Christine Piolet - YMCA Annual Report

Timeline

September to November 2024

Programs Used

Photoshop, Indesign, Illustrator

Skills & Practices

Layout Design, Photo Editing, Art Direction, Data Visualization, Editing,

What I Designed

Basic Page Layouts, Figures, Icons & Cover Illustration, Stylistic Direction

In fall of 2024, the University YMCA at UIUC needed an annual report. For this year, the report theme was "Celebrating 150 years", centered around the 150th Anniversary Celebration that took place the year prior.

For this project, I worked alongside fellow designer Emma Hong linkedin.com/in/emma-hong-b2144a19b to lay out pages, create figures, edit photos, and tell the story of the University YMCA in 2023-2024.

Celebrating 150 Years

Last year, the University YMCA at UIUC celebrated its 150th year as an organization. The previous annual report made a nod to that celebration, with the theme "Leading change since 1873". This year, the team wanted to create a report that was reflective of that event.

To achieve a theme that encompassed the 150th anniversary of the University YMCA while trying to avoid repeating same elements used the year previously, we delved into drafts from the event branding last year, and unearthed unused elements that could be re-explored. This included a cover illustration, building illustration, and stickers I previously designed which got added into this report.

The color scheme calls back directly to the event, sticking to the blues, purples, an gradients that were a hallmark of it.

This report was meant to be as open and breathable as possible to achieve a formal feel while maintaining the curved, fun elements that are a hallmark of the YMCA as a whole. With a limited amount of pages available given their budget, it was a difficult feat to achieve, especially given the sheer amount of text we had to work with on an 8.5" x 5.5" workspace. Ultimately, we were able to create an easily readable, cohesive report, which highlighted all of the amazing work the team at the University YMCA achieved in 2023-2024.

Draft Layouts

This is a selection of draft pages that were made in the process to finalizing the report.

A lot of pages originally had larger, occasionally split lines of text, detailed picture frames, and images that sprawled across the page. Ultimately, the team determined that while these graphic ideas were interesting, they reduced the legibility of the content for the average reader. So, many of these pages were simplified and refined to be what was shown above.