Junior Achievement Pathway Map
The Problem
Junior Achievement of Northwestern Ohio helps students build skills in entrepreneurship, financial literacy, and career readiness. But with programs spanning multiple grade levels and leading toward a variety of post-graduation paths, the organization needed a way to make that ecosystem easier to understand.
They asked me to create a visual map that could show how those programs connected and where they could ultimately lead students. The finished piece needed to work as a large-format installation in their offices while also helping the team explain their programs to students, donors, partners, and new staff.
The Approach
The project started with an idea rather than a defined structure: winding trails, obstacles, and possibly hot-air balloons that would give students a better view of the choices ahead. Before worrying about illustration style, I needed to understand what the map actually needed to communicate.
I started with an intentionally rough sketch to test my understanding of the client's idea. That sketch became the basis for a working session where we mapped JA's programs, their relationships, and the paths available to students after graduation.
From there, the challenge shifted from organizing the information to representing it visually. We worked through symbols for individual programs and outcomes while refining the overall geography of the map. Eventually, the structure became clear: JA programs would fill the left side of the landscape, with the paths converging toward post-graduation options on the right (with a subtle but intentional gutter in the center in case the map needed to be folded in half for any reason).
My initial sketch translated the client's early idea of winding trails, obstacles, and hot-air balloons into something we could react to together.
A collaborative working session helped us map the relationships between JA's programs and the post-graduation paths they supported.
The original Talent Achievement Pathway, approved in spring 2021.
The JA Pathway map you created for us has been an absolutely pivotal part of our transformation story! The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive and exciting, and it is getting resounding accolades across the national JA network.
Jim Pollock President, Junior Achievement of Northwestern Ohio
Evolving the Map
After two years of using the original map, JA reached out again in 2023. Their programs and naming had evolved, the national organization had introduced updated branding, and they wanted the map to evolve with them.
The revision gave me an opportunity to update the visual system while solving a new challenge: representing a “gap year” alongside the existing post-graduation paths. An early concept used a helicopter and helipad, but it felt disconnected from the hiking metaphor that held the rest of the map together. We ultimately replaced it with an observation tower, giving students a place to pause, look across their options, and decide where to go next.
The final draft of the Talent Achievement Pathway map, now titled the “Pathway to Success”.
Impact
What began as a one-time illustration became a lasting communication tool for JA of Northwestern Ohio. The organization used the map to explain its programs to multiple audiences, and its reception within the broader JA network helped validate the approach. When JA's programs and brand evolved two years later, they returned to update the map rather than replace the concept.
Reflection
This project reminded me how powerful illustration can be when it does more than decorate information. Every trail, landmark, obstacle, and destination had a job to do. The challenge wasn't simply creating an engaging landscape; it was building one that helped people understand relationships that were difficult to explain in words alone.
That's still one of my favorite kinds of design problem: taking something complicated and finding a visual idea that makes it click.