Case study: NAHL Group PLC Annual Report
This case study talks you through the NAHL annual report process and deliverables; from concept to fulfillment and the repurposing of the content into an online digital report.
About the client
NAHL Group PLC encompasses a set of organisations across a diverse range of sectors including legal services, residential property and critical care.
Brief and deliverables
NAHL had been through a process of organisational change. They had set out a strategy and delivered on it and now it was time to look to the future.
The first step was to hold a briefing call to better understand the organisation and define the key messages this year. This was the first year Navig8 had engaged with the client, so gaining a thorough understanding was a vital first step.
We identified that we needed to explore the report title and theme for the year. Whilst this is a creative process, at this stage, it did not include any visual elements. We were merely concerned with a written message.
The main themes that came from our kick-off meeting boiled down to two key messages, ‘we are a people-focused organisation’ and ‘we are planning for the future’.
The chosen title was ‘Focused on the future’. This would manifest itself in the report not only as a way of illustrating the organisation's plans but also on the career development and support for NAHL’s employees.
This theme would then be woven into the report narrative and underpin the messaging, as well as the visual concept.
We established with the client the scope of work and we offered solutions to increase engagement, notably an online summary report in the form of a microsite.
The scope of work was extensive and included:
Devising the theme
Infographics and company structural diagrams
A photoshoot at the company headquarters in Northamptonshire
Design of a printed annual report and an optimised PDF
Design of a PowerPoint template
Companies House compliance
Design, build and hosting of a digital annual report summary, with animated content
Print and fulfillment to the stakeholder mailing list
AGM notices, proxy forms and accompanying material
Process
Now that we have the theme and the scope of work established, we enter the creative stage. In our studio, we do not have roles that exclude anybody from joining the creative process. Everybody gets to pitch in.
After an hour's creative, we have more than 20 ideas. We work on this principle:
Give them what they expect
Give them something they hadn’t thought of
Give them something they have never dreamed of.
After a process of refinement and development, we presented six concepts, two typical text pages and a set of financial statements.
When we engage with a client for the first time, we test and probe how far we can take the design, we focus on understanding the nature of the content and the market, to who they are trying to communicate. We need to gain a deep understanding of their organisation, we have to immerse ourselves in their business model.
While the creative process was in full swing, we commissioned our photographer and organised a day shoot in Northamptonshire. With a very clear brief and an organised schedule, she delivered outstanding results.
The photographic scope included ‘generic’ images of their offices, head and shoulders shots of the board and management team, but most importantly, candid shots of the team in their working environment.
We directed her to deliver images that fitted with our concept. This was a large piece of type with the word ‘focused’ on the cover. This type was a cut-out, revealing the images of the people who work at NAHL. This typographic approach was then carried through to the chapter pages or section starts. It was a progressive solution in this sector.
Now that the concept had been approved, the InDesign templates were prepared. The typographic styles and hierarchy were set; document grids, master pages and financial table styles put in place.
And then we waited.
The CEO and FCO had completed their work, short of some final adjustments. The content was now in the hands of the auditors.
Timelines and deadlines for annual reports are always very tight. Some organisations manage this better than others. A key milestone in any report is the auditor stage. If the auditor has completed their work before we get content, allowing us enough time to create a first full proof, then what the client receives is a far better proof. This was the case with NAHL.
Annual reports are not like other documents, they not only require statutory delivery but, by their very nature involve a host of contributors, fixed and hard deadlines.
Our job is to support our clients and make it as painless as it can possibly be.
With the content now ready, we graft away to produce a full proof. This takes time, depending on the length of the report between five to ten working days. We are quick, even though this timescale is considered very fast.
We then have an internal checking process whereby a member of our team cross-checks the first proof against the content supplied. This often highlights things that the client may have missed, small things like the use of sentence cases, for instance. We document any recommendations or changes so that the client is fully in control of the content.
At this stage, we may offer InCopy as a solution to our clients where they can make small changes to the text and financial data, directly into the document. Depending on the client, this can save them time with having to annotate a PDF. Other clients prefer us to do the revisions. Either is fine by us.
During the development of the ‘main report’, we designed and supplied a fully themed PowerPoint template, for interim reporting and internal comms.
At this stage, we are in the final stages of the report proofing process and once approved we can start preparing the report for print, a digital PDF and the repurposing to a digital annual report.
With NAHL we designed and built the digital, interactive annual report on our test bed. This was a summary report highlighting the top-level information with a link to the full PDF report.
It features animated elements to increase engagement and it was built mobile first to optimise for phone and tablet viewing.
The mailing data was cleaned and verified and our mailing house prepared and fulfilled the various documents (proxy forms, AGM notices and a covering letter) ready for the posting deadline.
With the deadlines hit, the assets in place, we then delivered a Companies House-ready PDF.
Annual report design and delivery is not the kind of project you can ask any agency to deliver. You need an experienced team to make sure you avoid the pitfalls and deliver on time.