Yesterday it was winter, today it was June — and the annual report had to be designed, printed and mailed by June 30!

John Lanzafame, Biophan’s Vice President for Business Development, was not a last-minute kind of guy. He was thorough, detail-oriented and very smart — but sometimes even the best-laid plans go awry. Luckily, when delays in the financials derailed his timetable, he had someone in mind who worked well under pressure.

“I remember this project well,” said David Wright, president and founder of IDU Creative Services. “John contacted me about the annual report in April, but when we finally sat down for our first meeting there were only about eight business days left to complete all of the creative work.”

Choosing a results-oriented creative vendor

John had worked with David before — in January he had hired David to design Biophan’s corporate identity, then asked him to create a number of print and trade show pieces for Biophan and its sister companies. John knew that when push came to shove, David had a solid track record for delivering under pressure.

“David was always a pleasure to work with, and able to generate high quality materials under very tight time constraints,” said John. “We made some pretty unreasonable demands for fast turnaround, but David was always able to come through for us.”

However, this project had more challenges than just a short timeline. This would be the first time Biophan was including a creative wraparound in their annual report. Would the new approach create a logjam of conflicting reactions from the leadership team? And there was an even bigger challenge: no ideas were on the table for a compelling theme to sell the company’s progress to their major investors.

Developing the conceptual theme

“After immersing myself in the raw materials, I proposed ‘growth’ as the most effective theme for the annual report,” said Wright. “The letter to the shareholders indicated dramatic growth on a number of fronts, making this a compelling concept. I set John’s aspirational statement about the company on a beautiful double-spread photo, then wrote five additional aspirational statements to set in a series of complementary full-page photos.

“I had an advantage, though,” continued Wright. “I had worked with John to develop the Biophan brand identity, so I was able to write about key concepts that I knew went to the heart of Biophan — like curiosity, agility, confidence, and vision — and set them in photos that emphasized the theme of growth.”

Designing the right creative solution

David’s team worked hard through the week and over the weekend to get the initial draft done, and on Monday morning sent the completed draft to John. With only one day scheduled for initial review and edits, John deftly handled inquiries from the leadership team and sent back glowing responses — “excellent”, “great”, “nice job”, “look and feel is outstanding!”. The hard work was paying off.

“My team wasn’t the only one working under pressure,” said Wright. “John was in New York for a trade show and I remember he had to stay in his room overlooking Broadway and Times Square that night to proofread the first draft. Poor guy! And Rich Sadd, our printing representative at Bowne of Cleveland, was expecting a child that week.”

Achieving the desired response

Despite these many challenges, the creative work was completed on schedule and the final art sent to Bowne for printing and distribution. According to John, the annual report received a positive response from both shareholders and investors.

Michael Weiner, the company’s CEO, was well satisfied with the project, pointing out in a testimonial to David that Biophan’s market cap and share volume grew exponentially during this period of time.

Leveraging the successful design

John was also satisfied, and asked his assistant Lisa to contact David for more design projects. It was time to start working on the Biophan Marketing Agenda, including new folders, updated pull sheets, 10-foot trade show booth, 20-foot trade show booth, posters, banners and handouts for the annual meeting.

But that’s another story …

Click here to see samples of the Biophan Annual Report.

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