Commerical Documents &
REPORTS
INTRODUCTION
In both 2018 and 2019, I was commissioned by Home-Start Norfolk to create an appeal pamphlet to help the charity get noticed by potential trusts and grant makers. The team was very pleased with my work, and contacted me in 2020 for an even bigger project: to create a 40-paged document for their annual reports and accounts.
THE BRIEF
We organised a phone consultation to discuss the design and content so I knew exactly what the team had in mind. They wanted the document to be bright and colourful, fully showcasing the Home-Start Norfolk branding and incorporating illustrations, statistics and photographs throughout. I understood that they wanted the design to be friendly and accessible, whilst still effectively getting across the information, data and case studies required.
FLIPBOOK
Below is an interactive flipbook version of the document, as well as a selection of pages. Please note: the document included 20 pages of account information that was to be strictly copied across with no design intervention. I therefore omitted them from the flipbook document below.
READ ME!
THE COVER
The team at Home-Start provided me with photos as suggestions for the cover, but the image of a boy being pushed on the swings was my immediate choice: it was such a joyful image that perfectly represented all the positive work of the charity. For a more dynamic cover, I layered the boy's leg's over the title banner for a 3D effect, almost like he was swinging off the page!
PAGE DESIGNS
Once inside the document, I gave each page a colourful margin in the charity's core colours: yellow and purple. This allowed me to incorporate additional facts and statistics onto each page without further bulking out the text. Therefore, even if an individual was just flipping through the document, they would still see statistics that point to Home-Start's fantastic work. I always put the key numbers in a bold and large font; to emphasise the figures even further, I changed the colour to draw the eye to them. I also paired them alongside content relevant illustrations for additional focal interest.
PAGE DESIGNS (CONT.)
I used lots of round and curved imagery in the document as this creates a softer, more friendly feel than squares and sharp corners. For example, I used curved edges in my bar chart, and often cropped any photographs into circular frames or 'bubbles'. Indeed, whenever I did use a rectangular box - often to emphasise a quote - I would incorporate a pattern into the background of either wavy lines or 'donuts'. This also made the boxes more visually appealing.
I also wanted to convey a sense of movement into the document to make it more exciting and dynamic to read. For example, I would layer photos and text boxes to create an almost 3D effect, and have illustrations weave across the page. Any pie charts were styled to look as though they were "exploding" open, while quotation marks were oversized and cartoon-like.
CONCLUSION
The team at Home-Start Norfolk were extremely satisfied with my final design (you can read their testimonial here), especially noting the use of colour and shapes to create a friendly and visually appealing document that remained informative.
