GARS aims to revolutionize the traditional development report.

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The standard development report is a one-dimensional, aesthetically dead, and seldom-read text document intellectually accessible by only a narrow and highly educated audience. These reports most often get read by a handful of key people before they are entombed in a drawer or a dusty shelf or buried deep in a digital archive.

GARS is the opposite. The Graphic Art Report is a multi-dimensional, aesthetically pleasing organization of symbols and icons that are intuitively understandable and intellectually accessible to illiterate or semi-literate audiences. Even a child can understand the basic information presented in a GARS. Yet, the strategy has much greater potential for consolidating and elaborating information than the textual report. It can be hyperlinked to photographic essays, maps, focus groups, charts, tables, databases, and other reports in a  way that brings development informational documentation, presentation and sharing into the 21st century of digital technology. GARS merges art and science with participatory research, uniting educated researchers and project directors with beneficiaries on an intellectually level plain of understanding where we can better share ideas and insights. GARS is enduring, can be posted on internet sites, can be built on and added to indefinitely, linking it to new research data, media imagery, and reports.