Annual Report 2020

More than documenting the activities and financial performance of the company for its clients, associates and shareholders, this publication also pleaded for an honest testimony of the experience. During the time, Mercabarna workers revealed a remarkable sense of duty, solidarity, and commitment as a community facing unprecedented difficulties.

The annual report is an informative publication featuring data, charts and results. Because of its purely analytical nature, it lacked Mercabarna workers’ perspective to portray the year 2020 accurately. With that in mind, we added a magazine-inspired editorial format (more flexible and relaxed) to showcase people’s memories, opinions, and experiences.

This hybrid publication plays with opposites, the technical and the human, in a two-way reading experience. “Memory”, on the one hand, introduces us to the factual report of Mercabarna’s 2020 results, visually approached with a rational design system, monochromatic photography and a sans-serif typeface. “Memories”, on the other hand, tells us an emotional story, with personal insights from the year that covid-19 changed our lives. The pages were visually approached with a dynamic design system, displaying testimonials, interviews and articles that recall the events first hand. In contrast with its sister publication, “Memories” holds vibrant compositions, colourful illustrations/photography, and a serif typeface.

Both publications share size, a core page grid and a jacket-type cover that wraps them together. Because “Memory” and “Memories” are two sides of the same story, they cannot depart from each other: they’ve been glued together along the spine zone.

Despite the small size of our team, our studio held a combined role of editor, art director and designer. We worked very closely with Mercabarna’s communication department for four months to accomplish this complex editorial commission. Their support was fundamental to managing and producing the content we needed to tell their story, which is also ours in the end.