Description
This paper undertakes a historical review of the use of design and designers in the annual reports of
Burton PLC, against a backdrop of the firm’s commercial history. It highlights a subordinate role for
design from 1930 until the 1970s when it was used increasingly to embellish the annual report. Design
assumed a very significant role from 1984,
Pergamon Accountfng, 0rganfzatfon.s and Society, Vol. 21. No. 1, pp. 89-111, 19%
Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
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DESIGNING THE ANNUAL REPORTS OF BURTON PLC FROM 1930 TO 1994*
SAM McKINSTRY
University of Paisley
This paper undertakes a historical review of the use of design and designers in the annual reports of
Burton PLC, against a backdrop of the firm’s commercial history. It highlights a subordinate role for
design from 1930 until the 1970s when it was used increasingly to embellish the annual report. Design
assumed a very significant role from 1984, when the firm’s annual report was transformed into a
corporate communications tool. The paper suggests that Burton was among the first British companies
to reach this stage, and that it was some ten years behind the generality of U.S. corporations in this
regard. Using Burton as an example, the study concludes by proposing that the turning of the annual
report into a public relations document has latent disadvantages and by advocating that design briefs in
this area should be differently focused.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a his-
torical account of the involvement of designers
and design in the annual reports of Burton
Group PLC, Britain’s largest fashion retailer.
As yet, there is no single-firm study which
sheds light on the developing involvement of
the post-war design industry in Britain in the
production of annual reports, nor for Britain,
is there yet any general history of annual
report design.’ This paper intends to go some
way towards filling these gaps. It also aims to
highlight the communication and persuasion
techniques consciously and directly employed
by Burton’s annual report designers and man-
agement, and how these relate, over time, to
the fluctuating fortunes of a single firm. In this
connection the paper will conclude by under-
taking a brief evaluation of the annual reports
issued by Burton from 1984, when they
became, first and foremost, corporate commu-
nications documents.
Burton Group PLC was chosen as a subject of
study for several reasons. As a company with a
past and an archival record stretching back to
the earlier decades of the present century, the
process of design in its annual reports was
traceable over a long period of time. A second
reason related to the company’s fashion back-
ground: it seemed logical that a design-oriented
business would be among the first to integrate
l An early version of this paper was presented at the Design History Society’s Annual Conference at Glasgow School of Art
in December 1994. The paper, in its present form, has benefited from the suggestions of Anthony Hopwood. Special
thanks are due to Anthony Parsons of the London College of Printing, and also to Peter Higgins, Jonathan Davis and Nick
Austin, sometime designers of Burton PLC annual reports, who, without betraying commercial confidences, corroborated
and occasionally corrected my interpretations of their work. Thanks are also due to Sampson Tyrrell Ltd and Merchant
Corporate Design, for information sent. Burton PLC also gave information and kindly sent copies of some annual reports.
r A brief history of annual report design in the United States, entitled A Hfstorfcal Review of Annual Report Desfgn,
was written for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, in 1988 (see
bibliography).
89
90 SMCKINSTRY
design into annual reporting, a hypothesis the
study wili test. A further reason related to the
fact that, in 1987, Burton’s annual report (for
1986) achieved a distinction unusual for such a
document: it came to the attention of the gen-
erai public as a result of widespread press cov-
erage. These factors combined to invite
examination.
The paper wiil proceed chronologically,
weaving the development of Burton’s annual
report around the firm’s business history, and
drawing on a range of evidence that includes
the annual reports themselves and insights pro-
vided by some of the designers that were
involved in their production.
The period studied can be broken into two:
up to 1980, and after it. From that year
onwards, Burton began to enjoy an unprece-
dented level of commercial success, related to
the growth of consumerism and the conse-
quent upsurge in retail activity that coincided
with the Thatcher era. It was also at this time
that the involvement of design and designers in
the firm’s annual reports began to increase
dramatically.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Sigsworth (1990), in his recent biography of
Montague Burton, fleshes out a classic rags-to-
riches story. Burton, born into a Jewish family
in Russia in 1885, emigrated to England in
1900, and by 1903 had opened a gents’ cloth-
ing shop in Chesterfield. Branches followed in
Mansfield (1908) and Sheffield (1909). By the
start of the First World War, there were 14
stores in the north of England, backed by a
number of small workshops in Leeds. The
trade was based on good quality products at
low cost, and a substantial proportion of the
business soon consisted of the bespoke tailor-
ing of men’s suits, with the orders made up in
the workshops. The business was incorporated
as a private company in 1917, when there were
29 shops and substantial work was being
undertaken for the army. There were 60 shops
by 1920, 140 by 1922, and 357 by 1930, spread
throughout Britain. Thanks to the Second
World War, the 1940 total of 595 shops was
not exceeded until 1950, when the figure
rose to 597 (Sigsworth, 1990, passfm).
Throughout the 1920s and 193Os, every
town of consequence in Britain was given its
Burton’s shop, prominently sited, instantly
recognizable, and conveying a sense of “taste-
ful and confidence-giving solidity” (Sigsworth,
1990, p. 45). At every stage, manufacturing
capacity was created to keep pace with
demand. By the end of the 193Os, Burton had
done much to improve the general standard of
dress in Britain, which assisted in breaking
down social barriers. Burton and its smaller
competitors had made it difficult to distinguish
between “workers” and “bosses” on the streets
of Britain. The 1940s was an era of untapped
potential, interrupted by the war and the sup
ply difficulties that followed it, and it was only
after Burton’s death in 1952 that substantial
profits began again to accrue.
PROGRESS AND REPORTING TO 1980
Table 1 provides a framework for a detailed
discussion of business and reporting develop
ments up to 1980.
Montague Burton Ltd became a public com-
pany in 1929. Its annual reports, produced
from 1930 onwards, are unremarkable. What
was known in those early days as the “Report
and Balance Sheet” consisted of two sheets of
white paper, one containing a two-sided bal-
ance sheet, and alongside, a summarized profit
and loss account, audited. On the second page
the “Director’s Report” consisted of a terse
factual account of developments, briefly
expressed in Montague Burton’s lucid English.
The two pages folded lengthways into three.
Black ink and a plain typeface were used
throughout. Apart from the addition of the
“Montague Burton, the Tailor of Taste” trade
mark to the reports, the format remained the
same until 1943, when flimsy paper, reflecting
wartime austerities, was used. This also applied
in 1944, and in 1945, both a company and a
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 91
TABLE 1. Button - Annual report statistics 1930-1980
Year Sales (Em) Profit Before Total Assets No. of Pages Statutory Photographs
TaX
(fm)
Information %age
(fm)
%age*
1930 n.a. 0.4 4 2 100 0
1935 n.a. 0.6 8 2 100 0
1940 n.a. 0.7 10 2 100 0
1945 n.a. 0.3 11 2 100 0
1950 n.a. 0.5 16 12 100 0
1955 n.a. 1.1 18 12 100 0
1960 n.a. 3.9 22 12 100 0
1962 44 3.5 57 12 100 0
l%3 46 3.7 60 12 100 0
1%4 49 4.3 62 12 100 0
1965 52 4.8 63 12 100 0
1966 57 4.9 64 15 100 0
1967 61 5.4 65 15 100 0
1968 66 6.5 68 20 100 0
1%9 68 7.3 68 20 75 0
1970 70 6.4 69 20 100 0
1971 80 7.4 75 25 100 0
1972 100 8.0 146 28 % 0
1973 114 8.3 152 24 100 0
1974 127 3.4 151 21 100 0
1975 147 2.5 145 24 100 0
1976 146 (2.4) 133 24 91 0
1977 152 (5.1) 141 21 100 0
1978 153 6.8 142 21 100 0
1979 165 17.0 154 36 65 35
1980 226 12.6 135 24 100 0
Source: Annual Reports kept in Burton Collection, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds.
*Statutory Information %age describes the proportion of each report devoted to the accounts, notes to the accounts and
directors’ and chairman’s report.
consolidated balance sheet were provided for
the first time, as was a consolidated and com-
pany profit and loss account. These were
included henceforward. In 1947, the same
information was now produced, wholly on
white paper, in booklet form, the covers and
contents amounting to 12 pages, each 10
inches by 8. In 1948, an otherwise identical
report indicated that Peter Robinson, the Lon-
don based department store chain was being
acquired, as a first step into female fashion.
