I asked the client to send any samples to help better communicate the visuals they're hoping to see in the final product. This tends to work much faster than having the client attempt to describe what they're looking for when they aren't actually sure what they want.

The client sent this lovely and super blurry sample.

The copy determines the purpose and shape of the design. My content writer worked through the text with Thunder's team before I jumped into the initial layout.

In this case, they rewrote the intro and outro paragraphs which lead to the logo shifting to the bottom row. Then we had the copy proofed to keep the rest of the changes to a minimum.

In the meantime, I began pulling the brand assets together. 

Thunder uses Poppins and their site is decked out entirely in shades of purple. I dug around for a while looking for a complimentary color to help lighten up the final design. I pulled this yellow from a deep page on their site.

I found a shutterstock asset with people vectors that I recolored in the purple and yellow. I reworked the mountain into a lighter gradient to keep it from pulling the eye away from the purple path.

Knowing what they liked about the sample, I added in a similar arrow path and began formatting the text along the path. I added the intro text to the top as an introduction and dropped the 'Mountain Guides' section at the bottom to be read after checking out the chart.

The logo was later moved with a text rewrite.

To fill the spaces between markers, I pulled a few assets and created an additional person or two and a mountain to climb which lines up with the overall message throughout the copy.

I pulled the headers into their own boxes to highlight them and added roadmap markers. I began placing people into spaces that would lead the eye along with a subtle dotted line.

As you'll see in the final pieces, I added smaller elements to add some more motion in the design and clouds to break up larger, empty spaces. I added in a mountain to conquer and texture to elevate the final feel.