The Background

Every year, the challenge with this project is to ensure that it delivers more than a simple outline of Concern Worldwide's activities in vulnerable regions during the previous twelve months. Instead, it must reflect the organisation's ethos and show the range of lifesaving and transformative work that Concern does and the differences it makes. Our approach was to reflect Concern Worldwide's programmes with an editorial approach that empowered Concern's stunning photography to lead the story-telling, with detailed captions revealing people's background stories and their authentic voices.

The Idea

Concern focuses on six programme areas (Emergencies, Livelihood, Health and Nutrition, Education, Integrated programmes and Development Education and Advocacy) to tackle critical issues like hunger, conflict and climate change. This year, they wanted to ensure that the reader understood their work's impact in these key programme areas and highlight the genuine way that their programmes make a difference.

The Execution

We introduced an 'Impact' panel onto key spreads, which presents data in bite-size chunks, making it easy to consider and understand their work and the difference they can and do make. Each panel contains either local or more high-level impact information – highlighting across crucial programmes and feature programme case studies what Concern has achieved over the course of the year. Each panel is highlighted in neon pink – a colour outside of the Concern colour palette – to really draw the reader's attention to these impact figures and the messages they instil.

The diverse colour palette also helped create a sense of positivity around Concern's work globally, which continues to have a profoundly positive impact. Big and bold headings punctuate the document, indicating the organisation's determined and direct approach – creating a visually arresting snapshot of their strategy, solutions and outcomes.

Much of Concern's work aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While their existing programmes don't support every SDG, they all incorporate at least one SDG and its related indicators and targets. As part of this, we are conscious of the environmental impact of their Annual Report and work closely with the client to ensure the paper stocks used are selected from accredited Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) stocks, ensuring that the paper is sourced from responsible forestry, recyclable and that work practices are safe and free from exploitation.