The challenge with any Annual report is to persuade the average audience to care to read a complex document. The primary problem is making a set of typically complex and difficult numbers, interesting. The goal is for Niagara Region to show how these numbers apply to ordinary citizens so they can be better informed. Niagara Region challenged itself in 2019 to make their Annual Report more accessible than ever before by putting the people first.

 

Highlighting real-life examples of how the people of Niagara are affected by the services they receive from the Niagara Region. It is frequently misunderstood what services are in the responsibility of the Niagara Region vs. Local Area Municipalities. There is frequently misunderstanding of where exactly all the money goes and lack of knowledge of the various lesser recognized services we offer.​

The strategy was to produce a story of the Region’s continued progress over the previous year. We decided to utilize authentic pictures of our services, building, activities and with citizens engaging and utilizing the services and do away with stock photography. Using plain language and understandable and dynamic infographics that showcase what has been accomplished with Niagara Region’s departments and services offer. The strategy was to tie in our Council Strategic priorities both within the documents written content as well as visually call on aspects of it as well. This approach was decided to show not only internal staff but the public how our accomplished activities in the past year also tie into what was strategically important to Council. This document hopes to showcase how the budgeting and financials can effect resident’s daily lives such as: waters, roads, community programming, public health and more. The new Annual Report look and feel is now more modern approach and while addressing the financial and mandatory aspects equally took on a more emotive tone.

 

Creating eye-catching and engaging layouts for a financial document, so that people will genuinely want to read it can be a challenge. The approach made use of visual engaging photography gathered across many departments and places across the region. Using large photos as a visual guide through the document helped keep the reader moving forward and provided them an example of what services the Niagara Region does.