An annual report is the one document a company is legally required to publish and morally required to make bearable.
The best reports we have made treat the financials as the spine and the story as the flesh. The numbers set the grid; the photography earns the reader’s attention between them.
Three rules we keep
Give the chairman’s letter a real typographic voice, set tables in a face with tabular figures, and never let a chart carry more than one idea.
- One grid for the whole book, including the financial statements.
- Photography commissioned for the report, not pulled from stock.
- A digital edition designed as pages, not a PDF viewer.
If the auditors notice the typography, you have done something right.
Sarah Whitfield, Meridian Group
In practice
We keep a running document of these decisions for every client, so the next designer — in-house or external — inherits reasons, not just files.
