03/18
Thermo Fisher Scientific
2017 Annual Report
Thermo Fisher Scientific is an American provisioner of scientific instrumentation, reagents and consumables, and software and services to healthcare, life science, and other laboratories in academia, government, and industry. Based in Waltham, Massachusetts, Thermo Fisher was created in 2006 by the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific, to form a company with US$ 9 billion in combined revenues.
Role:
Graphic & Production Design
Print Design
Visual Design
Owning the Red
The challenge:
Thermo Fisher Scientific puts out a yearly report to detail the economic and corporate situation of the organization to present before their board of directors. The data is collected on both a national and international level, along with vignettes of real snapshots about the mission of the company.
For the 2017 Annual Report the marketing and communications team wanted to do a new concept that would “own the red” as a new idea for the publication. In past years the annual report was too heavy in its design and they wanted to propose a more minimalist style that would enhance the main corporate color: red.
I was hired by the Thermo Fisher team to work with the Art Director Steve H. Day to design different layout proposals with a new theme and vision. The start was to explore different mood boards, mind mapping and discovery.
Swiss Modular Design
The process and inspiration:
I designed different layouts that included a cover and a spread. This year’s focus was on bringing the design more in line with a modular minimalist aesthetic.
A major challenge of this project is wrangling content for a very specific budget and a 16-page report. I work closely with both the art director and production to create photo guidelines, make selects, provide guidance on retouching, then take the final photos and work them into the designs.
I worked alongside with Steve to create templates that work with a large amount of flexibility to accommodate many different types of photos, lengths of content, and different featured stats — while keeping the goal in mind of telling the stories of Thermo Fisher’s mission: enable our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer.
Layouts
For this specific project, I design anywhere from 1-3 layout concepts, depending on the agreement I make with the client. In this case they wanted 3 options. I designed and iterate, based off of those initial ideas on swiss design, until I felt there was a satisfying diversity of solutions to present. Along with the layouts are initial ideas of color palette and typography, and early ideas around how to apply those elements together. Based on Thermo Fisher brand guidelines, use different styles of grids to accommodate items for the annual report.
Tools: Adobe Illustrator, InDesign
Concept 01: main cover and inside cover
Concept 01: introduction page and report analysis layout.
Concept 02: inside cover and introduction page.
Concept 03: Inside spread layout with infographic.
Refining the concept
After the second layout concept was selected, I worked with the team to refine the direction to “own the red”. I may not get everything right on the first try. This isn’t just okay, it’s an important part of the process to iterate, redefine and polish. There was a process to start looking the right photography for the vignettes, copy, stock and color. The final outcome was a 16-page annual report in print and high resolution PDF. I'm greatly pleased with this iteration of the report, featuring broad of red, clean, simple typography, and crisp contrast desaturated images.
Tools: Adobe InDesign, Photoshop
Color palette for the Annual Report
Helvetica Neue LT corporate brand font for Annual Report
Presentation Deck: Thermo Fisher Scientific for Brand Strategy, Positioning and Vision
When the Annual Report was finished my next project was to design and prepare a series of templated PPT decks for corporate presentations including different covers. Linked is an example of a presentation that featured a new series of corporate posters and marketing communications from the company for feedback and approval.
Tools: PowerPoint, Google Slides