What an annual report design agency wants from you, Part 1: Process
This may sound a little demanding from a supplier, but the message here is this, what do we need from you to make the delivery of your annual report as smooth as possible, taking away any frustration (on the client side) and making what is a difficult project a bit easier.
I think this may be a two-part article, breaking it down to the process and the content. Sounds about right.
In this article, we highlight the small things that make a big difference to both agency and client to make the delivery of an annual report as painless as it can be.
Here we describe the process and detail what a client can do to ensure they get exactly what they are looking for.
Firstly, establish the creative brief. Before you put it in front of the agency, get all stakeholders, CFO, CEO and marketing to comment and contribute.
Consider the year's overall message, ‘what is the primary message you would like to communicate this year?’. Write it down and get it agreed upon.
We often find that at the early stages of the creative process, only a section of the stakeholders have been involved in the brief and sometimes they are quite junior. So sometimes the concepts we deliver don’t suit the wider team’s goals.
Once we deliver the annual report design concepts, again, make sure all of the stakeholders see them. Gather opinions and try to get a consensus. If possible, weed out the relevant ‘taste’ comments like ‘I’ve never really liked our corporate green’ and get clarification on unclear comments like ‘it needs to be more professional’ or ‘It doesn’t speak ‘FinTech to me’.
Try not to combine different concepts, that rarely works.
Lastly, talk to the design agencies about what you feel works and what does not. Tell them why, but avoid directing them. It is their job to find the solution.
The concepts should include:
Cover design
Typical spread
A spread of financial statements.
Once these designs and type styles, account formatting and document structure (grid) have been approved, these will then be applied to the entire document. Be aware that making changes down the line could incur extra work. InDesign does not work like Microsoft Word, so discuss with your designer the implications of any change and avoid things (after the first full proof) like:
Changing from portrait to landscape (this is a huge piece of work)
Adding in a single page, can mean moving each page, in the entire document, from left to right
Changing the design concept or grid.
At this stage, we will be waiting on the content. It should be as final as it can possibly be. It is rare for content to be complete and signed off, we understand that, but text and data should be supplied in a near-finished state.
Now the design team will begin to deliver the first full proof. This will take some time, for instance, at Navig8 (we are very quick), a 148-page report, combining front and backend (financial statements etc) pages can take 10 working days, longer if there are lots of charts and infographics.
When supplying the content include notes and suggestions for the design team. If you have a particular vision, tell us. If one page, let’s say ‘Our mission and vision’ has been supplied as plain text but what you are looking for is an infographic, annotate the content referencing any examples that you like.
We now enter the proofing and revising stages. The number of rounds of revision varies from client to client and depends on the scope and timescale. We detail these stages and milestones in a schedule.
Some clients like us to do all the revisions, others like us to do some, but leave the smaller, later amends to themselves using InCopy.
Sending multiple emails with revisions is a recipe for disaster, so avoid this at all costs. Even with a dedicated project manager, managing revisions in this way will end in frustration and omissions. So while it might seem expedient for you to fire off a quick couple of emails about how XYZ might need to change and ABC needs this new content, it will not be quicker and the comments will most likely, be misunderstood or overlooked.
This is important. After receiving the first proof, if you (the client) revise the original content in Word or Excel and then resupply the content to the designer (even if it has tracked changes), this will mean the designer will have to start from scratch. This will not be included in the estimate and will be a considerable piece of additional work.
Mark your revisions on the PDF using the stickies function. This way, the team will revise the document for you and ‘tick off’ each comment as they go along. One of our team will then check that the revisions have been done, this delivers back to the client a nice, ‘clean’ proof at each stage.
When all the revision and comments have been taken in and proof delivered, it is time for sign off. This, arguably, is the most important stage. The responsibility for the final content and sign off is with the client. It has to be, so make sure you are 100% happy with it.
Once signed off a number of things will happen, you will be delivered a PDF for publication online and dissemination. The report might go to print, or even be repurposed into an online, digital annual report.
Whatever the final channel for delivery, we aim to deliver benchmark reporting and industry leading annual report design.
Now we understand the process, let's look at content supply in Part two: Content.