GRIEVING ALONE & TOGETHER
The Client
The Funeral Service Foundation began in 1945 as an organization dedicated to improving the funeral profession and deathcare services through the effective stewardship of charitable donations from leaders, funeral professionals, businesses, and organizations in the funeral service community. The Foundation has been recognized as the charitable arm of the National Funeral Directors Association Donors since 1997 and continues to help the NFDA in their mission to support funeral professionals. The Foundation seeks to provide meaningful, impactful resources and programs to help funeral professionals lift up grieving communities and offers scholarships and professional development to empower funeral service professionals and their careers.
THE REQUEST
The Foundation approached Ocreative to help with the design, layout, and production of a new resource for funeral service professionals to provide to grieving families during the pandemic. They explained that the guide was meant to address the challenges of grieving a loved one’s death during the COVID-19 pandemic, and included information on the nature of grief; traumatic loss and its triggers; ambiguous losses; and the risk of disenfranchised grief. The Foundation had the copy, but needed copyediting, layout, design, and production to finish the project.
THE STRATEGY
We’ve had the opportunity to work with the Foundation on resources in the past and already had a strong design foundation in place. Our in-house copyeditor proofread the document and worked with the Foundation team to make updates for readability and structure. Next, our design team created a layout wireframe to make sure we could break up the heavy nature of the content with images and graphics to make it more palatable for readers. Once approved, our team curated a series of sensitive and uplifting images and developed custom icons to create a balanced aesthetic throughout the piece.
THE OUTCOME
Our team coordinated production of the booklet with the Foundation and our printer and helped get the resource up on the Foundation’s eStore. Together, we developed this free resource in English and Spanish to help families throughout the country manage grief while dealing with the restrictions of the pandemic. The guide offers guidance on how families can meaningfully celebrate the life of their loved one and discusses the importance of maintaining their health while grieving. Funeral service professionals can now order this booklet for free and provide it to their clients during the service planning process.
