Design Matters -Transform Your Annual and Sustainability Reports

Were you happy with your 2025 reports?

Report season has just ended, which means… it’s time to start thinking about your 2026 Annual and Sustainability Reports! But before the planning begins, it’s wise to hit the pause button and devote some time to analysing last year’s success. Did you nail all the elements needed to create an accessible and compelling report?

At The Giles Agency, we see design as a critical piece of the reporting puzzle. If you want your colleagues, stakeholders and the wider public to grasp and get excited about your successes from the last 12 months, you need to present them in the most impactful way possible.

Here are our top 6 tips for designing high-impact reports:

1 Create a theme and execute throughout

Whether you’re working on an annual report, a sustainability report or an interim report, consistent design will help keep your reader engaged and moving through the piece. Your brand colours should be your first port of call to build brand association, but given the length of a report and the various sections required, you will likely need some of your secondary colours too. With a variety of colours at play, consistency is key. The same goes for the use of graphics or design elements. These are great for creating visual interest, but stick to a style and don’t stray from your brand guidelines and your established theme.

2 Harness data visualisation

You’ve done the hard work of obtaining all the data, analysing and interpreting it. Now with all that data to hand, don’t fall into the trap of trying to show everything at once. One chart, one message is a good rule of thumb. Where multiple insights come together to build a bigger picture, an infographic works better. Save your dense, number-filled tables for the financial summaries and appendices, and use your main report to create a narrative and highlight your key messages.

3 Embrace the digital world we live in

Almost all reports now live in a digital format, whether that’s a downloadable PDF, an online flipbook or a dedicated website. All of these offer interesting ways for readers to engage with your report, from clickable charts, embedded videos and animated process diagrams to the ability to hyperlink within the report and beyond. These interactive elements are critical for engaging readers, allowing them to tailor their own journey. Make sure your designer can think beyond the page to the user experience.

4 Design for readability (or lose your reader)

We get it – there’s a lot to shout about and you want to put it all out there. But the reader and the way they consume information must lead the way when it comes to report design and layout. Make use of headings, subheadings and bullet points to help the skimmers and scanners quickly grasp the most salient points. Then offer more depth for those who want it, but use varying fonts and plenty of white space to ensure longer passages can be easily digested as well. Nothing will send a time-poor and distracted reader running for the hills like 70 pages of dense text!

5 Use pictures to tell stories

Pictures are powerful. Relevant and visually appealing images don’t just break up text, they help to build an emotional connection with the reader. But choose your images with care. A pixelated picture can leave your reader rubbing their eyes and they simply won’t bother straining to interpret an image that’s too small. So pick high-quality, high-resolution pictures then use them with confidence in the same way you would a key visual in a brand campaign.

6 Choose images that reflect your diversity goals

The images you use have the power to further or hinder your DE&I commitments. Have a flick through last year’s report. Are you confident there are no images that perpetuate biases? Think all male boards and manels or women only in support roles. Do you notice that any particular race or gender is over- or underrepresented? When people see other people like themselves in critical company communications, a sense of belonging and a culture of inclusion is fostered.

There’s a lot to think about when it comes to design, but getting it right pays huge dividends. This year, we’ve enjoyed flexing our design muscles to create engaging, high-impact reports for several of our clients. You can check out our work here, or get in touch if you’d like to explore how we can support your team.