Katie Schenk - thescoop

thescoop was a quarterly publication intended to keep DFA's employees up-to-date on newsworthy stories within the cooperative, executive communications, recipes, or other opportunities they could take advantage of.

Every page of thescoop was fully designed by Katie from concept to completion using no pre-made layout templates (with one exception).

*The templated cover pages of the first two issues (seen directly below) were not originally designed by Katie.

12 pages | 8.25 x 8.25”

16 pages | 8 x 10”

Links to all five of the publications Katie designed, hosted on ISSUU, can be found at the bottom of this page.

Opening spread of the first issue Katie designed.

thescoop began as a modestly designed publication with minimal graphics and color palettes.

Opening spread of the next issue.

After the first issue, thescoop's visual personality began being pushed in preparation for an official refresh, which was planned for the start of the following year.

“THIS IS LOOKING GREAT! You've been able to add a lot of that visual interest we discussed yesterday. Nice work!”

– Stephanie Dunn, creative director, on seeing the first draft of the Winter '22 issue of thescoop

At the start of 2023, thescoop was given a major refresh—more graphics, more color, and nearly twice as much content.

June 2023

October 2023

June 2023

“The whole issue is so visual and exciting! Love it!”

– Kirsten Hudson, editorial director, on thescoop's 2023 refresh

Employee Spotlights before thescoop refresh (above), and Employee Spotlights after thescoop refresh (below).

Certain recurring article types were loosely templated in the refresh for greater efficiency and design consistency.

June 2023

October 2023

December 2023

At the start of 2023, the cooperative began rolling out a new "living strategy."

An internal campaign making clear the connecting thread between every employee across the entire milk supply chain heralded this strategy's roll out.

Communicating a sustainable farm-to-table supply chain was one of DFA's three priority initiatives at the time.

This modular vector graphic was an original creation for thescoop, with the added intention of being usable in future farm-to-table depictions.

All verticals are perfectly radial to the circle's center point.

All horizontals are perfectly parallel to the circle's surface.

A few of DFA's default icons.

The majority of elements in the graphic were recreations from DFA's asset library to maintain stylistic consistency, though some were used as-is.

Supplemental research on the designer's part was required in order to create the infographic above—which then had to be reviewed and approved by the sustainability team for accuracy.

“I absolutely love this graphic! So cool and does a great job illustrating the process.”

– Marisa Baker, senior designer and art director of thescoop, on the infographic above