10 Years & Counting
Monte has been planning, writing, photographing, and designing annual reports for the ME-EM Department at Michigan Tech since 2006. Each report takes several months to complete, from the initial planning phases, to the interviews and article creation, to the photography and design.
FINDING THE STORY
The Monte team is responsible for finding the story for each person and developing a cohesive message to be used throughout the report. For the past three years, the report has focused on Human Centered Engineering – a tagline developed by the Monte team – for a presentation to potential students. While each report has a different topic, from energy and fuel research to the automotive industry to the impacts of simulation, all can be tied back to Human Centered Engineering and the impact each area has on the students, the faculty, and the alumni.
BEHIND THE SCENES
As part of the Annual Report task, the Monte team is responsible for taking photos of the faculty and alumni (when possible) to pair with their research story. We’ve been known to crawl on shop floors and climb ladders to get the perfect shot. And because each Annual Report has to have a cover, the Monte team often brainstorms the ideal photo to tie the message together with each story, which we’ve found to entail standing on shoulders, venturing out in sub-zero temperatures, and going back to school for student research shots.
BUILDING THE BRAND
The Annual Report, while varied in length, is always developed for the same purpose: to showcase the undergraduate and graduate curriculum and the advanced research conducted by the faculty in the Department. We’ve designed reports from 40 to over 70 pages in length. Each report is carefully crafted to match the new theme from the colors selected to the headline style and the page design elements. No matter the theme, the cover and back cover always prominently display the client’s well-established ME-EM brand, so alumni and department chairs across the country can easily recognize the brand.
