An end of year report design that transmits a sense of excitement and energetic pace, focused action and success, and where members and their achievements are the focus.

Background

The IFoA (Institute and Faculty of Actuaries) is the professional body which represents and regulates actuaries in the United Kingdom. Central to the IFoA’s work this year has been listening to its members, and focusing on what they considered important.

The pandemic had sped up much of what the IFoA already had planned, such as the digitisation of exams and events offering. But the IFoA went beyond that, and they wanted to use this end of year report to showcase the work actuaries have done to support the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic, amongst other key initiatives.

After the great feedback we received on the previous year’s annual report, which we had also designed, we were invited to pitch for the next edition, with the IFoA deciding to stay with us. Our client felt very comfortable working with the previously established project team, with a guarantee of continuing with the supportive and trust-based relationship we had developed a few months back.

Challenge

To deliver an end of year report design that would visually encapsulate an important message addressed to IFoA members: “Throughout this annual report, we aim to show you that you are heard, you are valued, and that there is more good to come”.

Other key considerations:

1. The report would need to transmit the IFoA’s commitment to listening to members and keeping them at the heart of everything the IFoA does.
2. The report would need to easily translate into a social and digital format in a way that felt natural and native to that environment, and not a mere resize exercise which may have reduced the impact of the design and messaging in the digital space.
3. We would have to adapt to our client’s way of working – designing the report before content was made available to us – by creating a template which our client could then prepare content for.
4. Budget was key, with the IFoA being very upfront about it, with no room for any overspend.
5. A seamless stakeholder approval process was also essential to the success of the project.

Solution

After being asked for advice on the best approach, our designer, who had also worked on the previous edition, created an end of year report design where members truly are the focus. The design transmits a sense of excitement and energetic pace, focused action and success.

With actuarial professionals, it’s the effect of what they do (analysing risks, trends and patterns) that matters, so with a healthy budget for imagery, we filled the report with striking abstract images that transmit the essence of the impact of the actuaries’ efforts.

Diamond shapes act as a lens that magnifies and focuses on the individual, cutting the images and laying out text in ways that make the design highly original and memorable.

A fair and diverse representation of members of the IFoA is also key in the end of year report design.

Statistics are given prominence in the report with interesting visual approaches that prove that the IFoA places a high level of importance on providing members and stakeholders with an engaging and informative read, regardless of type of content.

We also paid special attention to written content and got one of our proofreading team involved to give the copy an extra lift, to ensure members could inhale the written information with the same impact as the visual elements of the report.