public life.
Read the report and explore the project
Download the March 2022 preliminary report as a free PDF.
Visit UCL’s project page to read more about the Enquiry and find its later report.