Secrets of a Financial Adviser

Writing as an expert in all things financial, and with a passion to see young people given more opportunities to prepare for the reality of growing up, Financial Adviser and successful businesswoman Helen West poured out her vast knowledge into creating the friendly and informative book 'Secrets of a Financial Adviser'.

Young people are leaving school with no knowledge about matters such as budgeting, accommodation, employment and insurance and Helen was keen to try and offer a way of making this kind of information more accessible.

The book had to appeal to a 16–21 year old market – school leavers that would soon be thrown into the real world with full force and little preparation.

With smartphones being the main source of interaction for the age group I wanted to add elements from operating system/app design to provide hints and cues to a different medium, providing familiarity and encouraging interaction.

Tips, quotes, questions and action points throughout the book break up the information and make it digestible, and a bold, clear graphic style based on icons helps to facilitate engagement. The icons are key to the design of the eye-catching cover, applied to vibrant coloured files that hint at secret information being revealed and shared.

I was involved at managing every step of the process – helping the author ruthlessly edit the script, creating an eye-catching look and feel, designing and artworking the whole product and liaising with the publisher to ensure it went to print correctly. I also designed a basic website to support and promote the book as well as provide opportunity for the author to publish updates to the figures within the text.