These are Annual Reports for the University of Virginia. One of the most interesting aspects of these projects has been finding a new and interesting way to present the university visually each year. The reports shown above are two of a series we designed where each used a dramatically different style of photography. The 1996-97 report is built around a series of panoramic building shots by Todd Friedlander. We placed these shots along the bottom of each two page spread and feathered the tops, giving them “possession” of the whole two-page spread. The next year we worked with David Sagarin, who had created multiple-image collages of key university venues. It was a bit of a tough sell, but ultimately the university agreed to reproduce them in all their sectioned glory. Then in 1998-99 (report not shown) Luca DiCecco, a very young and talented photographer, brought his portfolio into GDA. To save money he had prepared his portfolio as high-resolution ink jet prints on watercolor paper. The slightly gritty quality of the images, as well as the saturated color palette that the ink jet had lent to the output, created images that were both beautiful and unique. We signed him up for that year’s report.

There is a “Milestones” section early in each of these reports. We know that much of the hard work we put into these publications is often ignored because the recipients are very busy people who lack enough time to read a 50-page report in detail. The solution was to restate the highlights of the university’s year in a bullet-point calendar that can be scanned in a few minutes, but contains all the key issues and accomplishments that the school’s administration wanted to communicate. It has been a very popular feature.