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Expert design consultancy for purpose-driven organisations.

Independent design consultancy for the climate, environment and human-rights sectors.

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Selected work 2023–2026
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About Working worldwide

Senior design.
Direct relationship.
No agency markup.

Raygun Design is the independent practice of Andrew, a senior designer with well over a decade of experience working alongside international NGOs, law schools and policy organisations.

You work directly with the designer from first sketch to final file. No account managers, no juniors. The work has grown organically toward climate, environment and human rights: sectors where design quality, accuracy and accessibility genuinely matter.

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Testimonials In clients' words

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★★★★★ 5.0 average · based on 9 Google reviews
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Whether it's a one-off publication or an ongoing design partnership, get in touch to talk through what you need.

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Services · What we do

Design that
does the work.

Five ways Raygun helps mission-led organisations communicate, from a single publication to a full brand system and the website it lives on.

Every engagement is direct with the designer. No account managers, no markup.

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About · The practice

Senior design,
direct with the
designer.

A seagull perched atop a Danger, Keep Off sign

Raygun Design is the independent practice of Andrew, a senior designer with over two decades of experience working alongside international NGOs, law schools and policy organisations.

You work directly with the designer, from first sketch to final packaged file. No account managers, no juniors, no agency markup.

The work has grown organically toward climate, environment and human rights: sectors where design quality, accuracy and accessibility genuinely matter.

It's design in service of the substance: making rigorous, important work clear enough to land with the people who need to act on it.

Experience

20+ years

Designing for mission-led organisations across the UK, US and beyond.

How you work with us

1:1, always

Directly with the designer: the person doing the work is the person you brief.

Based in

Worthing, UK

Working remotely with clients and organisations worldwide.

Focused on work that matters: climate, environment and human rights.

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Raygun Design ("we", "us") is the data controller for this website, operated by Andrew, based in the UK, working with clients worldwide. This page explains what we collect and why, in plain terms.

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Sustainability

Sustainability

Raygun Design is a studio that works almost exclusively with organisations in climate, environment and human rights. That shapes how I think about my own practice.

How the studio operates

All client work is delivered remotely. There is no studio commute, no office, and no routine business travel. Where travel is needed, I take the train.

The studio runs on a renewable electricity tariff. Hardware is kept in service for as long as it remains usable; when replacement is necessary, refurbished equipment is the first consideration. Everything is paperless by default: briefs, proofing and review all happen digitally.

Print

When a project does go to print, I recommend recycled or sustainably sourced stocks and local printers as a matter of course. Specifying responsibly is a straightforward part of the job.

Commitments

I review my emissions position annually. Current commitments, maintained for the duration of any active contracts:

  • Remote-first and rail-first operating model
  • Renewable electricity supply
  • Minimal hardware turnover
  • Annual review of residual emissions, with a view to verified offsetting as the business grows

Why it matters

Most of my clients are working on exactly these issues. It would be odd not to take them seriously myself.

Last reviewed: July 2026
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Insights · Editorial & report design

NGO annual report design: a practical guide

An annual report is one of the few documents an NGO produces that has to work for everyone at once: funders deciding whether to renew, boards holding you to account, and the communities you serve. Get the design right and it becomes the clearest, most persuasive account of the year. Get it wrong and even strong results read as noise. Here's what actually matters.

Start with the argument, not the template

Most annual reports are built section by section (director's foreword, programmes, finance, thanks) without ever deciding what the report is actually arguing. Before any layout work starts, we ask: what's the one thing a funder should believe by the last page? Everything else, including the running order, follows from that answer.

Hierarchy carries more weight than decoration

A dense report survives on typographic hierarchy: a heading system readers can scan in seconds, pull-quotes that carry testimony without forcing a full read, and enough white space that a page of text doesn't read as a wall. This matters more than any colour palette or cover treatment: it's the difference between a report that gets read and one that gets filed.

Data should tell a story, not just display numbers

Financial summaries and impact metrics are usually the least-read pages in a report, mostly because they're treated as an obligation rather than a chance to make the case. A single well-designed chart (sources of funding, outcomes by theme, reach by region) does more to build trust than three paragraphs of narrative. Keep the underlying numbers auditable; keep the presentation simple.

Photography and testimony need real weight

For rights-based and environmental organisations especially, the people and places in the report are the argument. Full-bleed photography, properly credited, and pull-quotes set with enough size and space to be read as testimony rather than filler — both do far more work than another icon or stock illustration.