In 1949, a year when post-war profits
reached a high of &342,000, the booklet was
embellished with four black and white draw-
ings. Hudson MilIs, Leeds, one of Burton’s
giant factories, featured on the front, Burton
House, the tirm’s Leeds head office, featured
inside the front cover, and inside the back
cover, Peter Robinson’s London store was
shown, with BurtonvilIe Clothing Works, Man-
chester, on the rear cover. It was interesting to
note that the 1948 Companies Act, which intro-
duced new disclosure requirements, made no
visible difference, since Burton had for several
years provided the necessary details. According
to Edwards (1989, p. 129) this was typical.
The modest 1949 essay in visual representa-
tion was not repeated, however, a develop
ment perhaps linked with a fall in profits to
S526,OOO the following year, and the informa-
tion that had been provided since 1945 was
given in a plain paper booklet until 1954. Nota-
ble items in the directors’ reports of these years
were the death of Sir Montague, in 1952, and in
1953, the acquisition of Jackson the Tailor. In
1954, perhaps reflecting a slight lifting of the
92 S. MCKINSTRY
sense of austerity, the report was given two
stiff grey card covers. In 1957, against a back-
ground of steadily rising profits, the covers
were given a glossy turquoise finish, plain
apart from the company’s name and details of
the year covered by the report and accounts.
This simple presentation formula prevailed
until 1966. That year, the size of the report
was increased to A4, and coincided with a
change in cover colour from turquoise to
white. At the same time the growing require-
ment for notes to the accounts arising from
accounting standards caused the brochure’s
thickness to increase. In 1968 the paper qual-
ity was improved, and notes to the accounts
again increased the brochure size. In 1969
the report was given a white embossed cover,
and was printed on a coarse drawing paper
with five pages of linear design sketches of
clothes included, a statement clearly
intended, in a general way, to align the busi-
ness with ideas of “fashion” and upto-dateness
in the eyes of readers. This development coin-
cided with all-time record profits of &7.3m,
which, when they fell to &64m in 1970, were
presented in a no-nonsense brown card cover
and on plain paper, dropping the illustrations.
As profits grew by &lm to &7.4m in 1971, a
design element reappeared. While the bro-
chure contained only reports and accounts, a
montage of coloured photographs of shop
fronts in the chain appeared on the covers,
against a brown background. At this stage in
Burton’s history, it had begun to transform
itself into “a group of specialist retail chains,
each with a clearly defined market and a dis
tinctive face to the public” (Burton PLC Annual
Report, 1971). It was intended that it should
maintain and develop its dominant position in
the menswear market, but that it should
become less dependent on it as its newer retail-
ing activities grew. Clearly, the menswear side
was perceived as having reached a saturation
point, and growth had to be derived elsewhere.
Evans Outsizes was purchased in 1971, and
Ryman, the office supplies firm, was purchased
at around the same time.
In 1972, with the involvement of CDG
Design Consultants, a firm owned by Ryman,
the brochure featured a white cover incorpor-
ating a montage of twelve shop fronts,
intended to symbolize the diversified nature
of the group. With profits at &3.3m in 1973
falling to &3.4m in 1974, the annual reports
were entrusted to Annual Reports Ltd, whose
simple designs featured shopfronts on the front
covers, against a primrose yellow background.
In 1975, Lloyd Northover was given the design
of the annual report, and while its exterior was
a plain primrose yellow, page 3 contained a list
of the constituent parts of the group, below
which a water colour of an imaginary High
Street showed frontages representing the nine
shop chains at this time within it: Burton, Top
Shop (a female fashion chain created inside the
Peter Robinson group), Ryman, Evans, Peter
Robinson, Jackson the Tailor and Greens,
Browns of Chester and Burton of London. In
this modest way, Burton sought to convey
something of its strategic intentions.
In 1976 and 1977, developments within the
clothing sector conspired with macro-eco
nomic forces to take the business into loss in
each year (&2.4m and &5.lm, respectively). A
steady downturn in made-to-measure suits had
been in evidence since the 1960s coupled with
a growing preference for casual clothes, many
of which were being imported. The inflation-
ary pressures caused by the oil shocks of the
1970s combined with these factors to create
vast production overcapacity and trading
losses, and manufacturing capability was there-
fore radically cut. The outward expression of
these adverse forces was a return in 1977 and
1978 to plain brown covers for the annual
report which was produced by Whatmough’s,
a printing firm. Inside, the standard statutory
and quasi-statutory information was provided,
on thin, cheap paper. By 1979, however, prof-
its were at an all time high of &17.0m, and the
company’s fiftieth anniversary called for a cel-
ebratory annual accounts brochure.
This was, quite naturally in the circum-
stances, entrusted to Fitch Design, which at
that point was already one of Britain’s largest
interior design houses. Rodney Fitch, at the
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 93
head of this business, had been a former associ-
ate of Terence Conran, and had been closely
involved in the design of Habitat shops in the
1960s. His firm had been given a large share of
Burton’s store design business. The result of
Fitch’s involvement in the annual report was
a 36page brochure. On its covers, a coloured
drawing depicted mixed male and female cus-
tomers in the young and early middle-aged cate-
gories, carrying bags featuring the various
Burton Group brand names. At the rear of the
brochure, a scrapbook-like illustrated history of
the company was included. Five coloured
photographs of stores were featured on the
front end-paper, and a full-page picture of a
Top Shop frontage was placed next to the
chairman’s statement. This pictorial material
did not, however, attempt to supplant the tra-
ditional chairman’s statement, director’s report
and accounts, with notes, which remained as
the centrepiece of the report, although it was
the first to contain photographs.
In 1980, profits fell to &I26m, as the French
fashion chain, St Remy, which had been
acquired in the early 1960s recorded substan-
tial losses, and the Ryman office equipment
chain, acquired in 1971, was sold. The annual
report, again by Fitch, was a cutdown version
of its predecessor. Shop signs symbolizing the
various stores in the group were featured on
the front covers and on the end papers, includ-
ing some views of stock in the various shops,
but this did not interfere with its substance, the
usual statutory and quasi-statutory information.
In summary, Burton’s annual reports to 1980
were not substantially affected by design or
designers. Indeed, until the 1979 report was
produced, the work could have been handled
by any good commercial printer, with a little
assistance from a photographer or graphic
artist. There is no doubt that by this time there
lay within the paper, printing, graphic design
and photographic industries the technological
and creative potential for far more.
RETAIL CHANGE AND BURTON IN THE
EARLY 1980s
In 1980 Britain was about to witness what
Gardner & Sheppard (1989) have called “the
rise of retail culture”. Since the late 1950s
and early 1960s major shifts in economic pros
perity had been making themselves apparent.
Disposable income rose, and an increase in the
range and type of products available was
experienced, in the wake of gradual post-war
recovery. A relatively aBIuent and fashion con-
scious teenage market, the result of the post-
war baby boom, was looking for products,
styles and cultural experiences tailored to their
own needs. One manifestation of this was the
rise of the boutique in the 1950s and 1960s. In
1964 Habitat opened its first store, selling “an
aspirational, and affordable, image of domestic
living to a young, post-war generation looking
for a way to differentiate themselves from the
traditional pre-war values and tastes of their
parents” (Gardner & Sheppard, 1989, p. 77).
Terence Conran recalls a “strange moment
when people stopped needing, and need chan-
ged to want . . . designers became more
important in designing ‘want’ products rather
than ‘need’ products” (Gardner & Sheppard,
1989, pp. 77-78).
