The archive · Public & Social · Marketing decision · 2024
Orbis prints the first annual report that has to be touched to be seen
Orbis Hong Kong printed its annual report in heat-sensitive ink — blank until touched, so sighted readers must see through their hands.
Orbis
What it had to solve
Around the world, millions of visually impaired people can only see the world through their hands. Orbis, the eye-care charity, wanted its annual report — a document sent to the partners and sponsors who support its work — to remind readers of that and encourage them to give.
How it works
Around the world, millions of visually impaired people can only see the world through their hands. Orbis, the international eye-care charity, had a problem its own annual report could not express: sighted donors and partners read about blindness, but never experienced what it takes away.
So Orbis Hong Kong produced what it called the first annual report that has to be touched to be seen. Printed with heat-sensitive ink, the pages remained blank until a reader's touch warmed them, revealing the content detail by detail — making the act of reading the document an exercise in seeing through the hands.
The design turned a routine accountability document into an empathy device. Because most visual loss can be prevented or treated, the report reminded supporters of Orbis's mission at the moment they held it, and doubled as an appeal to fund that work.
The report went to Orbis's global network of partners and sponsors, and to representatives from business and politics. The work is held in the D&AD awards archive as an example of communication that makes an invisible condition physical.
Why it lands
- It used the medium itself — a printed report — to reproduce the disability, so supporters did not have to imagine blindness; they had to read through their hands.
- Making the document hard to read is what made it memorable: friction became the message.
- The annual report already reaches the people with money and influence, so upgrading it to a tactile experience put the cause in front of the audience that could act.
- It framed giving as the natural next step: once touch showed how much vision matters, preventing and treating visual loss became the obvious response.
What it did
Sighted readers had to experience blindness in order to read the document, turning a routine annual report into a reminder of Orbis's mission to prevent and treat visual loss. The report was sent to Orbis's network of partners, sponsors and representatives from business and politics, and the work is held in the D&AD awards archive.
What you can take
To make an audience feel an inaccessible condition, remove the sense they take for granted: a document that demands touch communicates blindness more honestly than any photograph of it.
Since then
The Touch Annual Report gave Orbis a physical proof point for its mission and entered the awards circuit — including the D&AD archive — as a reference for designing with and for visual impairment. The underlying move, making a routine document demand the very sense it is about, remains a template for charities whose work is hard for healthy audiences to feel.
Sources
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