Drawing on the same collaborative and creative process we established with EFG on last year’s Outlook but also on wider creative projects, we explored some new illustrative styles and content approaches. These looked more positively at the future of the economic and social prospects of the financial world for 2023. With the year 2022 proving fraught in the arena of global events, it was refreshing for us to be able to take this approach and represent this visually – shining a figurative light through the expertise EFG shares with its audience in the financial sector about the year ahead.
Illustration
After our initial exploration, we were briefed to adapt the previous year’s illustration style but with new themes and a desire for an overarching visual message. We settled upon a lighthouse as a visual device to ‘light the way’ to the new year of insights and knowledge from EFG. Keeping on brand with the colour palette and visual tone, we developed the designs based on 10 themed chapters within the brochure about predictions for the year 2023. Elements like growth and currency are represented in organic shapes of trees and leaves featuring flags, whilst world economic issues were represented via puzzle piece elements and a globe.
Photographic elements were also incorporated to fit within the visual palette of illustrations inside the document. Working closely with the client we identified key styles and compositions which enhanced the designs whilst staying on brand and relevant to the content theme.
Editorial
EFG’s print collateral has a strong reputation for high quality and clear communication – standing out from a crowd of complicated design and saturation of information. This exemplifies the approach tothepoint takes. We’re always seeking to tell the story of a brand and content as simply and clearly as possible, so our design for the internal pages featured plenty of clean white space interspersed with structured content elements to evoke a high-quality feel when in the readers’ hands.
The 10 themes are expressed through a combination of the approved style for branded graphics and charts to lay down the data for the insight, with illustrations and photography to capture the essence of the content, jointly enticing the reader to engage with the content. Keeping all the various elements consistently on brand was key across the different themes, which included photographic filter colours and gradients to align neatly with this approach.
Finally, although primarily a digital-first project, some clients still prefer these as printed documents. We adapted the designs for print, still in a landscape format that had been chosen for screen usage, and worked with our trusted print supplier to produce low runs of high-quality digital print to EFG’s global offices across three continents.
“As one of our flagship macro documents, the Outlook materials need to have impact and engage our audiences. We are delighted with the year-on-year enhancements that we have worked on with tothepoint and the team” Sonia Irvine, Acting Head of Marketing at EFG Asset Management (UK) Ltd