When I say “flatten the curve” what comes to mind?

It’s most likely some Q2 2020 quarantine flashbacks, right?

We were collectively confused, frightened, exasperated and largely uneducated about the once-in-a-generation global crisis at hand.

But despite the chaos, governments, health agencies and news organizations around the world coalesced behind a single visual framework to try to minimize the casualties.

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The premise was straightforward:

If everyone gets sick at the same time, it will overwhelm the hospitals, and more people will die.

So, the logic continued, while we wait for a vaccine (at that time, this was very much still an “if” and a “when”), if each of us can work to slow the spread of the virus, we can decrease the number of active cases, lower the load on the hospitals, and reduce the death rates.

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Quite a layered message to carry to a panicked and restless global population.

And yet, by explaining it visually, using essentially a heavily distilled math problem and a catchy caption, people “got” it.

Billions of people.

And as a result, millions of lives were saved.

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When I work with clients to distill their expertise into digestible visuals and frameworks, the purpose isn’t to ‘dumb down’ your point of view assuming your potential clients wouldn’t understand it otherwise.

Your clients are just as smart as you are.

What we’re trying to do instead is to quickly and compellingly bring the elements of chaotic problem into a shared focus, so that you and your client can work through it together.

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There are a lot of ways to do that, of course.

But this example reminds us that visuals have a unique power to draw people in, cut through the noise and telegraph a message.

Sometimes with just a simple curve.

💡

-Wes

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