In fashion terms, the general experience in
Britain until the late 1960s was for clothes
shops to offer a whole range of goods for every
age group. Younger customers selected the
youngest-looking items they could find. Some
of the seeds of the retailing revolution that was
to come were sown by no less than Conran
himself, at the behest of the managing director
of Peter Robinson, a Burton Group company,
which, as was noted, was acquired in the late
1940s. In 1966, Conran was asked to design an
in-house boutique called Peter Robinson Top
Shop. This was the first time, according to
Gardner and Sheppard, that a large women’s
wear chain had identified and focused upon a
specific segment of the population, women of
18-25. This highly successful venture, which
was to be copied by others, was externalized,
becoming a chain within the Burton Group in
94 S. MCKINSTRY
its own right in the 1970s and Rodney Fitch,
Conran’s erstwhile associate, had been given
the commission to redesign the Top Shop out-
lets in the 1970s. Indeed, Fitch’s reputation
was to be substantially made within the Burton
group, as he went on to gain the commissions
to design and redesign businesses subsequently
acquired or created by Burton in the 1970s and
1980s such as Dorothy Perkins, Top Man, Prin-
ciples, or Top Girl. By the start of the 1980s
“market segmentation” was the general prac-
tice throughout the British retail fashion sec-
tor, and it was inextricably linked with design
and the notion of “Iifestyle”. The managements
of retail fashion businesses decided on the tar-
get groups, carefully segmented by age and
income, interiors were designed to reflect or
project “lifestyle” scenarios for these custo-
mers, and the clothes were the “stars” of the
show. This was a situation that Burton had
played a major part in creating, and from
which it would shortly benefit in an unprece-
dented way.
In 1981 another development of significance
for Burton took place. Ralph Halpem, who had
been a director since 1977, took over as chair-
man. The son of a businessman who had
owned department stores and factories in
Vienna before the war, Halpem had spent a
substantial period of his working life in the
Peter Robinson subsidiary. In 1973, it was he
who had been responsible for launching Top
Shop as a separate outlet, and within a year
there were 40 such stores, the chain quickly
becoming Burton’s most profitable division.
Halpem had also been party to the launch of
Top Man, the male counterpart of Top Shop,
which catered for men under 30. Clearly, he
was a supporter, and at times initiator, of the
new shopping formulas that were beginning to
transform retailing (RetadZ, 1983, pp. 5-7).
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE AND ITS
REPORTING 1981-1994
Coinciding with Halpem’s accession, a new
designer was appointed for the 1981 annual
report - Good Relations Design. At this point
in Burton’s history, the Group Secretary, Gerald
Slater was responsible for the annual report.
The 1981 report’s covers were of embossed
silver, and inside, after the chairman’s report,
pictures and profiles of the “executive manage-
ment board” were featured. Next, seven high-
gloss coloured pages of shop interiors, featur-
ing fashion models in “lifestyle” poses, empha-
sized the company’s policy of market
segmentation. After the accounting informa-
tion, the firm’s transportation and manufactur-
ing facilities were introduced, with pictures,
and its involvement with credit cards, a rapidly
expanding feature of the 1980s was likewise
illustrated. The 1982 and 1983 reports, bearing
news of all-time record profits, followed suit,
the 1982 report having an embossed gold
metallic cover, and the 1983 version, covers
of pale metallic blue. Inside, against a back-
ground of shop frontages and interiors, record
menswear and womenswear sales and profits
were disclosed, but there was little detail con-
cerning management or policy for each chain.
Clearly, though, these reports maintained the
trend towards a more visual presentation,
although it is arguable that a shareholder who
kept his eyes open in the High Street and who
read the chairman’s and directors’ report
would have learned little from the pictures. In
a sense, the reports of 1981, 1982 and 1983
were no great advance, informationally, on
what had gone before, although presentation-
ally superior. The above details and subsequent
developments are summarized in statistical
form in Table 2.
It is important to pause and reflect on the
nature of the evolving design industry at this
stage, as revealed by the developments already
outlined. Fitch, designers of shop interiors, was
an example of the new, large design company
that had been evolving from the end of the
1960s and through the 1970s. While it was a
business that would in theory handle any
branch of design, as witnessed by its involve-
ment in Burton’s annual reports, events (and no
doubt management preferences) had conspired
to ensure that the dominant element in its busi-
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 95
TABLE 2. Burton - Annual report statistics 1981-1994
Year Sales (6n) Profit Before
TaX
(fin)
Total &sets
(fm)
No. of Pages statutory
Information
%age’
Photographs
%age
1981 219 16.4 147 39 76 20
1982 234 24.3 222 36 80 20
1983 299 39.1 239 36 80 20
1984 416 56.4 261 56 43 32
1985 551 80.2 369
84
32 38
1986 1,217 148.7 441 87
30 56
1987 1,339 183.4 523 57 40 26
1988 1,590 211.7 619 60 41 23
1989 1,819 216.8 727 68
53 34
1990 1,801 133.1 738
68 49 20
1991 1,661 (165.4) 714 57 58 15
1992 1,765 9.4 701 54 72 15
1993 1,893 18.5 853
42 69 38
1994 1,910 41.1 867 60 78 22
Source: Annual Reports kept in Burton Collection, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds.
*Statutory Information %age describes the proportion of each report devoted to the accounts, notes to the accounts and
directors’ and chairman’s report.
ness was retail interior design and redesign,
previously the province of architects. In con-
trast, Good Relations Design was an example
of the kind of practice in which design was
subsumed as part of a group specializing in
communications. This firm was part of Chime
Communications PLC, and had, as sister com-
panies, businesses in public relations, financial
public relations and corporate communica-
tions2 Another variant on this model was the
communications company that included adver-
tising with these other elements. Indeed, Olins
(1978, p. 155) notes that it was this latter type
of firm which became dominant in Britain in
the 1950s and 1960s inspired by Lippincott
and Margulies of New York and London. Firms
such as this would recruit management consul-
tants as well as designers. Desfgn Week, the
main news organ within the design industry,
still quotes the share prices of the larger com-
panies in two groups: “Design/Architectural”
firms, and “Communications Groups involving
design” (1986-1994). What is clear from the
Burton study so far is that, until 1983, an impor-
tant designer in each category had been
involved, but it is plain that these major
players by this point were attuned to enhan-
cing, rather than transforming, the traditional
financial statements and directors’ reports.
By 1984, however, a combination of circum-
stances led to the introduction of an annual
report that, as far as Burton was concerned,
broke new ground. Deregulation of the finan-
cial sector and booming property prices in Brit-
ain had combined with falling inflation and
rising wages to expand consumer confidence,
and Burton’s profits leapt by almost 50% to
L56.4m, an all-time record. By this time, as
Gardner and Sheppard (1989, pp. 24-25)
note, “the scope for retail expansion through
organic growth was restricted - the easiest
way to sustain it was by merger and acquisi-
tion.” High Street sites were becoming increas-
ingly diicult to acquire and rents were
soaring. In variety stores and food, nearly a
quarter of businesses were to change hands
between 1982 and 1988, as did a tenth of fur-
niture stores and a fifth of department stores
(Gardner & Sheppard, 1989, p. 25). The Bur-
ton Group, sensing how things were tending
L The parent company is now known as Lowe Bell Communications PLC
96 S. MCKINSTRY
and in preparation for acquisition, decided at tics for forward planning, and so on” (Retail,
around this time that its City image required 1983, p. 7), was at the time using Lowe Bell
enhancement. Halpern, whose practice it was Financial, a sister company of Good Relations
to employ “a mixture of specialists and outside Design, within the Chime Communications
consultancies to handle public relations, mar- Group, to improve the City’s perception of a
keting, store design, sales promotions, statis- business which, in spite of its recent spectacu-
Fig. 1. Front Cover, 1984 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 97
lar success, still in some quarters carried over-
tones of men’s made-to-measure suits.
As a result, Halpern took a direct interest in
the production of the annual report for the first
time, and the synergy generated through his
involvement with the two sister communica-
tions companies resulted in a production that
was, first and foremost, a public relations docu-
ment. Its front covers proclaimed, through a
montage of design sketches of clothes anno-
tated with the Burton Group brand names,
that it was in the forefront of fashion. (See
Fig. 1.)
The message “contributing to lifestyle”,
below the company name, conveyed to read-
ers that it fully understood and was exploiting
the dominant consumer mentality which char-
acterized the period: that clothes were a means
by which the afhuent consumer could display
status and assume, or change, identities. The
contents of the report were carefully orche-
strated. Inside the front cover, a corporate
statement left readers in no doubt that:
The Group is one of the leading multiple clothing retai-
lers in the United Kingdom. Its stores feature in the
High Street of every major town and city, offering an
extensive range of high quality, fashionable clothing
and accessories to precisely defined market sectors.
The Group’s strategy is based on one over-riding
objective - identifying and meeting the lifestyle needs
of customers in each of its target markets (Burton PLC
Annual Report, 1984).
