We worked with BlankPlate's founders on the research and development of their first product, Train the Trainers Playbook.

1. Blank Plate & SVA DSI
Communications Design course
Jan - April 2020
Time to Harvest
Sue, Mahima, Amwaj, Janvi

2. Janvi Ghatalia
Project Manager
Strategic Designer
Mahima Jaju
Strategic Designer
Visual Designer
Shuyu Fang
Researcher
Strategic Designer
Amwaj Alzahrani
Visual Designer
Researcher
DSI Team

3. Content
| About Blank Plate
| Project Brief
| Research
| Ideation
| Recommendations

4. What are your go-to grocery
stores/supermarkets?
How far do you travel to
get to your fresh foods?
4

5. Lives more than one mile away
from the closest supermarket.
Surrounded by only fast food
options and convenience stores
Food is processed and high in sugar
and fats, so there is low nutritional
value to the food offered
5
Meet Jim
|AboutBlankPlate

6. 6
|AboutBlankPlate
An area where people have limited
access to affordable and nutritious
food like fruits, vegetables, whole
grains. Often these are low income
neighbourhoods with reduced
mobility.
A food desert

7. ● Unhealthy eating habits
● High rate of obesity, type-2
diabetes, heart disease
Food InJustice
The unjust systems built in these
neighbourhoods have broken the
residents relationships with food
and with community.
7
|AboutBlankPlate
An area where people have limited
access to affordable and nutritious
food like fruits, vegetables, whole
grains. Often these are low income
neighbourhoods with reduced
mobility.
A food desert

8. Food deserts
750,000 people in NYC live in
8
|AboutBlankPlate
Resource: Kathleen Y. Li, BS; Ellen K. Cromley, PhD;
Ashley M. Fox, PhD; Carol R. Horowitz, MD, MPH

9. Jim recognizes the food injustice in his
community!
He is motivated to fight it.
9
|AboutBlankPlate

10. Enter Blank Plate
Getting to know Blank Plate, their goals and intervention.

11. Learn
Culinary skills
11
Blank Plate Big Goals
|AboutBlankPlate
Blank Plate’s mission is to initiate social change towards food
equity for communities that lack access to healthy food.
Build relationship
with food
Create and engage
with community

12. 12
|AboutBlankPlate
Blank Plate’s 10 week program
includes reflective &
collaborative activities like :
● Collective storytelling
● Sensory reframing
Design has the ability to
create preferable and just
systems.

13. This program has been successfully
going on at The point, South Bronx
since 2011.
Blank Plate has now put together a
playbook which will act as a guide
for other communities facing food
injustice.
13
|AboutBlankPlate

14. Train the trainers Playbook
● Helps leaders to identify the food
injustice in their community
● Identify other community leaders,
Build a team included chef,
teaching artists,etc.
● Develop a sustainable creative
culinary curriculum
● Run the classes and organise the
fundraising dinner
14
|AboutBlankPlate

15. Project Brief
Collaboration between Blank Plate and DSI

16. What Blank Plate
wants
(the final dish)
Scale up
16
|ProjectBrief
Scoping

17. What Blank Plate
wants
(the final dish)
Scale up
17
|ProjectBrief
Scoping
To scale,
Blank Plate needs
(the recipe)
● A Partnering community
● A Funder

18. What Blank Plate
wants
(the final dish)
Scale up
18
|ProjectBrief
Scoping
To scale,
Blank Plate needs
(the recipe)
● A Partnering community
● A Funder
These are
dependent on
(the main ingredient)
● Train the Trainer’s
Playbook

19. 19
|ProjectBrief
It’s essential to work on
the playbook before we
look for a funder and a
new community!
Yes! that’s awesome.
Looking forward to
working with you ladies!

20. Research
Primary and secondary research, learnings, and insights

21. 21
|Research

22. 22
2.
Playbook is for leaders like Jim who
can potentially be Facilitators of the
program.
1.
Playbook is for Organizations interested
in adopting the model in their
communities.
|Research
It should be a flexible, inspiring and
instructional guidebook.
They need to feel confident to
build a relationship with BP and
see its relevance.

23. Read the Trainer’s
Playbook
To have first hand
experience of the
book
Interviews
with Client
To Clear doubts about
content, usage and
intention of the book
Sec Research on
Facilitation guides
To find what’s
missing, what
elements are most
effective
Testing
with Sloan Leo
To understand the
perspective of a
community leader
4.
23
|Research
3.2.1.

24. 24
|Research
There is a gap between the value of the program and
it’s translation into the book.

25. 25
|Research
There is a gap between the value of the program and
it’s translation into the book.
Blank Plate Model Train the Trainers Playbook
Blank Plate has been successfully
running for almost 10 years, with a
clear vision and mission. They
have a lot of knowledge and
insight on the issue.
1. Playbook lacks clarity in some parts of
its journey. Example, it does not explain
why fighting food injustice is
important.
2. The content seems repetitive. Example,
Bank plate model and bronx story is
merged together and spread across
the book.

