As the audience for Annual Reports broadens, bespoke infographics are becoming more popular than ever as a way of presenting information in a quick, clear, and informative format.
The clever use of professionally designed infographics in annual reports is an ever-growing trend as the audiences for annual and financial reports grow. The need to make complex data and information easily readable and, more importantly, understandable has meant a huge increase in well-thought-out infographics.
Toast is an experienced infographic designer – we can help you create the perfect infographic design.
When we create detailed infographics, we tend to follow some basic guidelines; a clever infographic will always:
- Emphasise a key fact or message
- Be easy to understand
- Allow quick extraction of key information
- Ensure that format (look and feel) follows the function
Let’s take a closer look at each of these points.
- Emphasise a key fact or message.
The key message should be immediately clear; if it isn’t, you will have seriously handicapped your design. Most infographics will need a viewer to read more to understand the graphic fully, but the high-level—instant takeaway must be there. All too often, an infographic is challenged with delivering too many messages. If this happens, it is guaranteed to say nothing to everyone. Keep it Focused.
- Easy to understand
The purpose of an annual report infographic is to communicate simply and clearly what the copy alone can’t. If you ask one infographic to convey multiple meanings to a variety of audiences, it will most likely become confused and disordered. Keep it simple – using a clever visual device or icons helps people relate to the key facts, and don’t overcomplicate things with unnecessary graphics that might confuse them.
- Quick to extract key information
Your average annual report reader will sometimes skim through, looking for key information or sections they are particularly interested in. This type of reader wants to get the most information for a limited amount of time or effort. Make it easy for them.
- Format follows function
Creativity is essential when creating infographics, but it must never override the need to convey the key message or information. If you have an infographic in your annual report that looks wonderful but doesn’t convey the information it should, it is just a pretty picture and should be replaced. Infographics should always have a purpose and should never be used as a visual distraction. Doing so compromises all the other infographics and potentially the annual report itself by creating distrust or confusion for the reader.
Your trusted partner in Annual Report Design
Toast is the perfect partner to help create your annual report. This includes creating clever and creative infographics that will make your report successful, whatever the audience. Get in touch, and one of the Toast team will talk to you about creating your next annual report. Call 01295 26 66 44 or click on the link below.
