Ruffer Investment Company Limited – annual report, investment manager’s report and interim report
Investor communications with character, clarity and a distinctive edge
“Working on the Ruffer annual report gave us an exciting opportunity to showcase the broad range of skills within the agency. Bringing distinctive and vibrant illustrations to a considered layout and design, the result feels uniquely Ruffer.”
James Heginbottom, Design Director
Lyonsbennett
The challenge:
Ruffer Investment Company Limited (“RICL”) provided an exciting challenge with our first annual report together. After first connecting in 2021, the LSE-listed investment company’s investment manager, Ruffer LLP, and Lyonsbennett began working together in 2025 with a brief to modernise the annual report.
We were tasked with creating an annual report that would happily sit alongside Ruffer’s already established suite, particularly the Ruffer Review, with a strong and characterful identity that used illustration over photography at every opportunity.
We strived to reflect RICL’s attitude of being ‘built differently’ from the page up. RICL wanted its annual report to stand apart from the more traditional investment company market, with a design approach that would appeal to a broader retail investor audience while still maintaining the credibility, usability and reporting discipline expected of a listed company.
In creating a more distinctive and characterful annual report, we also sought to improve navigation, aligning the report more closely with best-practice corporate reporting standards and streamlining production across print and digital outputs.
Our approach:
We worked closely with the Ruffer team from the outset, providing strategic guidance, benchmarking and creative direction, which quickly developed into a full end-to-end partnership, including creative, technical graphic production, photography, print and digital delivery.
A benchmarking exercise across the investment trust sector and wider market identified an opportunity to strengthen RICL’s investment story. As a result, we introduced dedicated splash pages to punctuate the strategic report and help make Ruffer’s point of differentiation clearer for shareholders.
Creatively, Ruffer wanted to encompass their strong and recognisable visual identity used elsewhere in the suite, so working within their existing brand guidelines, we expanded the visual language through greater use of colour, illustration and editorial styling.
The client was drawn to heritage-inspired branding, so we explored a range of consumer and retail references to help inform the creative direction. From this, our Design Director developed original digital collage illustrations, helping create moments of emphasis and giving the report a strong visual identity for the new ‘What sets us apart’ pages. We added supporting custom editorial illustrations, elevating each case study’s interest and impact. Ruffer’s existing dog mascot was further developed as a central brand device, maintaining a flexible, recognisable and playful character for adaptation across the suite.
We designed the report in a custom square format, distinguishing it from typical A4 approaches. This gave the report a more distinctive physical presence while also allowing double-page spreads to work more naturally in widescreen digital formats.
But it wasn’t all about being different – we also restructured the report’s architecture to better align with corporate reporting best practice, which helped improve hierarchy, navigation and flow. Navigation tabs and clear section dividers helped readers move more easily through the report, with quick interactive links to direct them to further content both internally and online.
Lyonsbennett also conducted an on-site photography session for the board of directors, helping to give leadership a clearer visual presence in this and future reports.
For the digital output, we developed a digital annual report on the Foleon platform, carrying through the same design language while introducing improved online navigation, enhanced interactivity and accessibility.
The results:
The final report established a more distinctive and recognisable approach to RICL’s shareholder communications, balancing personality with the clarity and structure expected of a listed company’s annual report and complementing the dynamism of the Ruffer Review. We succeeded in challenging conventions – creating a report with a genuinely different visual identity without compromising usability or credibility, which elevated messaging visually.
The redesigned reporting suite was well received by the board and investors and created a clear step change when compared with previous reporting outputs, both visually and structurally.
The new framework helped RICL build a more cohesive and recognisable investor communications identity through the suite – the investment manager’s reviews, annual reports and interim reports – across print and digital channels.
In July 2026, Ruffer’s report was shortlisted for the AIC Shareholder Communication Awards’ Best Report and Accounts – Generalist award.
Take a look at the bookmarked PDF of the annual report here and the digital version of the report here.