Coleman Instruction Manuals

Software

Adobe Illustrator
Adobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop

Role

Artistic Director, Illustrator

Company

Sunforce Products • 2017

I was asked to conceive, design and illustrate trilingual new instruction manuals for Sunforce Product's Coleman solar panels. The company had been struggling with regular customer service support calls and complaints due to the complex nature of their product, and more importantly, their insufficient instruction manuals.

Planning: I started by meeting with the company's product developer to be sure I had a thorough understanding of how the products worked and needed to be assembled. Afterwards, I sketched out a rough draft of the manual, finding the best way to relay the information to the end user.

Photography: For each step, I laid out the pieces required, photographing them to be used as a reference for the illustrations. I experimented with camera angles to find the optimal way to display the products and their connecting pieces.

Layout and Illustration: Once I had my photos, I added them to the manual, checking that the image and instructions flowed easily with the rest of the content. Once approved, I proceeded with the illustrating. Inspired by Ikea manuals, I used varying stroke widths, arrows, dotted lines and speech bubbles to indicate and clarify important details.

Troubleshooting: Once finalized, I put the manual to the test: asking other office employees to install the product by following the instructions. Seeing if, and where, each person struggled or misunderstood the instructions was crucial, and allowed me to improve the manual even further.

Results: The updated manuals were well-received, and support calls were significantly reduced on those products. The new layout helped the company to have a more unified look across all their products, as well as provided a template for the future designers.