The point of this is to discuss how we can

improve the look of all printed and

electronic material associated with Si.

We don’t want anything

amateur-looking bearing

the famous Si baubles

think visually…Getting away from long bullet-pointed

lists or page after page of solid text.

Think about the

presentation template

– this got everyone

thinking about how to

represent information in

a more visual way.

G:\ADMINISTRATION &

MANAGEMENT\FORMS &

TEMPLATES\Presentation

template

• Diagrams, and charts can take the

place of long-winded explanations.

• Pull out any small, self-contained bits

of information such as case studies,

quotes, statistics etc into

individual text boxes

Also, an obvious point is to give Colin as much advance

warning as possible… use the Print Deadlines Calendar

The page on the right contains more text but is still more appealing to read

The point is, I’m not looking to you lot to do any difficult

formatting, to create columns or pretty graphs… Just give me

an indication of what text you want pulled out, mark it on your

Word document somehow, and I’ll lay it out

The same applies to Excel and any diagrams you’ve ripped off

other people – Just make sure you send me the original

spreadsheets or pdfs, then I can tweak the design

Of course photos make a

huge difference. But I

don’t expect anyone to

spend ages image

hunting. I can do that.

All I need is a few

keywords on PLACES

and CONCEPTS such

as… health, young people,

Tyneside, rural.

Please, please ask the

client in advance

though, as they’ve often

got access to image

libraries of their own that

saves a huge amount of

time.

For the time being, we

don’t have any map

software, and it’s

illegal to keep ripping

off Google Maps for

any substantial piece of

work. Plus, it doesn’t

look very professional.

We are currently looking

in to getting some GIS

software, but in the

meantime, if you need to

do intricate GIS analysis,

the client should be able

to provide the base

maps.

The report template is located at

G:\ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT\FORMS & TEMPLATES.

When you start any sort of report, start

by using the report template. This is

nothing to do with making your

document look nice, it is to be used

because it has a set hierarchy of

subheadings, clear text, an automatic

contents list and paragraph

numbering. It is basic, clean and

simple.

Your doc should stay in the Word

template until it has been finalised

and commented upon by you, the

project manager, the client, god…

whoever needs to. THEN it can go

to Colin, where it can be DTP’d

and sent out as the final version.

Nothing goes out as a final

copy if it’s still in the Word

template format

Obviously there will be

times when you want it

to look a bit smarter

when it goes out for

comment. In this case,

we can do a front cover

to go on the Word

report, but no report

should be sent out in

Word as a final

version. This is

especially important for

proposals.

As long as I can get…

• advance warning

• source files for charts and diagrams

• advice on photos

• the text clearly laid out in the report

template

Is this possible? If not, why not?

Everything comes to Colin for full DTP

treatment before it goes out as a final

copy.

Si presentation Template:

G:\ADMINISTRATION & MANAGEMENT\FORMS &

TEMPLATES\Presentation template

Keep thinking visually… photos, diagrams, reduced

amount of text

Advance warning to Col… not always easy but at

least gives a chance to get photos etc

Watch out for the

position of your text –

either put it in a clear

space…

…or bung it in a box.

You can make the box

slightly transparent if

you really want to be

clever.

Often for interviews we now print

out the presentations on card to

make ring-bound handouts

which form a simple sort of

‘brochure’ for the client to keep,

rather than printing out the

presentation to hand out.

If you want to do this, bear in

mind that double-sided printing

means the inner margin (for the

binding) will change with every

other slide…

Still a bit of a work-in-progress, but

soon we should be able to send out

mail fliers properly formatted, rather

than just badly set text.

In the meantime, remember to

make sure any bulk emails are tidy

and concise, especially for the

networks – network fliers should

really only be giving a teaser to

link to the website, a series of

essay-length news articles

It won’t be long before it would be advantageous to

be able to submit some of our work as something to

be uploaded to the clients website, rather than a

couple of copies of a report and a pdf in an envelope.

This is a little way off, but it will highlight the

importance of the ways in which we lay out

information in our reports.