Case study · Spare Labs
Spare Labs
A system of nine two-page sell sheets for Spare Labs, the Vancouver transit software company, with custom illustrations that make on-demand transit features easy to grasp.
01 — Context
Sell sheet design for an on-demand transit platform
Spare Labs is a Vancouver, BC software company that builds on-demand transit technology for public transit agencies: microtransit, paratransit, eligibility management, trip brokering and the tools that connect them. Its buyers are transit planners and agency leaders, and its product is genuinely complex. Every feature touches riders, drivers, vehicles and budgets at once.
In 2020 the sales team asked us for a series of sell sheets to support their conversations with agencies. Each sheet needed to explain one capability quickly, stay on brand, and leave a prospect with something they could pass around their own organization. Our sell sheet design work covered the template, layout, writing structure and a set of custom illustrations for every sheet, as part of our broader marketing collateral design service.
02 — One system, nine sheets
A repeatable template that sales can trust
With nine topics to cover, consistency mattered more than any single layout. We designed a two-page template that every sheet follows, so a prospect who has read one already knows how to read the rest.
The front page opens on a deep indigo header with a faint street-grid pattern — a nod to the cities Spare serves — plus a small pill label naming the feature, such as Commingling or Automated Eligibility Management. A short headline states the benefit in plain language: "Fleet sharing for public transit" or "Eligibility automated." A white card then holds the hero illustration, followed by a summary paragraph on the left and three benefits on the right, each with its own icon.
The back page goes deeper. Three stacked panels break the feature into practical uses, and a final band shows real agencies already working with Spare. Contact details sit in the same footer on every page. The hierarchy is deliberate — headline, picture, summary, detail — and follows the principles in our article on visual hierarchy.
03 — Illustration
Custom illustrations that explain the software
Transit software is hard to photograph. Screenshots of dispatch tools mean little to someone who hasn't used them, and stock photos of buses say nothing about what Spare actually does. So we drew the ideas instead.
Each sheet carries a simple flow diagram built from the same parts: groups of rider icons, the round purple Spare mark, and friendly flat vehicles — vans, buses, taxis and phones. On the Trip Brokering sheet, a row of independent operators feeds into Spare, which sends out taxis and ride-hailing vehicles. On Open API, phones, tablets and screens all connect to a single cloud labelled Spare Open API. On Multi-Modal, buses and vans meet in a multi-modal app that links to a city map.
Because the pieces are shared, the infographics feel like one family across all nine sheets, and new sheets can be built from the same kit. The palette stays tight — indigo, violet, orange, coral and sky blue on white — so the illustrations sit comfortably inside Spare's existing brand.
04 — Proof on the page
Comparisons, people and partners on the back page
Transit agencies buy carefully, and they compare. For the Advanced Microtransit and Advanced Paratransit sheets, the back page carries a feature comparison table — Spare beside other providers, with clear check and cross marks for capabilities like commingling, automated trip brokering, eligibility management and open API. Below it, a row of integration partner logos shows how Spare connects with the apps agencies already use.
Other sheets lean on people and examples instead. Full Service introduces a dedicated customer success team with portraits and an org chart, and the Rider Groups sheet explains segmentation with a grid of rider icons sorted into vehicles. The case example cards at the foot of each back page name real agencies and describe, in a sentence or two, how they use the feature.
The sheets needed to read well as a printed leave-behind, so we kept type sizes generous and margins clean for print. For more sales collateral like this, see our sell sheets for Quadrillion Partners or explore our work with startups and emerging brands.
What we delivered
A complete sell sheet series for Spare Labs' sales team.