It went on to state that each division was
managed by an autonomous team, reporting
directly to the main board. There followed a
page of financial highlights, then a page of
operational milestones, profiles of the direc-
tors (illustrated), and a short financial review.
Thereafter, the chairman’s statement preceded
a stunningly illustrated series of detailed
reviews of each of the key divisions, each intro-
duced by a fulI page photograph of a model
dressed in “lifestyle” clothes appropriate to
the store chain in question, and giving particu-
lars of developments and strategy in each case.
One example is shown in Fig. 2.
The financial statements, on grey paper, then
Fig. 2. IUustration from Top Shop Review, p. 14, 1984
Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
followed. The report exuded a sense of style
and managerial competence. When it arrived
in City letterboxes at the turn of 1985, it must
surely have impressed, from every point of
view.
During 1985, as trading boomed and profits
mounted, Burton set its sights on its largest
acquisition ever, the ailing department store
chain, Debenhams, valued at &450/ &500m.
The chain, which had 67 shops, lacked an over-
all identity, the interiors “resembled grey, clut-
tered, unfathomable rabbit warrens” (Gardner
& Sheppard, 1989, p. 86). It had become, as
these authors note, “the store of last resort”.
Here lay an opportunity and a challenge to
Halpem and his board. Institutional investors
had, however, to be persuaded that the Burton
offer, which consisted of shares or a cash alter-
native, ought to be accepted, when it was
made in May. What did Burton plan to do
with it and could they be trusted with it? A
98 S. MCKINSTRY
collal ,oration with Terence Conran of Habitat- topped social space out of the centre ( ,f each
Moth ercare was set in train. The larger Deben- store. This was to allow access to redc :signed
hams stores were to be converted to the “gal- and themed “shops-within-a-shop”, reac :hed by
leria” or “atrium” concept, which involved “travelscators”. The whole concept w ‘as cre-
carvti ng an exciting, lavishly finished glass ated to entice customers on to the
upper
Fig. 3. Debenhams’ Croydon atrium, p. 45, 1985 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 99
floors, which had always been a problem for
department stores. There it was intended that
they should find a range of attractive depart-
ments and in-store concessions, some of which
would be taken up by Habitat or Mothercare.
During the summer of 1985, the House of
Fraser started to build up a stake in Deben-
hams, as did Harris-Queensway, and looking
upon Burton’s bid as hostile, the Debenhams
management, who felt they had been turning
the chain around, planned a management buy-
out. On 2 August, the closing date for the offer,
Burton claimed victory. Their financial perfor-
mance and image of managerial competence,
highlighted so strongly in the previous annual
report, together with widespread approval of
their innovative plans, had undoubtedly com-
bined to convince the institutions (Financial
Times, 1985, passim).
When the 1985 annual report appeared, it
assumed the new format developed the pre-
vious year, that of a corporate communications
and public relations document, with the
accounts at the rear. This time the front cover
message was that Burton Group was “creating
a wider choice”, entirely appropriate in the
light of the Debenhams acquisition. Against a
white background, eight small cover pictures
of products and customers framed the new
atrium of Debenhams Croydon store, which
also featured large inside, as a symbol of what
was to come.* (See Fig. 3.)
The review section, which succeeded the
chairman’s statement and profiles of the execu-
tive management was this time reorganized
into “menswear”, which consisted of “young
fashion”, “mainstream fashion”, “highstyle
fashion” and “sports fashion”, with “women-
Fig. 4. Front Cover, 1986 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
swear” similarly organized. Within each cate-
gory, the progress of the various chains was
discussed in some detail. As before, profits
were recorded at an all-time high of &30.2m.
Good Relations Design would naturally be
disappointed when, in 1986, Burton Group,
with its profits still soaring, gave the contract
for the annual report to Michael Peters Design.s
This practice had been founded on Peters’
brilliance in the area of packaging design, but
by 1986 was a highly successful general prac-
tice in the “Design/ Architectural” category.
The concept which gamed Peters the contract
’ Habitat-Mothercare’s subsequent merger with British Home Stores, creating Storehouse PLC, meant that if Conran had
gone ahead with his plans to locate stores in branches of Debenhams, he would have been competing with himself. For
that reason, Habitat and Mothercare outlets were not introduced.
* Ironically, the atrium illustrated was not a result of the merger, which was completed only months earlier. It had been
conceived and designed by Debenhams before the takeover.
5 Michael Peters Design ceased trading some years ago. The company which now bears the Peters name is different to that
which designed Burton’s annual reports, and does not involve Michael Peters personally.
100 S. MCKINSTRY
was the reformatting of the annual report as a provided a number of articles on health and
fashion magazine resembling Vogue. A rumour beauty, fashion, living, food and travel, and so
persists in design circles that Peters “high- on. These were interspersed with advertise-
jacked” Halpem with the idea on a transatlan- ments. When the annual report appeared, it
tic flight. Vogue always featured the face of a followed this pattern, with the face of a beauti-
beautiful model on the front cover, and inside, ful model resembling Princess Diana (who had
Fig. 5. Illu&ation in Top Shop Review, p. 41, 1986 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 101
appeared in Vogue in 1985) on the front cover.
(See Fig. 4.) The report was still, clearly, in the
same mould as its two predecessors, first and
foremost a public relations document, but
unprecedented in its glamorous visual appeal.
The main theme of the “magazine”, over-
printed on the black PVC in which the model’s
face was swathed, was “successfulIy managing
change”. Also intimated in the same way was
“Debenhams - the latest news” and “Fash-
ioning the future”. The front cover of the
report seemed to say “Burton is fashion”.
Inside, Halpern (who had by this point been
knighted) was listed as “Editor-in-Chief’, and
full page “advertisements” featured models
representing each of the main store chains,
one of which is seen in Fig. 5.
After a few of these “advertisements”, at the
front, a short group corporate statement
related the group’s success to its compilation
of “a portfolio of specialty businesses focused
on clearly defined groups of people.” Financial
highlights were next illustrated with bar charts
in the form of strips of cloth, after which the
chairman’s statement followed. This was pre-
ceded by a picture of Sir Ralph, bled over
two pages, in shirtsleeves. A model in black
satin was framed behind him, ambiguous, but
perhaps intended to symbolize change, and
alongside, a thinly veiled piece of self-congratu-
lation, a quotation taken from the I nvestor’s
Chronicle, which had noted that a few major
retailers had produced “a quality of manage-
ment unrivalled in other parts of the econ-
omy.” Thereafter, informative reviews of
major parts of the business were provided in
magazine article format, followed by the
accounts. The whole fashion magazine effect
was cemented together through the use of
playfully and informally spaced sans serif and
lower case typefaces, often using brilliant, fully
saturated colours, and offset against large tracts
of white. To complete this celebration of cor-
porate success, the front cover of the brochure
was made up as a poster, which was displayed
in the London underground system and, in lar-
ger format, on hoardings around the capital. It
seemed to encapsulate the spirit of the age.
The 1986 brochure, with its prominent self-
congratulatory statements, may also be seen as
a prelude to an Annual General Meeting where
the chairman sought approval for an extrava-
gant share option package for senior execu-
tives. The background to this share option
package is relevant to our discussion. Substan-
tial share options had been granted to the Bur-
ton board since 1981, in a remuneration deal
that had almost run its course. The new
scheme was to be in the form of a perfor-
mance-related share option scheme and was
to replace a scheme that had “only” enabled
options of four times annual salary to be
granted. Under the new arrangements, if eam-
ings per share growth exceeded 30% in a five
year period, the same limit would apply. If,
however, EPS growth led to the company
being among the FTSE 100 top 25 companies,
then additional options up to a further four
times emoluments would be payable. This
could, potentially, have led to the directors
holding up to ten per cent of the issued share
capital. Prior to the AGM, concern had been
expressed by some institutions at the possible
dilution of their influence. However, the
scheme was carried through at the AGM. In
May that year, Sir Ralph Halpem and four other
directors exercised options at a profit of some
&3.5 million. This coincided with a pay rise for
Sir Ralph of 35%, resulting from a performance-
related bonus scheme that had been in exis
tence since 1983. It seems no coincidence
that the highlighting of management ability
through “profiles” and self-congratulatory state-
ments characterized the annual accounts bro-
chures from 1981 onwards (Financial Times,
January 1987, passim).
