Grant Thornton | Data-led playbook design for professional services firm

Grant Thornton is a network of professional services firms providing services such as consulting and tax and advisory
Grant Thornton were early adopters of testing data-led content in the form of infographics. The challenge now was to embed the practice across the organisation, by creating an integrated implementation framework and easy to follow approach with guidance on application across different audiences, channels, formats and devices.
The brief: To empower one of the world’s largest accounting and consulting firms to plan and produce consistent, world-leading, data-driven content
Build a data-led culture cultivated through a lean, joined up approach of stakeholder skills.
Create a strategic framework that ensures the right type of data-led content is delivered for the right audience, channels and formats in the right time.
Develop a fresh, consistent identity for data-led content and data visualisations to live alongside the new brand identity.

An actionable data led playbook that answered the strategic needs of the business covering culture, planning, style and application across the digital ecosystem.
A planning template outlining who, how, when and what is required for all phases of their processes from briefing to delivery of content.
How to structure and deliver glance content and narrative as well as deeper dive, data-led content.
A ‘chart smart’ companion booklet ensuring teams are producing charts to accuracy and in-line with the Grant Thornton visual identity.
Data visualisation guidelines:
- Data wrangling – Selective data, simplification, numerical operations.
- Best charting practices.
- Storytelling with data
- Atomisation approaches to data led content.
- Style guide
Channels and formats for connected content.
Responsive considerations for accessibility, usability.
Interactive content guide.

The Data led playbook has recently been published and shared internally across member firms with plans on evolving the playbook into an interactive format containing downloadable assets to further support teams.

“Infographic guidelines are becoming commonplace across major organisations, there’s clear tactical benefit from a design perspective although it only solves one piece of the puzzle. Grant Thornton’s ambition to create a Playbook was a natural progression enabling research, marketing and project management teams to plan and deliver a range of data led content through a strategic approach delivering in today’s fast-moving digital environment.” – Richard Silvester, Managing Director