Global Water Annual Review 2020

This year’s Global Water Annual Review (GWAR) was created by a UK-wide Visual Communications design project team, collaborating through Microsoft Teams. Continuing in its digital newspaper format, the publication highlights the key projects and initiatives from the global water business across Arup. After optioning various ideas for the visual identity of the Review, we settled on an illustrative paintbrush mark effect. Once we decided on this particular identity, we weaved it through copy, high-quality imagery, and bespoke illustrations to maximise what we were talking about: water. For the first time, the Review was promoted in a strategic, cohesive manner. Alongside the design and compilation of the Review itself, we also created a series of animated idents to bolster posts on social media or on digital formats. Through the combination of publicising on corporate and individual social media accounts (including thought leadership pieces) and targeting key clients through paid LinkedIn regional campaigns and emails, we have seen almost 1,000 downloads between July and November 2020. This is a 40% increase in performance from the previous year, reflecting the effectiveness of this approach. The Global Water Annual Review is circulated internally to all staff in the global water business and made available to all other staff via our intranet and Newsrooms. It’s also shared externally on arup.com and sent to key contacts.