Clearly the 1986 report was difficult to fol-
low. The creative answer devised by Michael
Peters for the 1987 version was to go “up”,
in several senses, as indeed, the profits had
again done. First, the fashion statement made
on the front cover was slightly more “up mar-
ket” than its predecessor: a model in a beauti-
fully tailored red suit, and wearing a large
picture hat, gave off a less sensuous air than
the previous report’s front cover. (See Fig. 6.)
102 S. MCKINSTRY
Fig. 6. Front Cover, 1987 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
Second, the size of the report was doubled to a
remarkable A3, which when opened, gave the
reader the sense of handling a fashion
designer’s portfoli~.~
Inside, as before, substantial business
reviews around the repeated theme of “suc-
cessfully managing change” followed the chair-
man’s statement, with the accounts at the rear.
Because of the large format used, the typeface
size was reduced, allowing the number of
pages to drop. A feeling of classic gravity was
added through the use of monochrome photo-
graphy in parts of the report. Of relevance in
interpreting this striking but relatively
restrained report was the strong possibility
that Sir Ralph, whose private life had been
highlighted in the tabloid press the year pre-
viously and linked with the glamorous annual
report of 1986, was now adopting a lower pro-
file.
The 1988 report, with profits still rising,
introduced a new general concept, that the
company had “come of age”. This keynote
notion was not printed on the cover, as pre-
viously, but suggested instead by a portfolio-
like cover, made of grainy turquoise drawing
paper, its front decorated with a small cream
strip bearing the logotypes of the different
brands. Its flap opened to reveal a mission state-
ment, and the various sections were accessed
by colour-coded tab indices. As ever, no
expense was spared, with lavish photography
and high quality paper throughout.
The final report by Michael Peters Design, as
ever, was a virtuoso piece. The annual review
section of the 1989 report was butted on to the
financial review upside down, so that each end
could be read from the front by turning the
document through 180 degrees. In comparison
with the financial review section, which had a
navy blue cover, the general review featured a
casually and brightly dressed young couple in a
happy embrace, conveying a general sense of
upbeat modernity, which the reader was
intended to associate with the company. (See
Fig. 7.)
Serrated index strips reinforced the fashion
theme and at the same time emphasized the
message that the company now had three
important divisions, retailing, financial services
and property. This report was the last in a ser-
ies that displayed high visual originality and
various forms of tactile appeal that sought to
compel a response.
By 1990, the forces of economic change had
gripped the firm. Escalating interest rates had
begun to affect mortgage repayments and to
bite savagely into the disposable income of
the general public. That year the profits
slumped by some 40%, as a result of a slight
drop in turnover, the first for ten years, falling
’ A small number of A4 reports were also produced, to fit into City tiling cabinets. For this reason, surviving copies may be
found In both A3 and A4 formats.
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 103
Fig. 7. Front Cover, 1989 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
margins and increasing interest costs, which
had almost doubled over a period of four
years. In addition, the company, which had
been cultivating their property development
business throughout the decade, decided to
make extraordinary provisions of &169m
against it. Sir Ralph Halpern resigned in Novem-
ber that year, a fellow director of some years’
standing, Laurence Cooklin, taking over as
Group Chief Executive, with Sir John Hos-
kyns, who had just joined as a nonexecutive
director, taking over as Chairman. As is usual in
such circumstances, a fresh annual report
designer was appointed, after a “beauty par-
ade”, the term employed in the design industry
to denote the selection process, which consists
of a number of invited designers producing a
portfolio of work and/ or responding to a sam-
ple brief. The successful bidder was Sampson
Tyrrell, part of the huge WPP Group, a world-
wide communications business.
Clearly the “creative challenge” was consid-
erable: how to emphasize a solid business strat-
egy for the future, against a background of
reports that were creative, and perhaps even
controversial. As was customary for a new
design agency, the Iirm undertook extensive
soundings of City opinion re Burton’s, and a
programme of shop visits, to get the “feel” of
the business. The resultant report was given a
crisp, glossy coat, half black, half white, with
little embellishment, and bearing the words “A
strategy for the 90s”. As usual the verbal mate-
rial came before the accounts, which were
right at the end. Inside the front cover, a short
policy statement headed “The Group in the
90s” advised that it would be attending to the
“largest and fastest growing mass markets” and
that cash management would be rated “as
highly as retailing flair”. The chairman in his
statement predictably announced a “return to
the core retailing business”. This was followed
by a series of reviews of the retail chains, with
models caught in motion by means of freeze-
frame photography. It was also announced that
the Burton chain was “seeking the older custo-
mer”. The report, while still clearly an expen-
sive one, managed to convey a sense of
optimism without appearing extravagant.
A dramatic drop in trading performance
called for a completely different design
approach and resulted in responsibility for
the next report being given to Merchant Cor-
porate Design, in conjunction with the Square
Red Studio, this business being part of the
Brunswick Group, a large communications
company. The 1991 report was prepared
against a background of substantial losses of
&165.4m, and what was required for its audi-
ence was a sense of reassurance that a situation
of the utmost gravity was completely under
control. During the year, sales had fallen by
eight per cent, and a further &139m was writ-
ten off property. A %lblm rights issue was suc-
cessfully completed. The new top management
had clearly decided that, coinciding with the
losses and impending new standards, Burton’s
accounting should be cleaned up. The 1990
gearing was restated at 62%, reflecting off-bal-
ance sheet borrowings of &136m, which were
104
S. MCKINSTRY
being included for the first time. Smith (1992,
pp. 82-86) notes that Burton had been
involved in off-balance sheet finance since
1986. On this new basis, gearing had been
reduced to 43% in 1991. The annual report
cover bore no textual message, but its
restrained and serious character was empha-
sized with a mid-grey jacket, upon which a
tiny pattern of brand names was picked out
in pale grey with a touch of yellow, suggesting
the “core business” approach. The review part
of the report was printed in a conservative
black typeface, on white, and the accounts, as
in the previous year, were on recycled off-
white paper. Inside the front page, in contrast
with the messages of the 198Os, reference was
made to the economic circumstances in which
the company operated, “the toughest experi-
enced in the last 20 years”. Clearly, manage-
ment took credit for the good years, and the
economy was now taking the blame for bad
Fig. 8. Debenhams’ customers, p. 11, 1991 Report.
(Reproduced by permission.)
years. However, the 62 word statement
included the reassurance that changes were
being made to return the group to its position
as “the U.K.‘s leading and most profitable fash-
ion business.” The usual reviews of the chains
followed, each with a single picture of a typical
customer (not models), and a brief commen-
tary. An example is shown in Fig. 8.
This section was vastly reduced in size, and
was intended to introduce a note of realism.
The whole brochure was serious in tone,
shorter and therefore cheaper than its immedi-
ate predecessors, but still, as an object, a qual-
ity document.
In 1992, a year when the company
returned to a modest profit of &9.4m, Mer-
chant Corporate Design found a solution
that satisfied the chairman’s desire to make
a personal statement regarding the changes
that were being made, untrammelled by
direct commentary on the results. This was
achieved through the expedient of two docu-
ments, a separately bound review, and a cor-
responding accounts brochure, held together
in a sober navy blue folder, the same colour
as the brochure jackets. Inside the review,
the opening page heralded “A New Direc-
tion”, illustrated in grave but fashionable
monochrome. (See Fig. 9.)
An “interview” with Sir John Hoskyns
revealed that he considered the board needed
to “rebuild” the group. Good profits from the
1980s had diverted attention away from inter-
nal problems. The recession was “only partly to
blame” for the firm’s downturn. The group had
diverted from “its real business”. A “break with
the past” was required, and the Chief Execu-
tive, Laurence Cooklin, resigned, making way
for John Hoemer, of Debenhams. The chains
had been competing with each other, and
“teamwork” was missing. A programme
named “Blueprint” was initiated to rationalize
the group’s presence in town and city centres.
A section of the review was headed “Back to
Basics”. The chairman’s statement made speci-
fic mention of the audit committee’s regular
meetings.
The same formula applied for 1993. A grey
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 105
Fig. 9. Title page, 1992 Review brochure. (Reproduced by permission.)
