Forty-eight pages of stock-photo confidence and centered Helvetica — a fashion house's annual report that could belong to any insurer.
The old report tried to make every page do the same job — caption, chart, and photograph fighting for the same centered column. The fix starts by giving each element one job: the baseline grid carries type, the photograph sets the pace, and nothing sits centered without a reason.
Two typefaces, not five. One accent color, held in reserve for a single fact per spread. White space is not empty space — it is the pause between a runway image and the number that explains it.
Pull every element off the old template — caption, chart, folio — and start again from the photograph's actual crop.
Lock the photograph to the 12-column baseline grid so caption and folio land on the same line on every spread.
Run the revenue table through the mono numeral set so the data spread reads like the fashion pages, not an appendix.
Print a full-bleed proof at trim size and check the gutter margin before the file leaves the studio.
average time a board member spent per spread in the walkthrough, down from ninety seconds on the first draft.
rounds to final sign-off, down from five the previous reporting cycle.
pages now led by a photograph, rather than a stock image or a bare data table.
Bleed is 5mm on every spread; confirm folios sit 12mm from the trim edge before the proof goes out.
Convert to CMYK against the printer's ICC profile — oxblood shifts warm on coated stock, so proof it physically.
Embed Canela and GT America in the export; no system-font fallback reaches the printer's RIP.