Client:
C40
Place:
México
Year:
2026
C40 Cities is an international network of mayors working on climate action. Its Latin America team published a study on fleet electrification potential among Mexican small and medium enterprises, addressed to government, development banks and industry.
I designed the full publication in Spanish and English: 38 pages, seven chapters, eleven charts and more than a dozen tables. I rebuilt the data visualization system from scratch, extended the iconography from C40's own icon set, and art-directed the cover illustration
Challenge
The critical issue was brand. C40's identity uses high-contrast color as an explicit decision set out in its brand manual. The regional team considered it insufficiently serious for readers making investment decisions.
Muting the palette independently would have left the publication open to rejection by the global office; applying the manual literally would have delivered something the regional team wouldn't approve. And breaking with the European imagery typically used to illustrate electric mobility called for art direction grounded in a real Latin American city.
Approach
Color Strategy (UI Architecture): Instead of altering the institutional palette, I modified the visual hierarchy and color ratios: using pale tints of the official palette for backgrounds, reserving intense colors strictly for accents, and establishing navy blue as the structural anchor. This solution maintained absolute alignment with the global brand book while satisfying regional needs.
Data Visualization & Component Libraries: Sectorial charts were restructured across a single axis, scale, and categorical order to allow direct comparative analysis at a single glance (UX Thinking). Tech tables were transformed into modular visual blocks (icon, key metric, brief description). For the iconography system, I recolored existing components and vector-designed the missing tokens from scratch (leasing, insurance, low-emission zones, vehicle scrapping), seamlessly matching the global brand's original stroke weight.
Impact
The publication was approved in the register the regional team wanted, while respecting the global brand system. The process produced solid criteria: how color is distributed across the region, how a chart is built so it stays comparable with the rest, how the icon set grows without breaking its line. Together they give C40 Latin America a visual voice of its own within the global brand system.
