My First Annual Report

[D-Frag]

Well aside from the lame one I did in college. This is for a non-profit organization, so I got to be semi creative.

let me know what you think about the colors, layout, flow, type...etc...

REMEMBER TO VIEW THIS WITH FACING PAGES! (http://storeandserve.com/download/6251/Annual_Report-WIP.pdf.html)

thx for any crits....

[Mynock]

I like it. Nice use of the style with the repeating graphics on top and bottom. Did you use a grid? So few pages really hard to get a feel for it. You got off with an easy annual report. Nice one to easy you into it. I can't wait for my first annual report though I don't know when it will come if ever. It's such a challenge and to make one turn out awesome I feel is more like painting Sixteen Chapels (ha ha, I know it's lame but it's kind of funny, or not). No for the nitty gritty it's about details my boy and he is what I have. He're I'll even number them in order to make them apear like I took more time and HOW to fix them. If you're confused see Liam's thread and you'll know what I'm talking about. Well anyways.

1. Use a grid. Stick with the three column one you used on page seven. Now if you have single paragraphs you can put it in one of those three and still keep the beautiful white space. You can have more then one grid, but it can get complicated and I don't see a use on such a small report.

2. On page four the lady's dress sneeks over to the spread on page five. I would just snip it so it's back on page four only.

3. I think your swoosh has moved a little bit on page nine on bottom as appose to all of the others. It's minor I know, but I noticed it. I also think it drifts on to page six by the house or something does that is out of place. On eight the top swoosh moves even less then the bottom one, but it still does.

*These could be caused by making the pdf from InDesign or whatever you used to create them, and not be reflected in the orginal document.

4. Also, I don't know how sold I am by putting the text in between the lines of the "=". It's an interesting location, but I think the logo needs to be bigger or yet reworked. I'm just not liking it. It takes a way from the logo.

5. I like the ones where the logo is placed in the white space not how it is used in page five. On page five it appears as you use the mark to set up the paragraph by putting the title in between there like I said above. I you need that white space between the two lines to complete the mark. When you fill it with type you clutter and lose it.

6. Lastly, I'm not real sold on the font you chose for the body. It's not very reader friendly. I know why you chose it to tie in with the rest of the type but a serif font might be better. Also you might not have any control over your font choices at all. Serifs are suppose to be easier to read that is why they are in every book for body copy. San serifs hold up better at smaller sizes.

I hope that helps you in any way. Let me know what you think of my critique and remember the opinions expressed above are mine and may not be shared by others or reflect badly on you in any way. Happy Hunting!

[jlknauff]

I love the design! It looks like you even worked the kerning - I don't see most designers pay that much attention to type, so kudos.

Couple of quick points...

1. You text is justified, but hyphenated. IMO it would look more "polished" if you cleaned those up.

2. I'm a huge proponent of white space but some places are a bit random - not in a good way. For example, pg 10.

3. You should have worked a bit on the levels & color on many (if not all) of the pics.

4. My opinion on the body font is pretty close to Mynock's. I think since it is somewhat expanded it can work, perhaps if you lightened the text a bit...maybe 70% k or so.

5. The doc was pretty consistant but could have been more so.

Anyway...those are my thoughts, for what they're worth. Good job.

[cjoe]

i agree with mynock about using a grid, unless you did already. i dont get what you mean about the font mynock, it is a sansserif font, unless you meant use a serif font, then i can see where you're coming from. Serifed fonts are supposedly easier to read, however this report doesn't have large passages of text and the columns have what, 10 words to a line? I think the existing font is quite adequate.
I found the 'watermark' style logo a little distracting in some places, but then again who knows how it will turn out in print.
Im not sure how relevant this is but I have to say, some of the photos weren't great, they could have done with a little touching up, i just feel that the flash has given them a very harsh lighting.

[cjoe]

hey you should take this over to the HOW forum. Thats guaranteed to be fun :)

[Mynock]

Oh, nice catch cjoe I will fix it. I meant serif.

[LeeIs]

I think it's great D-Frag! Love the colour choice, layout, etc. You've done well with your first. I really have no critiques.

[D-Frag]

thanks for the crits everyone. Mynock, ill def work on your suggestions, thx for the thorough review. As for the images, they are VERY low res, im talking very bad images, I did about as much as I could to get them to that level you see there. I used last years images (except for the xerox copier which I added this year) and you should have seen these things, horrible photography work, it looked like it was taken with a 1pixel phone camera.

jlknauff thx for the compliment on the Kerning, yes I am getting myself into type alot more then I used to, I used to just do the auto kerning and never really went in and did the spacing with the alt+arrow keys, I think it def makes it look sleeker.

Ill work on the above suggestions, thx again everyone. Sometimes when you look at something for so long, you don't notice the obvious. Oh yeah, and for the record I didn't use a grid, but it looks like im about to endeavor on that, ive never used grids before.