Annual report

Task 1: Design a company Annual Report & Accounts that escapes the stereotypical.

Annual Reports are published by companies who are required by law to submit an audited

set of profit and loss accounts, detailing income and expenditure for that year. A Report

usually includes statements from the chairman and directors that tell shareholders how the

company has performed over the last twelve months and what they expect to do, in terms of

business development and growth in the coming year.

Traditionally annual reports have been very staid and ‘corporate’ in their approach. Often

they are visually similar with little character or personality, heavily illustrated with images of

grinning employees and often reliant upon an (un)healthy use of stock ‘business images’.

Pages and pages of dull text and sometimes unintelligible graphs! This approach is changing

- the annual report not only has to present the legal information, but also has to reinforce a

company’s position globally, through its public face.

Choose a business or organisation that you already know about, or something that you have

a strong interest in; alternatively take a commodity such as wood, soap, metal, electricity, oil,

water, plastic, paper, paint, rubber, cloth…