The South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA) is a non-governmental research institute focused on South Africa and Africa’s international relations. It aims to provide analysis, promote dialogue and contribute to African policy making.
This year, 2010, marks the organisation’s 75th anniversary and it receiving its 2009 award for being the southern and sub-Saharan Africa Top Think Tank, as rated by the University of Pennsylvania in its Global Go-To Think Tank rankings.
The SAIIA produces an annual highlights booklet that summarises the programmes, initiatives and publications it implements and produces. Flow was approached to design and produce the booklet this year.
The concept conceived for the booklet incorporated silhouetted images made up of varying forms of type (newspaper text, handwritten notes, old manuscripts, etc.) to symbolise the varying “voices” that SAIIA needs to listen to, in order to formulate considered international policies. The organisation’s “corporate identity” colours, burnt orange and blue, were also adhered to throughout the document.
We needed to make the content easy to access and digestible, to encourage the target market to engage with it. This involved some careful prioritising in terms of content focus and hierarchy, to ensure that the most important messages were transmitted quickly. With limited space this became quite a tricky exercise, but one that we feel we have managed to achieve with the help of a very helpful and involved client.
Flow’s client list continues to grow and each client brings with it an interesting new creative challenge. The SAIIA is one such client and we hope that this booklet marks the beginning of an ongoing, mutually beneficial relationship.