The Brief:

The International Road Assessment Programme (iRAP) is a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to saving lives through safer roads. iRAP works in partnership with government and non-government organisations to:

Assess high-risk roads and develop affordable, high-return infrastructure investment programmes. Provide training, technology and support and track road safety performance so that funding agencies can assess the benefits of their investments.

We were approached by iRAP to redesign and reformat all of their printed communications and worldwide reports. They required their materials to be harder-hitting, more professional in appearance, more consistent and cohesive in order to help promote iRAP's important work in a consistent, engaging and emotive way.

They needed to display proffessionalism to their financial supporters and also to the many countries they work with and hope to work for in the future. Government and donor bank officials would need to be inspired and to see the programme as a good investment.

They should engage engineers and reassure them the programme and associated works are technically robust.

The Solution:

We felt iRAP's reports needed to work a lot harder and achieve a higher level of design to help inspire further funding and maintain existing funding. The information needed to work on more levels to help communicate quickly the seriousness of the subject matter and benefits of iRAP's work.

Their previous communication was very linear, i.e. same size headings, similar pace used throughout. We thought the information could be significantly improved by repackaging and reformatting to make people 'stop and think' a little more and to make it appear a little less academic. The design and typography appeared dated and as iRAP are the only people carrying out this kind of work and research, the material needed to reflect this by looking completely up-to-date and pioneering.

It needed more authority in its design and presentation to ensure it is a vital asset to iRAP when it is presented to important people.

We used our experience in the field of magazine and newspaper design to apply the following key ideas:

• Make each report more emotive and engaging by way of design and photography.
• Modernise the look of the reports by using contemporary fonts.
• Bring items to life by using additional info bars, box outs, annotation of maps.
• Add impact to the information, i.e. the use of pull-quotes to highlight important statistics.
• Increase map sizes to make them clearer and more useful by way of utilising a double gatefold.
• Annotate maps and pull out areas of particular interest/where great improvements have been made, adding more detail to particular roads utilising the 'megagraphic' treatment.
• Add a more human element to the reports, by use of photography and 'real-lives' side-bars.
• Add improved navigation/signposting to divide the report more clearly into sections.

iRAP have been very pleased with the results and their reports have been incredibly well received by their supporters and associates including praise from The UK Minister for Transport'!

Further examples of our work for iRAP can be viewed here

And examples of our work for EuroRAP can be viewed here