106 S. MCKINSTRY
P0r-l
folio contained a separate review and headed up “Laying the foundations for the
accc mnts document, but this time sumptuous future”. Inside, chain reviews were integt *ated
cola Iur photography returned to the covers into a continuous story which emphasized that
and interior, emphasizing the products and out- “best practice” was being dissemin lated
lets. (See Fig. 10.) Profits had doubled to throughout the group. It was announced that
f18. 5m, and the first page of the review was during 1993, the Burton’s chain had “retu rned
Fig. 10. Front Cover, 1993 Accounts brochure. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 107
to its roots as the good value source of clothes
for the mainstream British male.” It is clear that
the document was intended as a contrast to its
more sober monochrome predecessor, and
that the controlled release of colour was to
convey a feeling of growing optimism.
By 1994, with profits close to the 1983/ 1984
levels, the need for separate and clear state-
ments of policy, and therefore separate bro-
chures, was no longer felt, and the annual
report again became a single document. It
still, of course, retained its public relations
bias. The 1994 design was, however, in a con-
servative vein. Merchant Corporate Design,
whose design for the 1994 Coats Viyella PLC
report was awarded the Stock Exchange/ Char-
tered Accountants’ prize, gave the report a
tame but brightly pleasant front cover, its top
third banded in kingfisher blue, and the lower
two thirds showing four rather dark coloured
photographs of a shop interior, a staff design
discussion, and two High Street views. A brief
statement on the index page stated that the
company was “one of the largest fashion retai-
lers in the U.K.“, and had six divisions. Strate-
gic aims were therefore implicit, as against
their explicit antecedents. The whole bro-
chure was on white “environmentally respon-
sible” papers, and was printed in a transitional
serifed typeface, such as might be found in a
conservatively designed academic book. The
whole document gave off a sense of respect-
ability and restraint. After the chief executive’s
and chairman’s reviews were individual chain
reviews, continuing the policy of showing
photographs of “real” shop interiors, staff and
customers. The report was notable for two
innovations: sales, profits and numbers of
stores were shown in bar chart form alongside
the pictures in the reviews. This was the first
time individual chain results had been provided
to readers. Second, a financial review, by the
Finance Director, was included, revealing a dra-
matic slashing of gearing to only 9.2%, made
possible through the sale of the balance of
the non-retail property portfolio and careful
cash management. A progress report on the
“Townprint” programme was provided and
illustrated (Fig. 11).
These last enhancements show a developing
awareness of the demands of the City for annual
report information. In connection with the
1995 annual report awards issued by the Stock
Exchange and the Chartered Accountants, Sir
David Tweedie noted with approval in a press
release that there was a general tendency to a
greater disclosure in recent accounts of
“financial and operational activities”, and
John Kemp-Welch commented on ‘the better
balance being achieved in financial reporting in
the U.K.” in the sense that it was tending to
meet “the reasonable expectations of share-
holders without being overelaborate” (L.on-
don Stock Exchange and the Chartered
Accountants, Press Release, 8 February 1995).
Burton’s latest report fits these criteria entirely,
and they are clearly understood by their award-
winning design agency. What is of more rele-
vance is the rather obvious desire of the pre-
sent board to present a solid and safe image to
the City.
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
It has been shown above that, particularly
since 1984, the annual report has been used
by Burton as a corporate public relations and
communications document of the first magni-
tude. Every conceivable design device has been
used by the company and its design contractors
to portray it and its top management in the best
possible light, and to iniluence the perceptions
of the City and the individual investor. Indeed,
the publicity material issued by annual report
designers makes it clear this is their aim (Lowe
Bell Communications, 1994).
We are now in a position to ask how Bur-
ton’s use of design and designers in annual
reports fits in chronologically with develop
ments in annual reporting both in the United
States and in the United Kingdom. Clagett and
Hirasuna’s text to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum’s
A Hi stori cal Revi ew of Annual Report Desi gn
(1988) suggests that, by the early 1960s annual
108 S. MCKINSTRY
Fig. 11. “Townprint” illustration, p. 25, 1994 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS I09
reports designed slightly earlier by Paul Rand
and Robert Miles Runyan for IBM and Litton,
respectively, led the way in portraying the
“personality and character” of firms. These
designers were among the lirst to deploy
“striking typographic arrangements, coated
paper stock, the deliberate use of white space
and dramatic pictures by famous photogra-
phers” (Clagett & Hirasuna, 1988, p. 17).’ It
was not until the mid-1970s, though, that the
annual report emerged in the United States, “as
possibly the most important corporate market-
ing piece” (ibid). This chronology is corrobo-
rated by the appearance of Graphis Annual
Reports (1971), “the first book ever to be
devoted to the conception and design of
annual reports”, its foreword also indicating
that the development of the annual report
into a major corporate communication was a
contemporary American phenomenon.
In terms of U.K. comparators, the reports of
some key firms have been examined, although
this is clearly an area where much more detailed
research is required. In the retail field, Marks
and Spencer, until 1983, produced a plain bro-
chure containing only statutory and quasi-statu-
tory data. By 1984, a similar report was wrapped
in a bright green cover, and in 1985, the cover
featured a colour photograph of a store and the
statement “Investing in the Future”. This con-
cept was not carried on inside the report in a
thoroughgoing way, however, and it was only in
1987, when Addison Design became involved,
that the report came to resemble, in length,
opulence and balance, what Burton had been
doing for several years. A similar pattern
emerges in the reports of Boots PLC. Until
1977, these were relatively plain, and that year
some coloured pictures were added to celebrate
the company’s centenary. Divisional reviews
appeared in 1985, when Charles Barker City
Designs became involved. By 1987, in lavish-
ness, coverage and organization, the Boots
report came to resemble that of Burton. In the
non-retail field, ICI’s reports before the 1980s
exhibit a little more designer involvement than
others. Pictures of directors, in black and white,
were provided in 1963, but soon dropped. In
1967, trade marks and logotypes were given in
colour inside the front covers, and again imme-
diately dropped. In 1971, a coloured picture of
ICI’s Wilton Works featured on the front and
rear covers, and coloured cover pictures contin-
ued until 1980, when, coinciding with a drop in
profits, the report reverted to plain paper. In
1983, with the involvement of Timothy Guy
Design, a report capable of being described as
a corporate communications document was
first produced, under John Harvey-Jones’ chair-
manship. In BP’s annual reports during the
1960s and the 1970s an increasing level of
reviews and pictures finally culminated, in
1985, in a document comparable with Burton’s
1984 report.
In summary, Burton’s first use of the annual
report as a major communications medium in
1984 places it among the earliest of those IJ.K.
companies examined to do so, and perhaps ten
years behind developments in the U.S.A. in this
respect. It is noteworthy that in spite of its use
of designers of fashions and shop interiors
before and throughout the 1970s this placed
it very little distance ahead of firms which were
less involved in design. A “total design” con-
cept linking brands, shop interiors, annual
reports and other corporate stationery was
never applied.
The final objective of the paper is to evaluate
post-1984 developments in Burton’s annual
report, and in doing so to address one impor-
tant question. Has the emergence of the annual
report as a corporate public relations tool been
a desirable development? This is not a naive
question. In his thoughtful history of typogra-
phy, Kinross (1992, pp. 142-143) has noted
that recent criticisms of graphic design in offi-
cial documents have centred around the use of
typography to reinforce the language of the
“text” and that “the needs and desires of users
. . may be at awkward variance with the
’ The rhetorical power of paper should not be underestimated. Gilbert, a U.S. paper producer, advertises its products as
“paper with presence” (B-W, May/June 1986, p. 49).
110 S. MCKINSTRY
wishes of producers.” If there has been disquiet
about the manipulative design of official docu-
ments, it appears not to have been paralleled in
the field of annual reports. Neither here nor ln
America has any substantial level of dissent con-
cerning the changing character of the annual
report been recorded. As noted above, its chan-
ging function was accomplished over several
decades as the design industry matured and mar-
ried its interests with those of large entities.
