Designing for Everyone: Blending Creativity and Accessibility in Every Flyer

One of my favorite parts of being a designer is creating posters and flyers. There’s something incredibly satisfying about taking an idea and transforming it into a visual story — something bold, engaging, and eye-catching. But over the years, my approach to design has evolved. It’s no longer just about creativity and aesthetics. It’s about accessibility.

Because a beautiful design is meaningless if people can’t understand or use it.

When I create a flyer now, I don’t just think about colors and layout — I think about the people who will read it; the community members. People with different backgrounds, different levels of English, different visual abilities. People who might glance at a poster in a hallway and need to instantly know what it’s about.

That’s why so many of my flyers are bilingual.

By including both English and Spanish, I can reach more people with the same message. No one should look at a community announcement and feel lost or excluded. Language shouldn’t be a barrier. Clarity shouldn’t be a privilege.

But accessibility goes even deeper than translation.

Many of the people I design for — including people like my mom, who is legally blind — rely on tools that help them access information. So I started incorporating QR codes into most of my posters. A quick scan takes the reader directly to a web page where the information can be read aloud using assistive technology. What could be a struggle on paper becomes fully accessible on a screen.

It’s a small detail, but it makes a huge difference.

Designing with accessibility in mind doesn’t limit my creativity — it enhances it. It pushes me to think intentionally about every element:

Are the fonts clear and readable?
Is there strong color contrast?
Is the layout intuitive?
Do the icons help guide understanding?
Would someone with low vision still be able to access the information?

When creativity and accessibility work together, design becomes more than decoration — it becomes communication.

Designing for everyone isn’t just part of my process.

It’s part of my purpose.

And every time someone easily understands one of my flyers, or seamlessly scans a QR code to have information read aloud, I’m reminded why I do what I do: to make information accessible, inclusive, and engaging — for all.