Medical Case
- nonprofit
- typography
Art direction and layout for a 64-page annual report for a nonprofit arts organization. Print and interactive PDF versions.
- Client
- Spectrum Arts Foundation
- Role
- Art Director
- Duration
- 14 weeks
- Year
- 2022
- Team
- 2 members — copy editor and commissioned photographer
- Links
Overview
Spectrum's annual report needed to serve two audiences simultaneously: institutional funders who expect financial rigour, and community members who engage with the organization through events and programs. The solution was a dual-register layout system — a formal document spine running through the left margin, with expansive image spreads and personal stories bleeding into the right. Typography uses a classical serif for data and narrative sections, paired with a condensed grotesque for callouts and captions. Both print and interactive PDF versions were delivered, with the latter featuring embedded video thumbnails, hyperlinked financials, and accessible reading order tags.
Impact
- Pages
- 64
- Copies printed
- 8,500
- Fundraising lift
- +22%
print + interactive PDF
donor + community distribution
year-over-year campaign
discovery
Discovery
One document, two audiences. Funders need scannable financial rigor; the community needs warmth and personal stories. The previous report alternated chapters between the two and pleased neither.
Reader interviews on the prior year's report confirmed it: funders were ignoring the human chapters, community readers were skipping the financials, and both groups were walking away with half the message.
concepts
Concepts and testing
A formal document spine runs the left margin — financials, board notes, footnotes. The right column carries personal stories, full-bleed photography, and pull quotes. The reader can travel either spine independently or read across.
Three layout systems were tested as printed paste-ups with sample readers from both audiences. The dual-register won decisively — readers from each group reported finding their content without dismissing the other's.
mockups
Mockups
testing
Final testing
A printed proof was reviewed by the foundation's board and three community focus groups. Two structural notes survived the proof round: a tighter footnote treatment for funder readability, and slightly larger body text for older community readers who were the primary print audience.
learnings
Challenges and Learnings
Holding two registers in one grid required ruthless typography discipline — every variation in the right column had to be answered by a corresponding fixed element in the left, or the document tipped into looking like a magazine. The serif/grotesque pairing carried that load.
“The first annual report I've actually read end to end.”
next
Next steps
The dual-register system is being adapted as a reusable template for next year's report so the editorial team can focus on content rather than redesign. An accessible web version is in scoping for community members who couldn't engage with the PDF.