An annual report provides a robust and comprehensive understanding of the operations and financial standing of your organisation in any given financial year. By their very nature, the content contained within an annual report is detailed and data heavy. It is imperative that we as graphic designers ensure your annual report design is created to engage and inform the reader.
Today we are presenting a recent project: the creation of annual report concepts and design layout for the Irish Football Association. A project such as an annual report, is collaborative in its approach. Within this project our graphic designers liaise daily with both Marketing and Communications teams as well as the Finance department. Each party has a huge role and influence in the final decision. Working in a collaborative manner, we support such projects through to successful completion.
Creative & Engaging Annual Report Design
As graphic designers, annual reports are a key focus for many of our clients. These incredibly comprehensive documents historically would have been a large body of text supplemented with financial tables. While fine for those engaged in their creation, the information was sometime hard to follow and even harder to digest. We will work closely with you to truly understand your content and its intent.
With a strong brief and our ability and willingness to understand your business acutely, we will not only create beautiful designs. But an annual report that is engaging to all stakeholders.
2020 Annual Report for the Irish Football Association
View the full Irish Football Association 2020 annual report design created by Kaizen Brand Evolution by visiting – http://www.irishfa.com/media/33993/irish-fa-2020-annual-report-and-financial-statements.pdf.
Alternatively you can view a selection of page spreads below. Within the designs presented below, we have shown a selection of pages from the 2020 annual report. This includes cover design, text and image led pages. We have also shown examples of financial data presented in tabular format.
Adherence to Brand Guidelines
Annual reports are not the time nor the place to go off-piste with regard your brand guidelines. As guardians of your brand, we will ensure we maintain strict standards around the design of your annual report. Where brand guidelines are not available, we will be delighted to create these for you. Or we can help create interim design structure to support the annual report design. This is often useful for our clients who are creating their first annual report with a design agency.
Organisations That Require Annual Reports
While annual reports may not cross your desk daily, they are required by law in publicly traded companies. Within private companies Directors prepare the annual report to ensure the keeping of proper books of account. These accurately disclose the financial position of the company. Organisations that may create an annual report include:
- Public sector organisations
- Publicly traded companies
- Private companies
- Charities
- Local Councils
How to Design an Annual Report – Design Process
Creative Briefing
A great project starts with a great briefing process. Our client services design team members will walk you through the briefing process. We’ll provide a suite of briefing documents for you to complete (don’t worry they are very self-explanatory). Once we receive these, we’ll schedule a call to chat through the project further.
Supply of Content
Content is King!! Best practice would always be that we don’t start designing until we receive final content. However, we’re realists, and we understand that in the tens of thousands of design projects we’ve created, that this just won’t happen. What we do ask for is as close to the finalised copy as possible.
We’ll need all photography provided as high quality JPG’s at 300dpi and all logo assets supplied as vectors. If you have brand guidelines and fonts, please supply these also.
From the supplied assets we’ll build a project folder and ensure this is backed up in 2 separate locations.
Design of Cover & Spread
Armed with the brief and assets, we’ll begin designing. Depending on the level of design we are providing, we may present 1-3 concepts for your review. These concepts normally include the cover design, a spread to include text and imagery. On occasion, they may include some of the financial table design. We will work with you to provide the most relevant design concepts to ensure understanding from your Directors.
Approval of Concepts
We will present and explain each of our concepts, providing you with the PDF to share amongst your team. These will be refined if necessary and reviewed alongside our designers. On approval, the chosen concept will become the basis of the overall design.
It is at this point we need as close to final content as possible. A foreword or paragraph missing is no problem at all. However, all spelling and text amends throughout the document should be completed by this time.
Completion of 1st Draft
Within the studio our team will take the approved design direction, content and imagery and will begin to output the full annual report. This process timeline is highly determined on the length of the document, however it is usual for this to take a number of weeks. We will provide check ins as part of our overall timeline and will share work in progress during that time. We are happy to take any design changes in batches as artwork is presented to ensure the project continues at pace.
Author Revisions
We understand that these are living and breathing documents within your organisation. Some people will be brought in to review content throughout the process and this will create unforeseen changes. Within any annual report design project, we make provision in our timeline for author revisions and corrections. We will explain the process and costs within our initial consultation meetings.
Presentation for Print and Digital Distribution
On final approval of the report design, we will package the files up in the agreed manner. Most commonly for print or for digital distribution via email or placement on your server for download. We are incredibly well versed in all manner of traditional and digital media and will always use best practice in file delivery. Our sister company Kaizen Print may be able to assist in the print function.
Project Debrief
On completion of any large design project your client manager will arrange a post-project meeting where we can discuss the project in detail. We are always happy to discuss opportunities to better our service and learnings we can implement in future projects. Working with our clients over many years we have honed specific best practices for each client.
Start A Project With Us
To begin an annual report project with Kaizen, or to discuss how we might work together further, please get in touch. Our client services team are available to contact on 028 9507 2007. Alternatively you can send us a direct message via the contact form. We look forward to working with you soon!