Design Development

This is the first mock-up I produced using icons, and I continued that onto the front cover. The title 'Our Happy Place' inspired the use of houses as the nature of the report is about creating a community and I feel that a row of houses represents that notion. I again used grey for the text to match the slate roofs of the houses, as I thought that a brighter colour may look garish against the two bright green logos that I have to include; these logos are set at the bottom of the page. The cover is mainly white, appearing clean and fresh.

I also mocked up an interior spread, showing how the theme would continue inside the report, using shades of grey to highlight the design elements. I chose these pages to display as they featured the aims of the 'Our Happy Place' project, to each of which I matched an icon to simplify the nature of their aims. I was also able to show how these icons could be used as an infographic about population statistics overleaf.

Reception
I sent these pages to the main client, Francesca Davies, who then passed it on to another member of the 'Our Happy Place' team and received useful feedback on the progression of the designs.

Response from Francesca Davies (paraphrased):

Please accept my apologies for the delay in response to you.

Firstly thank you for the pdf.

From the pdf you sent over I would strongly agree that more colours should be introduced as although this is for stakeholders to read, our stakeholder range widely from corporate organisations/ agencies to small community groups so at the moment I think it looks very 'corporate' and a little uninspiring in this dull grey, and the plain white design of the front cover is clean and fresh but looks very much like a 'white paper'. I think we want the report to read and look uplifting and positive. I really like the use of the icons to show our themes of work as these are eye-catching and easy to understand.

Thanks, Fran

Response from a member of the communications team:

It looks promising to me, but agree with comments that we need more colour.  Also I would reinforce the point that the report is about people, as well as places - therefore this should be reflected in the imagery and photography.  I am copying in Lee too, for his opinion/he will be able to advise on what photography we have on file for possible use.

Response
I will take their comments and constructive criticism on board and try to use more colour in my work to appeal more to residents. The plain white and grey was seen as too corporate, and would be more suited to the NHS report to their shareholders but they felt it should be aimed at the community at large.