With customers strongly criticizing its commercial invoices (shown on the left) and subsequent late payments affecting revenue, Royal Mail commissioned a systematic redesign of these documents (right). Interviews with internal personnel and a number of customers informed the initial design process; subsequent prototypes were tested with a range of typical customers, and refined based on the results.
The project saw myriad changes to the invoice: more detailed information was included, structured more logically, grouped and colored to aid accessibility. The payment process was streamlined with the removal of payment slips where they weren’t needed, and explanatory copy was added to the back of the documents. Bilingual text was also accommodated, and the design was extended to a range of variant documents. All this was specified for implementation on a number of integrated back-end systems, and the final result was substantial cost savings through a reduction in paper usage and telephone support staff.
Awarded a Certificate of Excellence in the 2004 ISTD International Typographic Awards.
