Last night I attended an Annual Report show sponsored by Sappi. The show consisted of the 20 best Annual Reports printed all, or in part, in Sappi paper. I was a bit disappointed to think that these were the best 20 reports from the 597 entries received. Now, don’t think I’m a snob or a jerk, these were really nice Reports, but at least 15 out of the 20 looked exactly the same, with one dominant trait overall: big, nice, color photographs with white type knocked out. Again, these were really well produced and designed reports, but why are they all looking the same?
The usual suspects were winners. Cahan & Associates, VSA Partners, Reservoir (formerly known as Oh Boy! a design co.) and Louey/Rubino Design. I don’t remember which design firm it was, but they did a Report that looked exactly like one Cahan did a year ago for Valentis, same color palette and all.
I would like to see more work done by smaller firms, which are probably doing work as good, if not better, than bigger firms. Even if they don’t carry the same prestige as these big-name players.
Sadly, I haven’t had the chance to design an Annual Report, so there is not much I can do to back up my talk. But I would like to see other people take it up a notch.
Any idea on who were the judges? I'm guessing at least one will be Kit Hendricks (Pentagram, SF) who has done all the design stuff for Potlatch (now Sappi) over the years.
On Sep.27.2002 at 09:53 AM