2004 Annual Report

We have many powerful clients. But with deregulation, 2004 was a dim year for the Texas power biz. So CenterPoint Energy took care of business, selling off a business unit and brightening the bottom line as it could. Its Origin-designed annual report showed the bright side of the company’s year, with a scrapbook theme—complete with simulated spiral binding and hand-done photo treatments–that communicated company milestones portraying innovation, flexibility and focus.

2004 Annual Report

That spiral binding looks pretty real, huh? In reality, you can stick it on a copy machine and it lays flat. The scrapbook theme was meant to give a candid view of the company’s operations, proficiencies and diversity, while contextualizing its performance in the financial and regulatory milieu of 2004.

2004 Annual Report

It was critical to communicate the year’s events in relation to CenterPoint’s strategy of: “One Company. Get it Right and Grow.” The book placed all of the year’s happenings, such as their sale of its generation subsidiary Texas Genco and its appeals to the Public Utility Commission, in relation to the company’s strategy. This meant bringing company milestones to the forefront, while making sure to not sell the company’s 130-year heritage short.

2004 Annual Report

Diversity was also a big part of the book, visually. The company’s five million customers comprise a variety of demographics from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, Minnesota, Mississippi and Oklahoma. To help communicate the company’s own diversity—each pic in the piece is a real-life CenterPoint employee; the photo captions explain who they are, where they’re from and what they’re doing.