These projects were undertaken during my stint at AICL (2016-2018).
I was usually the lead designer in a team that included a content writer, project manager, and production designer.
An annual report is an important undertaking by a company to aggregate and present a review of its status and progress over the last financial year. The information showcased is both statutory and non-statutory in nature. The design of such an info-led publication is a sum of many parts: book navigation, mandatory segmentation, and a strong cross-reference of the subject matter. As is the case with other brand exercises, the design of annual reports is also guided by the brand language and ethos of the company.
Covers of annual report projects I have designed. Full reports are available for download on company websites.
Goals
Process
Each annual report would begin with identifying the central message of a particular year’s performance and objective. Is the new year about looking towards the future? Is it about extolling its new initiatives for the year? Can the report be a vehicle to announce a brand change? This would guide the design and content process.
We would brainstorm creative approaches for the annual report. It is important that each edition of the report have a unique visual language while staying within the larger brand’s look & feel.
With some basic content in place, I would work on extensive page plans to build a base grid for its uniquely stylized features. This is also a good time to test font styles and sizes to ensure the readability and legibility of this kind of long-form text.
The storytelling aspect of an annual report lies in its non-statutory section, where we present a company’s strategic decisions and dissect the frameworks of its inner workings. Across the reports, I have attempted to portray this form of information in distinct and dynamic ways.
Since the time period of an annual report’s function is short, more than 3-4 people are involved in the project at any point and the file changes station between design and print production. Since the accounts section involves a multitude of tabulated statutory financial data, it was my responsibility to monitor this process and check for any discrepancies or inconsistencies in layout and design.
Learnings
Annual reports, by their nature, are record-keeping devices, by which account they are essential not just to investors and financial analysts, but to the employees of the company too. Their investment in the report is more to do with the intangible representation of the culture and ethos of their company. For this particular reason, the design of an annual report transcends the needs of a financial tabulation and is about incorporating the very spirit of the company in its pages.
While this may lead to differences in design decisions, the result is often one of collaboration among all the stakeholders.
