
Lim Khaw, founder of nim design reflects on a successful year and is feeling optimistic as he looks ahead to 2019.
I feel lucky to have had such an amazing 12 months. As well as working with many returning clients, last year nim design also welcomed ten new clients – all of which are ethical organisations operating in the charity, social care, health and housing sectors.
Working with these new clients has given us fresh opportunities to demonstrate our ability to deliver strategic solutions with creative flair. In some cases, clients came to us with projects requiring an injection of warmth, colour and imagination. For others our role was more about careful planning, creating structure or uncovering that original idea. In all cases our primary aim was improving the audience experience and I believe that this clarity of thinking has enabled us to deliver effective results for all our clients in 2018.
Looking ahead to 2019, we can’t ignore Brexit and the need to be prepared for whatever it brings. Ensuring your organisation is furnished with a strong brand identity and well-designed content is a good place to start and should make it possible to remain connected to your audiences through times of change. A clear and positive brand identity is particularly important for charities aiming to increase income through fundraising.
Owning a coherent brand which chimes with stakeholders will underpin all your supporting materials – the work we undertook last year for contemporary office furniture designer, Allsfär, demonstrates how calm graphics and a powerful strapline can combine to communicate the essence of an organisation. We have given this work longevity by providing the client with a flexible brand strategy which can adapt to their changing projects.

For a global organisation like The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award International Foundation, ensuring that the benefits of its work are relevant in different countries is critical to its success. The infographic leaflet we created as part of a suite of materials was designed so that the same template can be adapted for different geographical regions.

Greensleeves Care, which runs care homes for older people, was looking for a way to illustrate the impact of the organisation’s work so we used their latest research to create an infographic. We applied pinks, oranges and bright blues to give this piece a fresh, contemporary feel and warm photographs of people and places to keep the tone upbeat. Our choice of a clean, bold font meant that the powerfully positive statistics supplied by the client were transmitted with clarity.

Impact Reports and Annual Reviews are a key element in our clients’ marketing, fundraising and communications materials and we have been designing and delivering these for over twenty years. Working with both Safer World and the Imperial Health Charity last year enabled us to demonstrate how it’s possible to work successfully within prescribed brand guidelines while at the same time pushing boundaries and exploring new formats, structures and tones.
I grew up in Malaysia and travelled to Thailand every year with my grandmother so I was particularly pleased that this year we were able to work with Safe Child Thailand – an organisation which protects children in the country and those on the Thai-Myanmar border. We have positioned powerful photography to communicate the narrative and combined it with clear key facts to create an Annual Review which will engage audiences and support fundraising activities.

I hope you’ve found this round-up of our recent work interesting and
useful. If you’re planning your design ‘to do’ list for 2019 please let us know
if we can help.
Finally, I would like to thank my dedicated colleagues, business partners and all our wonderful clients, some of whom have been supporting us since we started over 20 years ago. I am truly grateful. My promise to you all is that, we will continue to strive towards providing you with excellent designs and will always be available to support you.