Chronicle 18 - Annual/Performance Reports – Part 2 of 2 – “The Value of Design”.

By Damon Thomas – Design Director, LEED AP, NOMA
In Chronicle 17 (Part 1 of Annual/Performance Reports), I offered my view points on the importance of these reports and where print in some cases may be a superior option over digital. 

Click to view Part 1 of this Chronicle - Annual/Performance Reports – Part 1 of 2 – “Print is Still Relevant”

In this Chronicle, I’d like to discuss the value of design for Annual and Performance Reports using 5 design elements that I feel are important:


1. Tell Your Story

2. Highlight Your Achievements

3. Use Relevant Graphics To Help Your Message 

4. Use a Good Design Concept

5. Be Versatile With Print & Digital

We will take a look at a Performance Report done for a client of ours; The Central Woodward/North End Collaborative (CW/NE) as well as some other reports I feel illustrate  value of design. 

1.   Tell your Story.  Nothing tells it better than good photos.  Hiring a professional photographer will add to the cost of your project, however a good photographer can produce unique images that are tailored to your organization.  If a professional photographer can't be obtained, sites like Shutterstock.com or Fotolia.com are options for royalty free stock photos.  Makeuseof.com is a blog that list free stock images sites. I personally like Istockphoto.com for its stock of not only high quality photos but vector art, flash files, video and audio clips.  Whichever route you decide, your graphic designer should know how to best arrange the photos to tell your story.  Autoliv is a company developing auto safety systems at all levels including bike riders. The photos from their 2012 AnnualReport below illustrate their goal without reading a single word.

2.   Highlight your achievements.  Don’t think of it as bragging.  Potential donors want to see what you’ve done.  Most won’t read a plain spread sheet or chart.  Let your designer guide you to the best arrangement.  In LISC Detroit Annual Report 2011, I love the large titles and numbers that allow me to assess how much LISC Detroit has invested in education initiatives.  The bold color evokes emotion along with two cute photos of children learning (the cute images of the children add a nice touch). 

 

3.   Use relevant graphics to help your message.  Your graphic designer should create interesting charts or infographics to explain your goals.  In Starbucks's 2012 Global Responsibility Report, one goal of the company is to reduce energy + water consumption in its stores.  I really like the symbols such as electric cords & water drops to emphasize the energy & water use measured in this chart.  Using these relevant graphics vs. the standard bar graphs resonate and connect the reader with the message.  Being a LEED AP, I read this graphic and not only wanted to design a report for Starbucks but immediately started thinking of sustainable ideas for their stores.

 

4.   Use a good design concept.  The design concept will set the tone for the cover and the entire report.  The concept will mold and dictate how the graphics are chosen and/or displayed, so don’t take this lightly.  One challenge we had assisting our client Central Woodward/North End Collaborative (CW/NE) with their performance report was coming up with a theme that conveyed a message of the 5 different non-profits working together in this organization (Central Detroit Christian, Vanguard CDC, Focus: HOPE, 4C – Child Care Coordinating Council & New Center Council - merged now with Midtown Detroit).

The collaborative gave me a theme to their report: “Partnering to Rebuild Detroit One Neighborhood at a Time”.  I looked at words & phrases that I felt best described who this organization is & what they do; Team Work, Collaboration, Community etc.  I looked at images I could associate with these words or phrases.  After thinking, searching, sketching & designing I found an image of a rope that best conveyed what this collaborative was about.  Each organization was a strand.  The strands woven together make the (strong) rope.  The image I purchased on-line had strands of different colors woven together.  I saw this and thought, “This is perfect!”  I gave each organization a color which enhanced the concept (view conceptual images slideshare).

 

From here the report was divided in 5 sections (after the introduction of the collaborative as a whole of course).  Each section displayed each organizations contribution to the collaborative.  The color from each strand became the color scheme of each section (i.e. Central Detroit Christian - Pink, Vanguard CDC – Yellow and so on).

