Client: Olivet Nazarene University
Discipline: Editorial Design
Redesign Olivet’s Annual Report to be better suited for online distribution and viewing.
Olivet’s Annual Report is sent to all donors at the end of January and highlights the university’s financials from the previous year. Its intent is to show gratitude and provide transparency and insight to the impact of donor dollars.
In 2020, Olivet made the decision to send the communication electronically instead of by mail. Because of this change, we decided the report needed a design refresh.
The current template’s design was too busy for web-viewing and the content needed to be simplified and reorganized.
To accomplish these goals, I increased the use of white space by simplifying content, organized like-content with coordinating design elements, and made the financial charts and graphs larger.
The image below shows an example of how increasing white space helps the viewer quickly find important information. In the previous version, the president’s message and table of contents are laid out on the same page with photographic background. Splitting these two elements across an entire spread and increasing the size of the typeface allows a more relaxed online reading experience.
Another element of the report that we reimagined was the financial overview, which included charts and graphs.
The previous version squeezed all three on the same page. By creating larger and more simplified graphs, a reader can skim the information quicker. Splitting up the charts into two separate sections also provides quick clarity on what the reader is looking at. The first page gives an overview on the entire budget, while the second page zooms in on gift revenue only.
Finally, by using different design elements for different types of content, we were able to better organize the various pieces of information in the report.
For example, the stories of impact are meant to stand out. I used full color, a darker background and black and white photography. The intent was for these stories to stand out from the more technical content.
