TOR for Design and Illustration

Introduction 

Room to Read seeks to transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education. The goal of our Girls’ Education Program is to ensure that girls complete secondary school and have the skills to negotiate key life decisions. Room to Read supports girls to complete secondary school by reinforcing their commitment to their own education, building in them essential life skills required to persist in and succeed in school, and increasing support for girls’ education among their parents and school community. Life Skill and Mentoring are the key components of Room to Read’s Girls’ Education Program (GEP), which believes the development of life skills and supportive mentoring relationships are critical to improving girls’ education. 

Background: 

Girls’ Education Program has some annual engagement activities planned throughout the year. The idea is to build and create momentum and awareness with girls and different stakeholders around different aspects of the life skills and gender.  These materials will be instrumental in sharing the content in reader friendly way to with an emphasis on the importance of lifeskills. Besides this, it will also uplift the motivation of the different stakeholders for girls education and different issues of gender and gender equality.

 With this backdrop, RTR plans to develop various products around the topics of gender, girls education and importance of lifeskills. Some of the products will be designed for components of the program like campaign, mini campaign, newsletters, videos etc.

Scope of Work and Deliverables:

The agency or the illustrator will design veracious products for girls and different stakeholder under the RTR program. The designer will work closely with the program team to design, illustrate and create content with the innovative products and materials. With respect to digitalization of the content and products around GEP (Girls Education Program), the Agency/illustrators who will be involved in creating different line items like infographics, posters, short films/videos, giffs, emailers, illustrations (High, medium low intensity), Cover page, manuals etc.

Key Deliverables:

• Conceptualize products/materials, write content considering expectation from the end users.
• Conceptualize the IECs that should supplement the content which should be child friendly, gender balanced.
• Ensure all the content is user friendly and visually appealing.
• Ensure the all the material will be designed for digital as well physical usage, accordingly the color palette should be used.
• The content will be in Hindi and English, fully proofread and fully edited material should be shared.
• The agency will be responsible for high-quality designing and laying out materials in a reader-friendly, creative, appealing, and innovative manner and placing illustrations or photographs wherever appropriate, required, and expected in a fun, interactive, and adolescent-friendly manner.
• Ensure formatting and layout of the text including making text editions once the layout is done
• Ensure conceptualization of the ideas for the illustration that supplements the content and should be able to contribute to visualizations of gender equality and help in moving away from gender stereotyping child friendly.
• The illustrations will be shared with the RtR point person and he/she will have the authority to approve the final illustrations.
• Preparing a print-ready file of each periodical. Design and formatting will be in line with Room to Read’s branding guidelines.

Technical Evaluation Criteria:

The agency will be evaluated based on a total score of 100 points across the given parameters. Each parameter will contribute 20 points.

The technical proposal will be assessed based on the following criteria:

1. Content creation: The agency should be able to create different forms of content for the intended Girls Education Program and life skills domain. They should be able to create, develop and write the finalized relevant content in the form of narrative, storylines, or any other relevant form different content pieces like Posters, brochure, Manuals. The consultant will create content for each section that will be finalized in consultation with RtR.
2. Conceptual Clarity: The content including the illustrations, should be gender transformational in a way that it should enable the readers to envision and visualize a gender-equal world and go beyond gender stereotyping – to help them realize their own potential. The consultant will undertake content and copy editing and proofreading ensuring that the content is error-free, relevant, and aligned with the GEP mandate and vision
3. Content editing: The agency should be able to edit the embedded content (text, dialogues etc.) as per the changes done in illustration with respect to the context. Expertise to maintain consistency in style, standard layout, color accuracy, attention to details and quality across all content. Convert existing content to different formats and sizes, ensuring the final product remains high-quality across print, digital, or mobile platforms.
4. Illustration modification: The agency’s portfolio style should align with assignment intended. Specialize in different types of illustrations (e.g., vector graphics, digital art, hand-drawn illustrations. Expertise in illustration modification of embedded images, such as character redesign, background enhancement, branding style adjustments.
5. Consistency with Brand Guidelines: The agency should have experience of working with brand guidelines and their ability to modify illustrations while maintaining consistency with existing brand colors, fonts, and overall design language without compromising brand identity.

How to Apply:

Technical Proposals are invited from the interested agencies/individual for the above assignment and the last date for receiving the proposal is 6^th January 2026 at procurement.india@roomtoread.org  [do not copy anyone from RtR]

Kindly submit an email with the following subject line:

Design and Illustration 2026-27 - TECHNICAL PROPOSAL

The agency should apply with the following:

TECHNICAL PROPOSAL 

• A technical proposal will outline the way this assignment will be approached.
• Cite relevant work experience and samples of work
• The proposal should mention the estimated timeline for completing the deliverables.
• Detailed CV of all the consultants involved in this project, as applicable 
• Read the ToR thoroughly before applying.
• Only Shortlisted agency will be contacted and might be called for a face-to-face interaction with the panel.
• Financial will be called from the shortlisted agencies/consultants only.
• Any incomplete application or process deviation, the proposals will automatically be rejected.
• Proposal received after the prescribed deadline will not be considered.
• The TDS will be applicable as per GoI.
• Selected agency will be required to sign and abide by the Child Protection policy of Room to Read. 

For queries, please contact:

Vivek Shrawat at vivek.shrawat@roomtoread.org  

To download the full ToR, click here: TOR for Design and Illustration