First freelance job...

My advice to you would be this:

Communicate with your employer. The best thing you could possibly do is talk with them to make sure they like everything you are doing. If you can, don't wait until the deadline to be finished.

Good luck with this! Don't be too nervous, everyone has their own first job too.

Don't worry! :D

Annual report design is the king of all design jobs in my opinion. It's an opportunity to portray a company across many pages. It's the ultimate branding job. At the same time it should be a functional piece, so there are many design decisions to make.

I think the best way to approach this job is by doing 3-5 very different concepts. Do a cover one or two spreads and a financial page.

Do one which is happy and colorful, one which is conservative and corporate, one which is conceptual with illustrations, one which is conceptual with b/w small images and one which uses lyfestyle full bleed color images. Do different typefaces. One, two and three columns. Do different sizes.

The reason to do such very different layouts is to make sure you have one that fits clients taste.

It might be a good idea to get a design book on Annual reports.

I like annual reports with a theme or concept. I don't believe Annual Report is a pure typorgaphy and design exercise. I think it's like a campaign, but executed on divider pages between sections.

Make sure to print it with a very good printer and don't make a mock-up, paste the spreads on boards. Also, bring paper samples with you to show what kind of paper you gonna print on.

Many times the financial pages are printed on matt and the other pages on glossy paper from the same family. It divides the sections well.

You may want to try a gimmick for the front page or divider pages. Like a little window or an unusual surface. Like if it was a gardening co, I would do artificial grass on the cover.

Make sure you enjoy the job. :)

Thanks Ivan, some good points to digest...

There is an existing theme, digital marks. They use symbols, kind of like the greater '>' symbol from the font 'Bubbledot ICG' and a digital matrix which also reflect this for their different sub-sectors which makes up the initial of each sector of software.

So I think I will emphasize this theme as it is part of their corporate image, but will incorporate imagery into the theme of digital blocks, as all their work at the moment is type based, with a few symbols.

I have a few ideas hurling around, and am gonna try and keep it as simple as possible, as I want this baby to work sooooo badly, less is definately more in this particular job I feel.

The corp style is a little sterile, but it kinda works. Also it incorporates my all time fav font, Frutiger and only frutiger in 45, 55 & 65 exclusively (what a gem that baby is) and I am working on a design only basis, so the print side fortunately won't be my whole responsibility.

When I found out about it last week, I was a little apprehensive to begin, as for a first job it is very big, and I don't know about you guys, but I feared failure first of all, but I have kinda got my head around the task (and what have I got too lose?) Now I am ready to spend every living minute working on this, my only excuse to get out of my flat will be for food (and maybe beer!!!), the gym (much needed mental release!!) and my work here.

Thanks for the reply, hopefully I can start tonight.

p.s. Wait for the crit, I want it hard and fast boys and girls!!! ;0)

'Many times the financial pages are printed on matt and the other pages on glossy paper from the same family. It divides the sections well.'

I like this, would think it kinda subtely seperates the figures from facts...

Nice.

Hi folks many thinks for your help here.

Just thought I'd update...

The Annual Report fell through in the end, the company stuck with thier agency as the Marketing Director was so busy, she couldn't handle managing the whole project print and all...

And as it was so tight I don't think our relationship had been built where she could fully trust me 100%, if I were in her shoes I feel I would have had the same outlook.

Good new is though, that they contacted me today and want me to work on some literature for an exhibition to be held soon.

I feel a little more relaxed now working for them, as the project isn't anywhere near as big, and feel I could execute this project very confidently, and there are more to come from the same person.

Hopefully will give a little background and a crit soon...

I did a some research and worked on a few ideas, and felt I could have pulled it off, but my confidence was fairly thin, which isn't good as we all know when creating something. Plus 1 idea was to work with full bleed solid colour with UV spots, which I haven't done on a large scale before, so the technicalities of my ideas were a little scary if they didn't print litho as they would have at proofing stage.

Client relationship is a lot more relaxed now on both sides, and I feel I have a good vision of what they want and started sketching last night and worked up a few rough compositions, which I feel are fairly good...

...well one of them is anyway.

Just got another mail this morning requesting if I want to work on another project!

Seems like it could pan out well...

...let's see. *fingers crossed icon inserted here!*