2026 Impact Report
Category
Digital
Client
American Electric Power
Role
Lead Designer
Research & Strategy
A 20-year disclosure tradition, redesigned around clarity and scale.
American Electric Power's corporate Impact Report needed a new name and an updated visual language. This years' report marked the 20th consecutive year of AEP's disclosure to stakeholders. The retitling from Corporate Sustainability Report to 2026 Impact Report was meant to signal a shift toward balanced outcomes aligned with the company's mission, vision, and core principles, while reinforcing an enduring commitment to transparency, accountability, and long-term value creation.
Challenges & Constraints
The report needed to work as both an interactive PDF and a print piece, each optimized for its own medium.
I concepted and built the report end to end: an interactive PDF built for on-screen navigation, and a separate print-optimized file prepped for a small press run of 25+ copies.
Layout & Content Structure
A single design system carried AEP's core principles, history, and metrics through every page of the report.
AEP's six existing core principles set the structure I had to design around. I translated each one into its own accent color, icon, and section identity so a reader would always know which prinicples' section they're in, whether they're 3 pages or 30 pages deep.
Archival photography paired against present-day field photography on divider spreads ties 70+ years of the company's history to its current growth story. This felt especially relevant on the 20th anniversary of the report.
A consistent data visualization language (ex. donut charts for generation mix, stacked bars for capital allocation, state-by-state fact panels) turns dense utility metrics into scannable comparisons across seven operating companies.
Outcome & Final Art
The report's complexity became its clarity.
A single visual system now carries a comprehensive utility report with seven operating companies, 5.6 million customers, and every core principle from safety to biodiversity, into one coherent, navigable document, delivered both as an interactive PDF and as a printed document ready to be read by executive leadership and community partners alike.