Bayside City Council Plan
Setting out goals, priorities, services and how progress will be measured.
For Bayside City Council, the new 2025–29 plan also needed to reflect the community's long-term 2050 Vision and bring together a large amount of detailed strategic information in a way that people could actually navigate.
Citizen By Design was selected through a competitive tender to design the new plan, continuing a working relationship with Bayside that began in 2018.
Client
Bayside City Council
Sector
Local Government
Project
Council Plan 2025–29
Services
Creative Direction
Print & Digital Publications
Infographics
Document Templates
How do you make a detailed strategic document feel clear and approachable without oversimplifying the information?
The Council Plan has to work for many different audiences. It needs to communicate Council's direction to the community, while also functioning as a practical document for councillors, staff and other stakeholders. That means accommodating detailed strategies, actions, indicators, services, maps and data while meeting accessibility and legislative requirements.
The challenge was to give all of that information a clear structure, make the document engaging to read, and create a design that could continue to work as the plan was updated each year.
A clear structure built around people, place and progress.
The design takes its lead from Bayside's existing identity and the themes within its Community Vision, using photography, colour and simple graphic elements to give each part of the plan its own character.
Strong section openers create clear breaks between the major goals, while consistent typography, tables, icons and information graphics help readers move through more detailed content.
Rather than treating every page in the same way, the system creates a rhythm between larger visual moments and information-rich sections. This keeps the document feeling approachable while still allowing it to carry the level of detail a Council Plan requires.
Designed for print, digital access and ongoing reporting.
The finished Council Plan was developed as both a printed publication and an accessible digital document for Council's website, with accessibility considered throughout the design and production process.
Just as importantly, the system needed to keep working after the plan was published. A supporting Word template was developed for annual progress updates, giving Council a practical way to report against each goal, action and indicator while maintaining a clear connection to the main Council Plan.
The template extends the visual system into a format Council staff can manage internally and helps keep reporting consistent throughout the life of the plan. The publication, accessible digital version and annual reporting template work together as an ongoing system for communicating Bayside's priorities and progress through to 2029.
Other Council Projects
