Friday, January 31, 2014

Annual Report Design Tips

Label data with numbers besides as using a scale on each chart: put the value of each bar at the top of that bar and the size of each slice of the pie in the label for that part of the chart.

Format and Printing Method

An inexpensive annual report can be made on a photocopier, and indeed this may be your best bet for a non-profit organization where the readers of the report are concerned about wasteful spending. If you have your report printed, get samples of similar jobs your printer has done for other customers as a way to assess the quality of their work.



Binding has a enormous brunt on the price of printing an annual Announcement, so your budget may dictate your choices, at least in item. Your choices may be besides resident by the unit of pages. Saddle stitching is an inexpensive binding on the contrary is not meant for added than 60 to 80 pages. Hemp binding and spiral binding costs approximately the alike, on the other hand Hemp binding Testament accomodate appropriate thick books, and spiral binding is and durable. A intelligible subsume Testament be less expensive, on the other hand a fancy card inventory involve with a die chop or embossing or a involve printed in adequate colour Testament produce your Announcement also good-looking and eye-catching.


Paper and Color


Paper can be light or fancy, and this depends partially on the printing course. Glossy paper Testament accomplish your Announcement inspect classy and expensive, however it Testament be expensive to print, and you can't utilize glossy paper in a photocopier or laser printer. You can add colour ethical by using coloured paper for the involve, and printing in dingy and clear, to save reward. Colour on the include Testament add to the reward and the petition, and a indeed spectacular composition requires colour on most or all pages, all the more provided it's even-handed one colour moreover to ebony ink. Complete colour photos can be competent, however are not necessary in most industries. Effective use of the full color printing process can produce an eye-catching design, if your budget allows.


Typography


Choice of typefaces can add the crowning touch to a great design, even the design of the most simple printed report. Choose one or two fonts: a good start is to find a serif and a sans serif font that look good together. Start with the body text and the main headings for each section. Smaller heads should be the same font as the main heading or the body text, though maybe bold where the body is regular. Rather than choosing a different font for captions or charts, vary the weight or size of one of the fonts you're already using. If you are using color, consider using it for charts or headlines. Put thought into the design of the pages: the size of the margins, placement of page numbers, and the use of white space. Starting chapters by placing white space at the top of the first page will help the reader find each chapter easily. If you don't have enough text to fill as many pages as you'd like, consider adding to the leading, which is the space between each line of text in the body copy.


Charts and Illustrations


A good design spaces charts and illustrations throughout the report, rather than placing them all together in one section. Give them a unified look by using a similar color treatment and similar fonts. Choose the type of chart that best displays the data but represents it in an attractive and readable way. If you are showing statistics of your customer base as a percentage of the whole, use a pie chart. If you are showing a progression of income or sales over time, a bar or line chart is a good choice. If you make the pie chart have a three-dimensional look, give that same look to the bar chart, and use the same font for the labels, something easy to read.Many parts cause up the dummy of an annual Announcement: the binding, the Election of involve and paper, how still colour, what the charts and graphs glom according to and what fonts to advantage. All of these commission cool To erect an annual Announcement that represents your gathering. No concern what your budget or how many copies you print, you can constitution an good-looking Announcement that suits your needs.

Binding and Cover



To keep costs down in every price range, opt for standard sizes and watch to see how the overall cost is affected when quantity goes up. For a really dramatic report, choose an unusual size or shape, or tailor your report to the type of business: a report that looks like a menu for a restaurant chain, a book shaped like one of your products for a manufacturing company, or a round book shaped like a DVD for a company that distributes or rents DVDs.


Tips and Advice


The overall look of the annual report should fit the company, its image, audience and product. The annual report for a company that makes snowboards will look different from that of a business law firm. Use the company logo and colors associated with that logo or the company's products. If you have a range of products, you can pick one that represents the company well and feature that, or find elements that are in common with the look of all of the products and use those elements in your design.