NASA

Brand / Identity / Print

NASA
HCOP

Designing the Human Capital Operating Plan, the strategic blueprint that maps NASA's workforce, mission-aligned goals, and talent priorities for the years ahead.

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For NASA's enterprise-wide workforce strategy, I designed the Human Capital Operating Plan, a 100+ page document translating dense policy, talent data, and multi-year planning into a clear, navigable narrative for leadership, hiring managers, and oversight stakeholders.

Client

NASA HCOP

Role

Visual Designer

Scope

Editorial Design / Data Viz / Print

Tools

Illustrator / InDesign

Chapter 01

The Challenge

01
NASA HCOP Cover

01, The Brief

A strategic plan that
no one wanted to read.

The HCOP is the document NASA uses to outline how the agency recruits, develops, retains, and resources its people, the workforce behind every mission. But like most operating plans, it had become a wall of text: dense policy language, scattered org data, and budget tables that buried the strategy under formatting.

The mandate: turn it into something leadership would actually open, and oversight bodies could quickly navigate, without losing the rigor the document demands.

Chapter 02

Building the System

02
NASA HCOP Logo History

02, Identity Development

A visual language for
talent, mission, and growth.

Before laying out a single page, I built a visual system that could carry the document's full scope, recruiting, talent development, mission-aligned goals, funding, and future workforce outlook, without each section feeling like a different report.

01
Stakeholder Alignment Met with HR, strategy, and program leads to understand how each section would actually be used.
02
Content Architecture Mapped chapters around the workforce lifecycle, recruit, develop, retain, plan, so the structure itself told the story.
03
Visual System Built typography, color, and iconography rules to translate dense workforce data into scannable spreads.
04
Production Rollout Extended the system into print, digital PDFs, and executive briefing decks for downstream use.

Chapter 03

The System
in Action

03
NASA HCOP Brand Collateral

03, Applied Identity

From workforce data
to a document leaders use.

The system carried the entire plan, mission-aligned hiring goals, talent pipeline metrics, multi-year funding outlook, and future workforce projections, with consistent typography, charts, and data treatments that made dense information feel intentional, not overwhelming.

Space-inspired motifs, planets, stars, satellites, became recurring anchors throughout the document, tying every workforce decision back to the missions the people behind them are working to launch.

NASA HCOP Spread

Takeaway

A great operating plan isn't just read, it's used. For the HCOP, that meant a document leadership could navigate quickly, hiring managers could reference confidently, and oversight bodies could trust as a clear picture of NASA's workforce strategy.

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© 2025 Kevin Todd
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