Plan for every format from the start

Most annual reports now live primarily as a screen PDF, get skimmed on a phone, and occasionally get printed by a board member. Designing for print first and shrinking it down for screen almost always produces a report that's hard to read on the device most people will actually use. Decide the primary format early, and design the rest as considered adaptations — not afterthoughts.

Bilingual and multilingual reports need their own system

If your report runs in more than one language, retrofitting translations into an English-first layout almost always breaks under longer text or different scripts. Build the grid and type scale to flex from the outset, and treat every language as a first-class version of the document, not a copy-paste job.

The brief that gets the best result

The reports that come together fastest start with a clear one-page brief: the argument, the audience, the format, and three reference reports you admire (from any sector). That's usually more useful to a designer than a finished first draft of copy.

If you're planning this year's report and want a second opinion on structure before a word is written, get in touch; happy to talk it through.

Published: July 2026
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Insights · Climate & environmental communications

How to design a climate report that gets read, not just published

Climate and environmental reports carry some of the highest-stakes data any organisation produces, and some of the hardest to make legible. Good climate report design doesn't simplify the science; it gives readers a clear route through it, so the evidence lands with funders, policymakers and the public rather than getting lost in appendices.

Lead with the evidence, not the executive summary

Most climate reports open with a wall of context before reaching a single finding. Reordering so the headline evidence, a key statistic, a striking chart, a clear before-and-after, appears in the first spread gives busy readers a reason to keep going, and it's the version most likely to get lifted into a press release or a funder deck.

Data visualisation carries the argument

Emissions trajectories, land-use change, funding gaps: these are all comparisons, and comparisons belong in charts, not tables. A well-designed chart makes the direction of travel obvious at a glance. Keep the palette restrained and consistent across every chart in the document; readers build a mental model of what each colour means, and switching it mid-report breaks that trust.

Photography and maps ground the abstract

Parts per million and hectares deforested are hard to feel. A well-placed map showing where the loss happened, or photography of the landscape and the people affected, gives the reader something concrete to hold onto before the numbers arrive. Environmental report design works best when data and place are shown together, not as separate chapters.

Consistency builds credibility over time

Climate work is usually reported on year after year. A repeatable structure, the same chart types, the same section order, the same terminology, lets readers and journalists compare one year's report against the last without relearning the format. That consistency is itself a form of credibility: it signals the methodology hasn't shifted just to flatter the numbers.

Design for policymakers, funders and the public at once

A single climate report often has to satisfy a technical annex for policymakers and a persuasive narrative for the public. Rather than writing two documents, design a layered structure: a short, highly visual front section that carries the argument, and a clearly signposted technical section behind it for anyone who wants the full methodology.

If you're scoping a climate, sustainability or environmental impact report and want to talk through structure, get in touch.

Published: July 2026
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Insights · Human rights & advocacy

Human rights report design: presenting evidence without losing dignity

Human rights reports carry testimony from people who took a real risk to give it. Design has to make that evidence legible and persuasive to lawyers, funders and journalists, while treating the people behind it with the seriousness they're owed. That balance, rigour and dignity together, is what separates a report that gets cited from one that gets skimmed.

Testimony is evidence: design it that way

Quotes from survivors and witnesses are often the strongest evidence a human rights report contains, but they're routinely set as decorative pull-quotes instead of primary evidence. Give testimony the same visual weight as a data table: clear attribution conventions, consistent sourcing, and enough space around each quote that it reads as a statement, not a caption.

Redaction and anonymity need a visual system

When names, faces or locations are withheld for safety, that redaction should look deliberate, not like a formatting gap. A consistent typographic treatment for anonymised sources, and a clear note explaining the convention once, reassures readers that names are missing by design, for real protection reasons, not because the evidence is thin.

Legal and evidentiary structure shouldn't fight the reader

Human rights reports often need to hold up under legal scrutiny, with findings tied to specific articles of international law. That precision doesn't have to make the document unreadable: a clear hierarchy, summary findings up front, full legal framework and citations in a well-signposted reference section, lets a general reader and a legal reviewer both find what they need.

Photography carries risk as well as weight

Photography can make an abuse impossible to look away from, but it also carries consent and safety obligations that other sectors rarely have to weigh. Every image needs a clear consent trail, and the design should be able to substitute photography for typographic or illustrative treatment where a photograph would put someone at risk.

