2022 Plan International Canada Annual Report

Although the program monitoring and evaluation for all our programs at Plan International Canada is rigorous, it had never been shared with a mass audience. Likewise, the previous Annual Reports had only highlighted one story from each focus area, not really showcasing the breadth and depth of our work. The brief for the FY22 Annual Report was to provide readers with 2 options – a detailed 96-page version featuring 5–10 stories per focus areas that touched on different programs we run around the world, as well as a deep dive into who we are as an organization and our new five-year strategic plan; and a 44-page digest version with 3–5 stories per focus area and some broader highlights throughout.

Having worked on many lengthy reports and books before, I knew that the grid would be key in ensuring the content was dynamic enough to not bore the viewer and yet used repetitive elements so it would still feel cohesive and structured. I used a 12-column grid that could be broken down into 6-6, 4-4-4, or an asymmetrical 7-4 layout with a column in between for multiple stories of differing importance. Because there would be sometimes up to 3 stories on a page, I also heavily used character & paragraph styles to create rules around how a primary story would be treated vs. how secondary & tertiary stories would be treated. This allowed me to discuss the hierarchy of each story with the writers to figure out how to structure the page and ensure the stories and call-outs on each page did not compete, but complemented each other instead.

Full version (96 pages): https://publications.plancanada.ca/view/499619168/

Digest version (44 pages): https://publications.plancanada.ca/view/736597506/