The first cause for concern in this area is the
relationship that exists between the design
agency and the commissioning company. As
Clagett and Hirasuna note, “The corporation
determines the final form because it holds fman-
cial control and wants to convey its own mes-
sage” (1988, p. 30). This is perhaps a natural
relationship in other spheres, but what is differ-
ent in the area of annual report production is the
fact that its legal justification, the requirement
for audited accounting statements, was origin-
ally intended as a protection for shareholders
and creditors, achieved through independent
third party check. What has now happened is
that management’s “self-written report card”, as
Clagett and Hirasuna (p. 30) put it, supersedes,
both in volume and position, the audited
accounts. On the face of it, this seems an ill-
advised development, if the non-statutory mate-
rial is capable of overriding in the minds of read-
ers the numerical and other statutory messages
now relegated to the rear of annual reports.
It appears unlikely that financial journalists,
City analysts or lenders are so gullible that they
place much credence on management state-
ments, however artfully presented, that are at
variance with the audited material. This seems
to be borne out by the remarks of John Kemp
Welch, quoted above, to the effect that a “bet-
ter” balance, a trend away from the “over-ela-
borate”, was showing itself in today’s annual
reports, and also by a recent MORI poll of
City analysts which indicates that they value
least the photographic content of annual
reports (MORI, 1994). The small shareholder
also needs to be considered in this context.
Burton’s annual report for 1988 reveals that
33% of equity was then in non-institutional
hands. Who knows how many bought, sold,
or held shares during these years, influenced
by the appearance and dominant messages
rather than the substance of the annual
report? Of relevance, too, is a recent British
survey which indicates that 54% of sample
firms gave annual reports to employees (Arlin,
1993, p. 9). The recent privatizations in Britain
have also led to large numbers of employee
shareholders, who may be assumed to lack
the technical and discriminatory skills that
might lead to a less sanguine view of annual
reports. Are readers such as these well placed
to make judgements about management’s one-
sided, visually assisted “trailers” for remunera-
tion packages, such as that presented by Bur-
ton’s annual report in 1986, and should
shareholders pay for these out of profits?
It may be argued that corporate communica-
tions and advertising, the latter, according to
Olins (1978, p. 73) involving “a web of truth,
half truth and sexual and social innuendo”,
already surrounds us on every hand, and since
society has accepted that, it should also accept
the executive self-advertisement, stemming
from the same industry, that has come to be a
regular component of the annual reports of
quoted companies. It is well known that specia-
lists disagree profoundly on the effects of adver-
tising (discussed by Schudson, 1984, pp. 222-
233), so its harmfulness, or otherwise, is highly
debatable. We do not propose to enter this
contentious field, except to say that the adver-
tising industry on both sides of the Atlantic is at
least subject to regulation, whereas the self-
advertisement of boards and companies is not;
in contrast, it derives much of its credibility from
the regulatory basis of the audited statements
that accompany it, while at times, putting a
gloss on the underlying realities they contain.
The safer option, therefore, would be to
insist, by regulation or some related means,
that the design effort in annual reports should
be focused strictly on the interests of share-
holders. This would amount to turning the con-
siderable talents of the photographers, graphic
designers and copy writers who present man-
agement’s ideas and agendas so well, to the
task of devising creative, beautiful and effec-
tive means of illustrating and explaining the
required statutory and quasi-statutory finan-
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 111
cial, quantitative and factual information. This
would make it more comprehensible and lead
to more effective shareholder participation and
more rational decision making. If the technical-
ities of business and accounting cannot be sim-
plified much, their clearer presentation can
surely aid understanding.
In a sense, this is a plea to close the stable
door after the horse has bolted, but as was
observed, there are some signs, from the
1994 Burton report, inter alia, that a more
sober and restrained approach is being
adopted. Whether or not this stems from a
genuine pent-up disliking for the excesses of
the 1980s or is simply another bandwagon
now occupied by the beneficiaries of that era,
remains to be seen.’ In either case, unless there
is external intervention, designers will con-
tinue to do very competently what they are
paid for by management.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Arfi n, F. N., Annual Reports that Pay tbefr Way (London: Financial Tiies/Pitman, 1993).
British Petroleum PLC (BP), Annual Report and Accounts, 1963-1986.
Boots PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1972-1991.
Burton PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1930- 1994. (Copies of the 1930- 1989 accounts are kept in the
Burton Archives, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds).
Clagett, L. St Hirasuna, D., A Hi stori cal Reui ew of Annual Report &sign (New York: Cooper-Hewitt
Museum, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, 1988).
Desi gn Week, 1986-1994.
Edwards, J. R., A Hi story of Financial Accounti ng (London: Routledge, 1989).
Fi nanci al Ti mes, 13, 23 May 1985, 3, 11, 26 June 1985, 11, 31 July 1985, 2, 16 August 1985 (articles on
Burton’s takeover of Debenhams);
7, 16, 30 January 1987, 16 May 1987, 20 November 1987 (articles on Burton share option schemes).
Gardner, C. &Sheppard, J., Consumi ng Passfon: The Rise of RetaN Culture (London: Unwin Hyman, 1989).
Graphis Annual Reports, (Zurich: Graphis, 1971).
ICI PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1%2-1990.
Rinross, R., Modern Typography: An Essay I n Cri ti cal Htstoy (London: Hyphen Press, 1992).
London Stock Exchange and the Institutes of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, Scotland and
Ireland, Stock Exchange and Chartered Accountants Annual Awards for Publ i shed Accounts (1995
brochure) and Press Release, 8 February 1995.
Lowe Bell Communications, Group Publicity Brochure, 1994.
Marks and Spencer PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1962-1991.
MORVStubbs, R. J. & Fisher-Jones, L., AnnuaI Reports Survey of fnsti tutfonal i nvestors (London: Mori,
1994).
Olins, W., The Corporate Personal l y: An Enqui y i nto the Nature of Corporate I dentfty (London:
Design Council, 1978).
Pri nt, Advertisement, May/June 1986, p. 49.
Retai l , Halpem’s Wig Formula, Summer 1983, pp. 5-7.
Schudson, M., Adverti si ng, Tbe Uneasy Persuasi on: I ts Dubi ous I mpact on Ameri can Soci ety mew
York Basic Books, 1984).
Sigsworth, E., Montague Burton: The TafZor of Taste (Manchester: University Press, 1990).
Smith, T., Accountfng for Growth: Strzppfng the Camouflage from Company Accounts (London: Cen-
tury Business, 1992).
Vogue, 19851986.
* The cycle of annual report design that this study has revealed has gone from “little design involvement” up to the 1970s
to “total design involvement” in the 1980s to “restrained design involvement” in the 1990s. This might be interpreted,
optimistically, as a Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis triadic cycle, and that a sensible balance has now been struck. Over
against this, these movements correspond closely enough with economic cycles to suggest a financial causation and to
raise the possibility that when prosperity reappears, lavishness and all that goes with it will again return.
doc_638758811.pdf
This paper undertakes a historical review of the use of design and designers in the annual reports of
Burton PLC, against a backdrop of the firm’s commercial history. It highlights a subordinate role for
design from 1930 until the 1970s when it was used increasingly to embellish the annual report. Design
assumed a very significant role from 1984,
Pergamon Accountfng, 0rganfzatfon.s and Society, Vol. 21. No. 1, pp. 89-111, 19%
Copyright 0 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd
Printed in Great Britain. Au rights reserved.
0361-3682/% $15.00+0.00
DESIGNING THE ANNUAL REPORTS OF BURTON PLC FROM 1930 TO 1994*
SAM McKINSTRY
University of Paisley
This paper undertakes a historical review of the use of design and designers in the annual reports of
Burton PLC, against a backdrop of the firm’s commercial history. It highlights a subordinate role for
design from 1930 until the 1970s when it was used increasingly to embellish the annual report. Design
assumed a very significant role from 1984, when the firm’s annual report was transformed into a
corporate communications tool. The paper suggests that Burton was among the first British companies
to reach this stage, and that it was some ten years behind the generality of U.S. corporations in this
regard. Using Burton as an example, the study concludes by proposing that the turning of the annual
report into a public relations document has latent disadvantages and by advocating that design briefs in
this area should be differently focused.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a his-
torical account of the involvement of designers
and design in the annual reports of Burton
Group PLC, Britain’s largest fashion retailer.
