2024
Simplifying South Africa's Retirement Reforms for 27four.
Client
27four Investment Managers
Deliverable
Single-page A4 explainer
Scope
Information Design + Copywriting
01 — The Brief
A Complex Reform Needed Explaining
South Africa's most significant retirement reform in decades was underway. The Two-Pot system would impact all fund members’ savings, both existing and future, and took effect on 1 September 2024. 27four Investment Managers needed a straightforward approach to explain these changes, ensuring clients could understand the updates without being confused by technical financial language.
My task: design a single-page A4 guide to make the reform easy to understand before the new system’s rollout.
02 — The Strategy
Early handwritten notes explored the legislation's logic.
Early layout consolidated research onto a single page.
03 — Exploration
But Forced Analogies Created Friction
Visual metaphors like growing plants or cooking pots are common in financial guides, but for clients unfamiliar with pension structures, they introduced an extra layer of interpretation, complicating rather than clarifying the information. The solution was to replace metaphors with clear structure, allowing readers to understand the system directly.
Standard industry metaphors were tested first, to rule out missing an opportunity for clarity. Given the single A4 format, every graphic had to earn its place.
Sketches explored the meaning of 'pot' as a container and how each 'pot' fit within the analogies.
POT METAPHOR
PLANT METAPHOR
STRUCTURED
Early layout iterations revealed a key insight: the visual metaphors equated three containers that were not equivalent, pointing instead to a single, two-part system instead. The reform divides future retirement savings into two new containers, while existing savings remain in a separate one governed by the old rules. The third container, the vested pot, serves as a transition mechanism between the old legislation and the new Two-Pot system.
This insight replaced the three-part analogy with two systems ordered chronologically, so the reader follows the reform as it unfolds.
04 — Design Decisions
So the Text Did the Heavy Lifting
With the narrative metaphor removed, the text and structure became responsible for conveying the key messages.
Information Design: To minimise the reader's cognitive load, the reform is split into two structural systems. The future savings block runs full-width across the page, utilising visual hierarchy to give the new system dominance over the old rules.
Grid Structure: A 15pt baseline grid was used across a two-column layout, breaking dense legislative text into short, evenly spaced sections that are easy to scan.
Typography and Tone: Body text is set in Sora, 27four’s brand typeface, at 10pt for legibility in both print and digital formats. Subheadings are set in Calluna, a serif italic typeface, giving the legislative material a gentler tone and making key sections easier to scan.
FINAL LAYOUT
Organised to guide readers step by step, the final layout first explains the reason for the reform, then examines its effect on existing savings, and finally details the new system’s changes.
05 — Final Document
To Guide a Wary Public
The final guide was delivered on schedule, with clients receiving it before the Two-Pot system rollout on 1 September 2024. This guide distilled a complex legislative reform into an accessible and reassuring resource. It was available in both print and digital formats: as an interactive, fully accessible PDF for screen readers and as a physical handout for advisors during client consultations.
The structural approach did more than solve an immediate communication problem; it positioned 27four as a reliable guide for clients navigating an unfamiliar system.
The final guide enables South Africans to understand the Two-Pot system.