Multilingual and multi-audience by default

Human rights reporting is rarely read in one language by one audience. Affected communities, national authorities, international bodies and the press all need a version that speaks to them. Building the layout to flex across languages and producing a shorter public-facing summary alongside the full report means the evidence actually reaches the people it's meant to move.

If you're preparing a report involving testimony, legal findings or sensitive photography, get in touch to talk through the approach.

Published: July 2026
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Insights · Brand & identity

Brand identity for NGOs: building trust on a nonprofit budget

An NGO's brand is usually the first, and sometimes the only, impression a funder or partner gets before deciding whether to trust the organisation with money or a relationship. Good nonprofit brand identity design isn't about looking corporate; it's about looking as considered and credible as the work itself, on a budget that has to stretch across every channel.

A brand is a promise, not a logo

The mark matters less than what it signals: who this organisation is for, how it works, what it stands for. Before any logo sketching starts, we ask the same question we ask of a report: what's the one thing people should believe about you? A strong identity is that answer, made visible and repeatable.

Guidelines are what make a brand consistent

A logo file without guidelines gets reinterpreted by every new hire, volunteer and partner agency, and drifts within a year. A short, genuinely usable guidelines document, colour, type, logo lock-ups, photography style, spacing rules, is what keeps a small organisation's brand identity looking deliberate across a hundred different touchpoints it will never fully control.

Design for reuse by non-designers

Most day-to-day materials, a social post, a funding one-pager, a slide deck, get made by someone on the team who isn't a designer. A brand system built with editable Canva, PowerPoint or InDesign templates puts the guidelines directly into the hands of the people who need them, rather than leaving them as a PDF nobody opens.

Colour and type earn trust before anyone reads a word

Readers form a judgement about credibility within seconds, well before they've read a sentence. A restrained, well-chosen palette and a typeface that's legible at small sizes and in translation do more for trust than an elaborate logo mark. This matters especially in climate, environment and human rights work, where the subject matter is already serious enough.

Budget for a system, not a one-off

A logo commissioned in isolation, without the reports, website and templates it needs to live alongside, tends to get quietly abandoned within a couple of years. The organisations that get the most from a rebrand budget the full system upfront: identity, guidelines, and the first few real applications, so the brand launches already proven in use.

If you're weighing up a rebrand or a first proper identity, get in touch for an honest read on scope and budget.

Published: July 2026
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Insights · Web design & build

Accessible website design for NGOs: a practical checklist

An accessible website isn't a nice-to-have for an NGO working in disability rights, health or human rights; it's the difference between a site that serves the people it's meant to and one that quietly excludes them. Accessible NGO website design is also, in practice, better website design for everyone: clearer, faster and easier to maintain.

Accessibility is a mission issue, not a compliance box

It's easy to treat accessibility as a legal checklist to satisfy once and forget. Framed instead as part of the mission, whoever the organisation exists to serve should be able to use the site, it becomes a design input from the first wireframe rather than a fix applied at the end, and it shows in the quality of the result.

Start with contrast, type size and touch targets

The highest-impact, lowest-effort fixes are the simplest: sufficient colour contrast against the background, body text no smaller than 16px, and buttons and links large enough to tap reliably on a phone. These three alone resolve the majority of usability complaints on nonprofit websites, and they cost nothing to maintain once built in.

Forms are where good intentions break down

Donation forms, contact forms and newsletter sign-ups are usually the most-used part of the site and the most likely to fail an accessibility check: missing labels, unclear error messages, inputs that trigger an unwanted zoom on mobile. Proper label associations, visible focus states and clear inline errors turn a frustrating form into one people actually complete.

Content structure matters as much as visual design

A logical heading hierarchy, a working skip-to-content link, and alt text that actually describes an image rather than restating its file name make the difference between a site that works with a screen reader and one that doesn't. None of this is visible to a sighted user browsing normally, which is exactly why it's easy to skip and important not to.

Test with real assistive technology, not just a checklist

Automated accessibility scanners catch perhaps a third of real issues. Actually tabbing through the site with a keyboard, and running it past a screen reader, surfaces the problems that matter most: a focus trap in a menu, a form field with no accessible name, an image gallery with no way to navigate past it. Build this into every launch, not just a one-off audit.

If you're planning a new site or an accessibility review of an existing one, get in touch.

Published: July 2026
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Insights

Notes on designing for climate, environment & human rights.

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