Multilingual report design

With the EITI marking its 20th anniversary with a flagship conference attended by 1,300 delegates from all corners of the world, we produced a multilingual report design that feels like a celebration of two decades of achievement.

Background

Established in 2003, the EITI – Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative – was founded on the belief that a country’s natural resources belong to its citizens. The EITI’s vision rests on robust transparency of natural resource revenues to help reduce corruption in resource-rich nations, helping transform economies and raising the living standards of citizens in those countries.

This year saw the EITI commemorating its 20th anniversary and also 10 years since Senegal joined the list of EITI’s implementing countries, now a total of 57.

The occasion was marked with a flagship conference in Senegal’s capital Dakar. Held for the first time in Africa, the global forum gathered over 1,300 stakeholders from government, industry, civil society and academia to celebrate two decades of transparency in the extractives sector.

^{Conference highlights video courtesy of the EITI}

Challenge

This being the 5th report we were producing for the EITI, this time the task was to create a multilingual report design to commemorate the EITI’s 20th anniversary. To mark such a key milestone in the organisation’s history, there was a great deal to cover EITI’s journey – from its inception 20 years ago progressing through to the present day and beyond to set future priorities.

The report should apply the visual identity created for EITI’s Global Conference – ‘Transparency in transition’ – as its main visual concept (a canvas of scattered dots and blue gradient components), while also staying true to the EITI visual identity. The visual concept of the report should be a departure from previous progress reports, whilst maintaining a degree of consistency with those publications.

The report – to be produced in printed and digital format in English as well as translated versions in Spanish, French and Russian – would have to be launched in time to hand to delegates at the conference.

Solution

The 60-page report design we delivered is a celebration of what the EITI has achieved over the years across key policy areas and aspects of EITI implementation.

Inspired by ‘Teraanga’, the visual identity created for the conference draws a parallel from the Senegalese custom of shared communal dishes at social events, and the conference itself – a coming together of people from all corners of the world. When creating the multilingual report design, we visually represented the essence of the brand through 57 circles that seem to gravitate towards a centre.

^{The circles also help indicate movement and transition.}

Page after page, the report offers delegates a visually interesting read that works well, flowing naturally for native speakers of all 4 languages, despite all 3 target languages taking up more space on the page, something we paid special attention to during the design process.

A collection of stunning images fill the pages of the anniversary report, bringing to life the efforts of the past 20 years.

Of course the report is also rich in data and statistical information so we made sure that the source Excel and PowerPoint files we were supplied with turned into designs that, whilst highly technical, acted as visually engaging ways of telling the EITI story in numbers.

As part of the report design project we also provided proofreading services in close collaboration with our client, a vital part of the process when working on a report to guarantee accuracy in every detail.

A digital version was also provided to the EITI to maximise the reach of the report’s findings.

“I’m pleased to say that the EITI Anniversary Report launch went very well in Dakar!

All of our 1,300 delegates received a copy and we even caught a lovely moment when our EITI Board Chair, Rt Hon. Helen Clark, presented the report during the opening ceremony.

The conference itself was also a big success, and I think many stakeholders were very happy to reconvene again after four years.”