Hull City Council – Director of Public Health Annual Report

Based on the brief of health champions fighting the evil of cigarette smoking, we developed creative approaches based on classic comic book themes featuring the battle between good (the public health team trying to improve quality of life for local residents) and evil (tobacco which is directly and indirectly responsible for poor health and reduced quality of life).

• Whilst there are many different genres of comic design, we wanted to develop themes that would have a broad range of appeal across different age groups.
• Research into comic book design lead us down two different paths which we felt would have generic appeal:
  i. The classic 1950s style featuring super heroes and B-movie themes
  ii. The 1960s pop art / Roy Lichtenstein style based around parody and acerbic comment
• We produced a number of initial ideas for front pages and spreads based around these styles, with content and concepts which could be interchangeable (i.e. one idea could be re-worked in another style if desired).
• The end result was a stunning publication which broke the mould for annual reports, having high visual appeal and presenting traditionally dry performance data in a format which generated interest and retention.