Articles, advice and musings in the world of graphic design, branding, corporate reporting and so much more.
The days of printing thousands of copies of a printed annual report seem to be over. And that’s a good thing. So whilst we are all going digital with our annual reports, we need to rethink what formats we deliver them in and what that means for the readership.
To design and build an annual report micro site or one page website, you should be aware of the steps and potential issues you may come across. In this article, I will walk you through the process.
Content should be edited down to the bare minimum, bearing in mind users are unlikely to read large sections of text. The less text, the better. We will link a PDF of the full report for users to download so that they can view the full report should they wish to.
CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) and ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) reporting, by its very nature, offer up different types of reporting to stakeholders. They both have a slightly different agenda and are becoming more and more important and sought after by potential stakeholders and potential investors.
Design agencies offer a wide range of services these days – they have to, in order to compete. The benefit of using one agency rather than a number of specialist companies to deliver your design and marketing is that an agency that can deliver integrated services will take a holistic approach, make sure the left hand knows what the right hand is doing and save the client money.
When designing and delivering ESG (Environment, Social and Governance), Annual Reports, White Papers or Strategy documents, there are alternative formats that may suit your audience better than the traditional A4 PDF. Here we discuss the merits of some of these different approaches.
Some brands, like, Ford, Coca-Cola and Boots have retained the original logo design from their very conception, or thereabouts. Having said that, all of them have been through subtle branding exercises. These subtle changes are to gently modernise the identity.
Some organisations have made a more drastic change. This might mean a change in name and a complete rebrand from the logo upwards.
Branding gets used to describe a visual identity for a product or service. It often relates to a wider application, rather than just a logo and colour palette for instance.
The actual term for this part of a brand is ‘corporate identity’. A corporate identity is the visual elements a company uses to identify itself.
As we have discussed in our previous articles: What is an ESG report and Maximising your ESG report impact, we focus on a particular sector – banks and investment companies to detail some of the specific requirements that these sectors may need to deal with.
We have discussed what an ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) report is and the potential structure one might take as part of your corporate reporting as part of our annual report design service, Navig8 can help you bring to life, your ESG goals and strategy.
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) reports are becoming increasingly important as stakeholders and investors are demanding more and more, to see a company's impact on climate change and the environment, social ‘responsibility’ and good governance.
An annual report can and should be so much more than just an illustration of the past year's financial statements and compliance. Every member of the delivery team will have a different agenda and communications goals.
Every business has a human element and a story to tell. even if you sell robots, software, or rubber flanges. Human stories are what people want to read about, they can bring any report alive and add a different dimension to an annual report.
If you think you are defining a new market, it is very rare that an absolutely new market doesn’t already exist. There will be something similar out there, people or organisations who buy or want to buy the product or service you sell. You can pay for a market research company to do your research for you. But with effort and a little ‘out-of-the-box thinking’, you can do it yourself.
This article details an overview of what a branding strategy might include… Branding strategy can be a nebulous thing, but like all strategies, it must be devised and created for each individual organisation.
Style guides and brand books underpin a brand's communication framework. they affect the way a charity speak to their supporters and funders to how a brand communicates to its customers and stakeholders.
I wrote a book called Clients are Aliens and Designers are Monsters. It got rejected by my publishers (BIS Publishers) because it might be perceived as a bit too negative. In my view, it wasn't. It was a semi-satirical view of the relationship between designers and their clients, with a view to pointing out what could be done to make both parties’ life a bit easier.
Starting from a basic print production on a low print run, here is a selection of dinging techniques, from the cheapest to the most expensive. Prices are marked using the restaurant listing method you often see, starting in ‘£’ – ‘£££££’. Prices will vary enormously, so seek advice from your graphic design agency.
What does a design and rebranding agency do and what process do they take?
Almost all agencies say they can do anything. The truth is we can’t. We’ve done some wicked interiors, mostly because our client liked what we did with everything else. It was magic fun, but we are not interior experts.
What we are (Navig8 that is) is an agency that does a few things, not only well, but world-class.
The decision to rebrand can be a difficult one for organisation that has high recognition. No matter the organisation if the brand is tired, no longer works on modern digital channels, or has simply become cringe-worthy, it may be time to grasp the nettle and seek out a design and rebranding agency.
