CR Blog

Manchester City Council values older people

Books, Graphic Design

Posted by Gavin Lucas, 16 November 2010, 15:23    Permalink    Comments (8)

It's not everyday we see something designed by a city council and think 'ooh, that's nice' – but this is one of those days. Manchester City Council's in-house design team, m-four, sent us this just-under-A4 booklet which reviews Manchester's Valuing Older People (VOP) Board.

Valuing Older People is an organisation that was set up six years ago to give Manchester's older residents a voice. This  Sidelines To Centre Stage report has been created to celebrate the work of the VOP network since its inception.

"Considering the subject matter, it seemed only natural to make people the focus of this document," says Chris Jennings, the designer on the project. "Rather than produce a traditionally dry corporate report, we felt it was essential to bring the facts to life in a story that really did justice to the valuable work of this organisation," he continues. "Above all, we were keen to move away from typical ‘annual report' style design involving clichéd images, blocks of colour and ugly typography."

"We were able to convince the client to abandon their photography in favour of striking portraits [by Mike Pilkington] of actual VOP board members," adds Jennings on m-four's approach to the design of the report. "The client also readily bought into our idea of a design based on a traditional book of poetry that was both clean and elegant."

m-four.com

8 Comments

Love it! The treatment of the people and type definitely makes me want to read further.

First time in a long time I remember CR covering bread & butter work like this.
L O Acki
2010-11-16 15:33:09


I'm lucky enough to have one of these on my desk. Beautiful job. Great photography. Steeped in nobility. Really good.
Steve Connor
2010-11-17 07:22:14


I love how the work references solid, traditional graphic design. The layout and styling really show the strengths of "the old" great project
web design chester
2010-11-17 09:14:51


Love it - Clean and cool - less is more.
Richard Holmes
2010-11-17 11:54:53


I agree with L O Acki, great to see some solid and well executed bread and butter on the CR Blog. More of the same please.
Gray
2010-11-17 13:23:40


page numbers at the top - nice touch
stu
2010-11-17 14:38:10


Hi,

I just want to say a big thank you for all your great comments. Have a look at our temporary work in progress site: http://www.cargocollective.com/thedirectorate.

Chris
Chris Jennings
2010-11-18 10:40:09


Great to see something break away from oh so boring corporate.

Love the photography very Richard Avedon, sorry very Mike Pilkington, wouldn't mind getting his contact details in case we have anything needing great portraits in the future

Jane

Propagate
jane howarth
2010-11-24 10:45:28


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