Telus Annual Report 2018 | Case Study

Background

While attending school, I was instructed to design the 2018 Annual Report for Telus. It involved creating an important marketing tool for the organization. The report is shared with a number of stakeholders including existing and potential corporate donors, board members, volunteers, other foundations and the general public. It showcases and measures Telus Canada’s performance and impact across the country from year-to-year. I developed the report from concept through to print and digital execution. Tasks included gathering content, supporting copywriting and overseeing the French translation if the report were to go to print.

Process

Having worked on editorial projects before, I drew on past experience to make changes to the 2018 design that would help increase the value of the report. I started with a complete review of the existing content, structure and design and put forward three key objectives for the redesign:

1. Improve the profile of the organization’s members by including more stories and photos
2. Provide a snapshot of the organization’s progress by highlighting measurable data and key milestones
3. Modernize the design to align with brand guidelines from Telus Worldwide

I did additional research to determine what information should be highlighted and what information was actually available. I reviewed a number of annual reports including past reports from Telus and from other cellular companies. I also researched annual report best practices. From this research, I put together an outline of information to be included in the report.

The outline included new events and programs undergoing refreshes that I wanted to promote but which had no space in the previous report designs. In the redesign, I created distinct sections to categorize key areas of focus such as board members, volunteers, supporters, corporate governance, etc., making it easy to incorporate this new content and better grouping existing content.

With accessibility in mind, I was mindful of font sizes and colour contrast, particularly with text, was strong enough, to ensure good legibility knowing that our audience skewed older.

Bad Idea #1
Initially, my spread layouts were designed with multiple length columns, the shorter ones would have two or three columns on the spread while the longer ones would just feature one with a couple paragraphs.

By using multiple column lengths, my spreads were not cohesive with each other and gave the impression that they didn’t belong together. It almost felt as if they were mod-podged from different years of their annual report.

Bad Idea #2
My colour palette only featured the iconic purple and green from the Telus logo in the early stages of my design. Only having two colours to work with became difficult. I found it hard to separate information in my designs without creating physical barriers or breaks. I found myself using more black than I had initially wanted to since I didn’t want to over use the other two colours.

When moving further into my spread designs, I started introducing charts and graphs. Once I started making these is when I knew two colours was not enough. It proved to be nearly impossible to create a visually appealing chart/graph with such a limited palette.

Solution
Moving into the final stages of my design, I made the creative decision to choose one column length throughout the entire design. This ensured that the overall design was cohesive. Changing the columns to match one style tied all my spreads together and made implementing reoccurring assets easier.

In addition to the columns, I also expanded my colour palette which opened many doors for my spread designs. I added a blue that Telus uses on their secondary colour palette and also expanded each colour to have a softer counterpart. Expanding my colour palette made for stronger chart/graph designs as well as helped me creatively separate information without having to make physical separations.

Challenges

Through this process the big challenge for this project was that not all of the information initially outlined was available for that year. Thankfully, I was able to fill in the body copy with lorem ipsum. I made notes to revisit shelved ideas the following year, and worked with what was available for this report.

Once I had gathered the information that was available, I worked with the brand standards, which included an expanded colour palette, as well as new font and photo guidelines, to develop the design. I reviewed the guidelines and made sure my design complied with what was laid out in the document and created a bright, modern design that used a variety of pull-out stats and quotes to highlight impact points. I also incorporated more photos of Canadian Telus employees in action throughout the report to put faces to the mission.

The final report also included a “looking ahead” feature, this sections set out predictions and expectations for the coming year. The new “A Year in Review” spread highlighted organizational milestones and figures from the fiscal year.

The redesigned annual report was well received and earned positive feedback from a number of classmates and my professor.

Designer Takeaways

1. Understand the project objective and audience. Updating a project year over year without understanding its purpose means you’re missing a valuable opportunity to improve the impact of the project. Make sure you understand the organization’s objectives and how the project fits in so that you can maximize its value.
2. Familiarize yourself with the available information in the early stages of a project. If stats, quotes, images, etc. are being sourced through external sources, make sure you communicate deadlines and formats so all parties are clear on what is needed when.
3. Plan and design for accessibility — it should be incorporated in all projects; accessible designs are better for everyone.