     5.   Be versatile with print & digital.  I mentioned in Chronicle 17 of this blog,

     “…..…. Downloadable PDF Reports may save you printing cost but it still takes the same time and effort to produce the content / graphics…….In most cases it’s best to have both options (printed copy & digital copy) available………”

      The CW/NE Collaborative Performance Report has both versions available (print & digital).  Regular PDF files are good and we use these file types.  If the file size is small enough you can e-mail these, but if you want to really impress and reach more people, I suggest using one of the on-line publishing sites like Yudo or Zmags (there are several).  We use an online publication site called ISSUU.com.  This site creates PDF files into an interactive book that you actually flip through (very cool). 

In conclusion, don't overlook the importance of organization, good writing and editing.  These are very important elements to your report as well.  Good design will bring your report to life, inspire donors/supporters and give your report more value.  As always I hope this information was useful.  Thanks for reading.

Chronicle 17: Annual/Performance Reports – Part 1 of 2 – “Print Is Still Relevant”.

By Damon Thomas - Design Director, LEED AP, NOMA
   
  Say you are fundraising.  Relationships have to be built with donors and investors by telling them your story, your goals and accomplishments.  You can effectively tell your story about your organization’s work with Annual Reports or Performance Reports.  It’s a no-brainer that you can reach more people & faster by going digital with your report than in print, however print items such as Annual or Performance Reports are still very relevant.  These printed reports offer the following advantages:

 1. A Blog entry is a decent option to think about but usually you have many other entries on a Blog site to sort through.  Blogs are designed to be simple typing and uploading of images.  Annual /Performance Reports are comprehensive with graphs, charts and spreadsheets to illustrate financials, projection, etc.  Loading that type of content in a Blog entry can be cumbersome because the graphs, charts and spreadsheets among other things have to be images scaled to fit the format of the Blog page.  You will more than likely have to test the arrangement of images over and over.  These tasks are much easier using tools like InDesign, however programs like InDesign are not for websites and blogs.   

Formatting options on your average Blog is limited to the template layouts configured on the site you are using.

The actual print size (8.5”x11”) allows this image to look much better.  Photo captions, bullet items, titles, etc. are scaled proportionally in the print version making it readable.

2.  Web site based Annual/Performance Reports like the GE Annual Report (seen below) are great and offer options print can’t such as video links and animations, however these are better suited for targets like stock holders that may be more familiar with where to go for information.  One pitfall for organizations smaller than GE is budget.  The cost using the website option will be much higher than the print option.  Also, no matter how simple the site navigation is, all web users ARE NOT created equal or at least will process and maneuver your site differently.  Some don’t maneuver the web well, but everyone knows how to flip a page.

GE's Annual Report Micro-Site (above) is very nice & navigation seems straightforward. The CW/NE Collaborative Performance Report (below) is even more straightforward flipping pages.

3.  Downloadable PDF Reports may save you printing cost but it still takes the same effort and time to produce the content / graphics. You also have to depend on donors coming to your site to view it (remember you need their contributions not the other way around).  Sending the PDF via e-mail is an option but e-mail in-boxes have become more cluttered than real mail boxes in the digital age.  This option works best when someone specifically asks for the report to be e-mail to them.  In most cases it’s best to have both options (printed copy & digital copy) available.  We will come back to this point in Part 2 of this chronicle entry.

We have the same booklets pictured above. One is a PDF format and one is a hard copy. Can you tell which one took longer to design?

4.  Know your target.  Annual/Performance Reports make GREAT supporting material for grant applications or media kits.  When reviewing your grant application and data it is much easier to review print information at your fingertips than to go on line to view an on-line PDF, website or blog .  That doesn’t mean the information shouldn’t be on-line, but in this example print is the superior option.

Reviewing Grant Proposals - The internet is only a few clicks away to view any supporting material but, a PRINTED version of the same material can be viewed faster in this example (sample report next to manila folders).

     Conclusion; I’m a fan of digital. I do LOTS of work with my phone and laptop.  But in this digital age with Mobile Devices and IPads, there are still cases where print is still relevant and a better option.  In part 2 of this chronicle entry we will focus on the value of design for Annual/Performance Reports using one of our projects as a case study.  Thanks for reading.  See you soon.