We have been working with the Francis Crick Institute for many years on some of their core communications materials. These range from large format graphics that promote what they do, to print materials about the organisation and its namesake.
This has involved simplifying their messaging and guidelines so that the institute is more approachable and easier to understand from an internal and external perspective.
We were asked to design their Annual Review to reflect these qualities, whilst also creating a document that was engaging, tactile, and that could be used as a promotional tool for highlighting key achievements over the last year.
We decided early on in the project to incorporate interesting paper engineering techniques with unusual die-cut shapes for the 8 page fold out cover. This enabled us to create reveals which provide an element of surprise for the reader including key statistics and information.
The Crick has distinctive shard devices as part of its identity, design toolkit and corporate guidelines, which we have recently rationalised and evolved for the organisation. The shards now play an important role in holding key information and imagery to provide a unique, energetic look and feel for the publication.
Over the last year we have worked hard at simplifying the organisation’s messaging and helping the Crick tell its story so they have wider appeal. The Crick Annual Review is an easy read compared to similar documents produced by some other science bodies. The format encourages the audience to read the whole document and find out more, as opposed to skim read, which is what people tend to do when faced with large volumes of text.
This project is part of a body of ongoing work we are doing for the science sector where our skill sets of demystifying science and improving how it is perceived with the general public come to the fore. This includes recent work for organisations including the ABPI, EDIS and Lloyd’s Register Foundation (watch out for the launch of our challenge campaign for the latter on October 9th).