Corinne Abara · Information design portfolio

Selected work

01Pike Hollow Water District · Bill redesign · 10 weeks

A water bill that says what you owe before anything else

Problem: The amount due sat in the last row of a 14-line table, and the due date was on the back. About 2,140 customers a month called only to ask what they owed.
What I did: Moved the amount and the date to the top in 28-point type, folded 14 charges into three groups, and drew a year of water use as twelve bars. Three drafts went in front of nine customers at the payment counter.
Result: Calls about the bill fell to 1,640 a month in the first quarter: 23% fewer.

02Marlow County Transit · Timetables · 9 routes

One timetable layout for nine bus routes

Problem: Each route's leaflet had been drawn by a different person in a different decade. In a test at the depot, 11 of 25 riders could find the last bus home.
What I did: Built one template for all nine: a strip map on top, stops in travel order, times reading down, and the last departure in a box of its own. The type is 9 point and still reads on a moving bus.
Result: In the same test with the new leaflets, 21 of 25 riders found the last bus, most in under half a minute.

03Ridgeway Community Clinic · Wayfinding · 4 entrances

Signs for a clinic with four front doors

Problem: Three additions had each brought a door and a set of signs: 212 in all, some pointing at departments that had moved. The front desk gave directions about 60 times a day.
What I did: Walked every route with patients, then gave each entrance a letter and a color, A to D. Appointment letters now say “Entrance B”. The building is down to 74 signs, each in English and Spanish.
Result: Two months later the front desk counted again: about 18 requests for directions a day.

04Northside Housing Help Desk · Application form · 6 weeks

A rent-assistance form cut from eleven pages to four

Problem: The form asked for the same address three times and hid the list of documents on page 9. Of every 100 that came in, 38 were missing something, and each of those meant a phone call from a caseworker.
What I did: Rewrote each question in plain words, one to a line, and moved “What to bring” to the cover as a checklist. Questions the office could answer from its own records came out.
Result: Four pages. Over the first three months, 12 in every 100 came back incomplete.

05Greenlea Pharmacy · Patient handout · 3 branches

One card for a whole day's medicines

Problem: A patient on six prescriptions went home with six labels and no plan for the day. Pharmacists were writing schedules by hand on the backs of receipts.
What I did: Designed a card the pharmacy's system prints at the counter: four columns from morning to bedtime, each pill drawn in its own shape, in 14-point type. It sits on a fridge door and folds to fit a wallet.
Result: The three branches print about 300 a month. Of 40 patients phoned a month later, 34 still used theirs.

About

I started as a typesetter at a commercial printer, setting other people's forms for six years. That's where I learned what a confusing document costs: the reprints, the phone calls, the people who give up halfway.

For the last eight years I've worked on my own, mostly for public bodies and nonprofits that send paper to people who didn't ask for it. Every project is tested with five to ten of the people who'll use it before anything is printed, and I hand over files your own staff can edit.

Based: Milwaukee, working with clients across the Midwest
Writes in: English and Spanish
Takes on: Projects of 4 to 12 weeks, or a staff role on an in-house team
Free from: January 2027

corinne@example.com

Send me the document that's causing trouble and tell me who has to read it. I reply within two working days, and the first call is free. Longer write-ups of all five projects are yours for the asking.