26. 26
|Research
There is a gap between the value of the program and
it’s translation into the book.
Blank Plate Model Train the Trainers Playbook
Blank Plate model includes many
stages and requires different
skills, from developing a
curriculum to constantly trying to
get sponsorships.
1. The reader feels lost in the structure.
Text heavy pages reduce readability.
2. If one does not have prior experience
of one or more skills needed, the book
might not be able to guide them
through all the stages.

27. 27
|Research
There is a gap between the value of the program and
it’s translation into the book.
Blank Plate Model Train the Trainers Playbook
Blank Plate model is very flexible.
It is open for the community to
decide their own curriculums and
workshop activities.
The playbook feels more structured and fixed
in its approach. It misses some opportunities
to make the reader actively participate while
reading the book.

28. 28
To bridge this gap, we wanted to talk with the
community members and participants themselves.
We designed some cultural probes that would help
us to do that effectively.

29. 29
|Research
To show the impact of the
program at Bronx, we want to
collect stories from students
who have participated in the
Blank Plate Program.

30. What words, drawings, feelings do they use to
define the Program.
1. Make a poster
30
|Research

31. What part of the program are they enjoying the
most?
2. Social media story
31
|Research

32. What is the impact, what are they learning from
the program? What are they taking back home?
3. The change
32
|Research

33. To improve the process of
planning and running the
program, we want to understand
the experience of the Teaching
Artist and Chef.
33
|Research

34. 34
|Research

35. 35
Weekly Entry
Experience
Before & After
|Research
Motivations &
Challenges

36. Ideation
Exploring a variety of ideas and co-creating with Blank Plate Founders

37. ● Build new content for the
playbook together.
● Understand BP ecosystem &
flow of work.
● Understand BP’s role with its
partnering communities.
37
|Ideation
Co-creation

38. 38
|Ideation

39. 39
|Ideation
Ideating
Sketching
Reiterating
Prototyping

40. ● 4 months of work
● 8 meetings with Mai
● 7 weeks of research
● 9 weeks of design and iterations
● 100 hours of group meetings
● 196 hours of individual work
40
|Ideation

41. Recommendations
Our final deliverables to Blank Plate, in three parts

42. 5 Recommended Edits to Existing Pages
42
A pinch of this and a pinch of that can give
the dish a whole new taste.
|Recommendations

43. 1.
Break down big
chunks of text
Before
● For more effective communication
and increased readability
43
|Recommendations.Edits

44. 44
|Recommendations.Edits

45. 2.
Outline the contents
of the book
● To gauge the intention of the book
and clearly know what information
each chapter contains
45
|Recommendations.Edits
Before

46. 46
|Recommendations.Edits

47. 3.
Add navigation
breadcrumbs
47
|Recommendations.Edits
● To easily navigate through the book and
reach the wanted page faster. It increases
the usability of the book.

48. 48
|Recommendations.Edits

49. 4.
Add a detailed
description for
each stage
● To help the reader plan and
prepare as they are reading
● To demonstrate the
flexibility of the model
49
|Recommendations.Edits
Before

50. 50
|Recommendations.Edits

51. 5.
Clean the curriculum
infographic
Before
51
|Recommendations.Edits
● To make it clear that the model is a
continuous process
● To highlight the final dinner event marking
the end of one set of workshops

52. 52

53. 5 Recommended Additions
53
New ingredients in the kitchen make new
possibilities of what’s cooking
|Recommendations

54. 54
1.
A page that introduces Blank Plate with
clearly defined goals
|Recommendations

55. 55
|Recommendations.Additions

56. 56
2.
A page explains food injustice and
engages the reader in self-reflection
|Recommendations

57. 57
|Recommendations.Additions

58. 58
3.
A page that shows Blank Plate’s journey till
date, highlighting key success moments
|Recommendations

59. 59
|Recommendations.Additions

60. 60
4.
A system that makes it possible to easily and
quickly access Blank Plate resources
|Recommendations

61. 61
|Recommendations.Additions

62. Scan Me
62
|Recommendations.Additions

63. 63
5.
Proof of concept, all in one place.
|Recommendations

64. 64
|Recommendations.Additions

65. 65
5.
Spaces that encourage reflection and
participation from the reader
|Recommendations

66. 66
|Recommendations.Additions

67. Recommended Restructure of the Content
67
First the main course, then the dessert.
|Recommendations

68. https://docs.google.com/prese
ntation/d/1mrTA2zppi_Af0JqcA
yzvT_5Hk7lMXuJfJM-ayfnvm4M/
edit?usp=sharing
68

69. 69
We are grateful we got the opportunity to
collaborate with Blank Plate which is helping
community leaders become change makers.
We sincerely wish that communities like Jims’
are able to use the Blank Plate model to fight
food injustice and change their narrative.

70. 70
Thank You Mai & Eulani
for letting us into this
beautiful journey of yours and
being the most fun and
understanding clients ever!
Thank You Miya & Corwin
For guiding us all the way here.