The prime hero graphic
This year there was a desire from EFG to create an overall graphic that encapsulated all 10 themes that they had identified as trends for 2022. This ‘hero graphic’ would appear on the cover incorporating the themes but needed to have the flexibility to be broken down into component parts showing each individual theme on its own.
Each theme would then have its own attributed page in the document where the topic would be discussed in depth and accompanied by its individual graphic. Each individual component graphic could be separated from the ‘hero graphic’, to be used elsewhere in the document.
Initial exploration of illustrative styles
Before arriving at the chosen illustrative style, we explored different approaches and created a number of iterations for the ‘hero graphic’ for the cover until we had one that the team at EFG felt conveyed the right design aesthetic for the key themes and their predictions. We also demonstrated to the client how the 10 themes/icons could be separated from the overall hero graphic into individual component parts.
A free-flowing editorial style was adopted for the interior spreads.
The chosen illustrative style was more free-flowing from the previous year and there was a desire from EFG to have a more editorial feel to the document so that it was less rigid and utilised white space more.
As with 2020 and 2021, the start of 2022 has already seen challenges and struggles from both a humanitarian and financial perspective, making it tough to predict the future. Here’s hoping that EFG can match their overall score from last year of 8 out of 10, or maybe even better it.