As yet, there is no single-firm study which
sheds light on the developing involvement of
the post-war design industry in Britain in the
production of annual reports, nor for Britain,
is there yet any general history of annual
report design.’ This paper intends to go some
way towards filling these gaps. It also aims to
highlight the communication and persuasion
techniques consciously and directly employed
by Burton’s annual report designers and man-
agement, and how these relate, over time, to
the fluctuating fortunes of a single firm. In this
connection the paper will conclude by under-
taking a brief evaluation of the annual reports
issued by Burton from 1984, when they
became, first and foremost, corporate commu-
nications documents.
Burton Group PLC was chosen as a subject of
study for several reasons. As a company with a
past and an archival record stretching back to
the earlier decades of the present century, the
process of design in its annual reports was
traceable over a long period of time. A second
reason related to the company’s fashion back-
ground: it seemed logical that a design-oriented
business would be among the first to integrate
l An early version of this paper was presented at the Design History Society’s Annual Conference at Glasgow School of Art
in December 1994. The paper, in its present form, has benefited from the suggestions of Anthony Hopwood. Special
thanks are due to Anthony Parsons of the London College of Printing, and also to Peter Higgins, Jonathan Davis and Nick
Austin, sometime designers of Burton PLC annual reports, who, without betraying commercial confidences, corroborated
and occasionally corrected my interpretations of their work. Thanks are also due to Sampson Tyrrell Ltd and Merchant
Corporate Design, for information sent. Burton PLC also gave information and kindly sent copies of some annual reports.
r A brief history of annual report design in the United States, entitled A Hfstorfcal Review of Annual Report Desfgn,
was written for the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, in 1988 (see
bibliography).
89
90 SMCKINSTRY
design into annual reporting, a hypothesis the
study wili test. A further reason related to the
fact that, in 1987, Burton’s annual report (for
1986) achieved a distinction unusual for such a
document: it came to the attention of the gen-
erai public as a result of widespread press cov-
erage. These factors combined to invite
examination.
The paper wiil proceed chronologically,
weaving the development of Burton’s annual
report around the firm’s business history, and
drawing on a range of evidence that includes
the annual reports themselves and insights pro-
vided by some of the designers that were
involved in their production.
The period studied can be broken into two:
up to 1980, and after it. From that year
onwards, Burton began to enjoy an unprece-
dented level of commercial success, related to
the growth of consumerism and the conse-
quent upsurge in retail activity that coincided
with the Thatcher era. It was also at this time
that the involvement of design and designers in
the firm’s annual reports began to increase
dramatically.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Sigsworth (1990), in his recent biography of
Montague Burton, fleshes out a classic rags-to-
riches story. Burton, born into a Jewish family
in Russia in 1885, emigrated to England in
1900, and by 1903 had opened a gents’ cloth-
ing shop in Chesterfield. Branches followed in
Mansfield (1908) and Sheffield (1909). By the
start of the First World War, there were 14
stores in the north of England, backed by a
number of small workshops in Leeds. The
trade was based on good quality products at
low cost, and a substantial proportion of the
business soon consisted of the bespoke tailor-
ing of men’s suits, with the orders made up in
the workshops. The business was incorporated
as a private company in 1917, when there were
29 shops and substantial work was being
undertaken for the army. There were 60 shops
by 1920, 140 by 1922, and 357 by 1930, spread
throughout Britain. Thanks to the Second
World War, the 1940 total of 595 shops was
not exceeded until 1950, when the figure
rose to 597 (Sigsworth, 1990, passfm).
Throughout the 1920s and 193Os, every
town of consequence in Britain was given its
Burton’s shop, prominently sited, instantly
recognizable, and conveying a sense of “taste-
ful and confidence-giving solidity” (Sigsworth,
1990, p. 45). At every stage, manufacturing
capacity was created to keep pace with
demand. By the end of the 193Os, Burton had
done much to improve the general standard of
dress in Britain, which assisted in breaking
down social barriers. Burton and its smaller
competitors had made it difficult to distinguish
between “workers” and “bosses” on the streets
of Britain. The 1940s was an era of untapped
potential, interrupted by the war and the sup
ply difficulties that followed it, and it was only
after Burton’s death in 1952 that substantial
profits began again to accrue.
PROGRESS AND REPORTING TO 1980
Table 1 provides a framework for a detailed
discussion of business and reporting develop
ments up to 1980.
Montague Burton Ltd became a public com-
pany in 1929. Its annual reports, produced
from 1930 onwards, are unremarkable. What
was known in those early days as the “Report
and Balance Sheet” consisted of two sheets of
white paper, one containing a two-sided bal-
ance sheet, and alongside, a summarized profit
and loss account, audited. On the second page
the “Director’s Report” consisted of a terse
factual account of developments, briefly
expressed in Montague Burton’s lucid English.
The two pages folded lengthways into three.
Black ink and a plain typeface were used
throughout. Apart from the addition of the
“Montague Burton, the Tailor of Taste” trade
mark to the reports, the format remained the
same until 1943, when flimsy paper, reflecting
wartime austerities, was used. This also applied
in 1944, and in 1945, both a company and a
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 91
TABLE 1. Button - Annual report statistics 1930-1980
Year Sales (Em) Profit Before Total Assets No. of Pages Statutory Photographs
TaX
(fm)
Information %age
(fm)
%age*
1930 n.a. 0.4 4 2 100 0
1935 n.a. 0.6 8 2 100 0
1940 n.a. 0.7 10 2 100 0
1945 n.a. 0.3 11 2 100 0
1950 n.a. 0.5 16 12 100 0
1955 n.a. 1.1 18 12 100 0
1960 n.a. 3.9 22 12 100 0
1962 44 3.5 57 12 100 0
l%3 46 3.7 60 12 100 0
1%4 49 4.3 62 12 100 0
1965 52 4.8 63 12 100 0
1966 57 4.9 64 15 100 0
1967 61 5.4 65 15 100 0
1968 66 6.5 68 20 100 0
1%9 68 7.3 68 20 75 0
1970 70 6.4 69 20 100 0
1971 80 7.4 75 25 100 0
1972 100 8.0 146 28 % 0
1973 114 8.3 152 24 100 0
1974 127 3.4 151 21 100 0
1975 147 2.5 145 24 100 0
1976 146 (2.4) 133 24 91 0
1977 152 (5.1) 141 21 100 0
1978 153 6.8 142 21 100 0
1979 165 17.0 154 36 65 35
1980 226 12.6 135 24 100 0
Source: Annual Reports kept in Burton Collection, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds.
*Statutory Information %age describes the proportion of each report devoted to the accounts, notes to the accounts and
directors’ and chairman’s report.
consolidated balance sheet were provided for
the first time, as was a consolidated and com-
pany profit and loss account. These were
included henceforward. In 1947, the same
information was now produced, wholly on
white paper, in booklet form, the covers and
contents amounting to 12 pages, each 10
inches by 8. In 1948, an otherwise identical
report indicated that Peter Robinson, the Lon-
don based department store chain was being
acquired, as a first step into female fashion.
In 1949, a year when post-war profits
reached a high of &342,000, the booklet was
embellished with four black and white draw-
ings. Hudson MilIs, Leeds, one of Burton’s
giant factories, featured on the front, Burton
House, the tirm’s Leeds head office, featured
inside the front cover, and inside the back
cover, Peter Robinson’s London store was
shown, with BurtonvilIe Clothing Works, Man-
chester, on the rear cover. It was interesting to
note that the 1948 Companies Act, which intro-
duced new disclosure requirements, made no
visible difference, since Burton had for several
years provided the necessary details. According
to Edwards (1989, p. 129) this was typical.
The modest 1949 essay in visual representa-
tion was not repeated, however, a develop
ment perhaps linked with a fall in profits to
S526,OOO the following year, and the informa-
tion that had been provided since 1945 was
given in a plain paper booklet until 1954. Nota-
ble items in the directors’ reports of these years
were the death of Sir Montague, in 1952, and in
1953, the acquisition of Jackson the Tailor. In
1954, perhaps reflecting a slight lifting of the
92 S. MCKINSTRY
sense of austerity, the report was given two
stiff grey card covers. In 1957, against a back-
ground of steadily rising profits, the covers
were given a glossy turquoise finish, plain
apart from the company’s name and details of
the year covered by the report and accounts.
This simple presentation formula prevailed
until 1966. That year, the size of the report
was increased to A4, and coincided with a
change in cover colour from turquoise to
white. At the same time the growing require-
ment for notes to the accounts arising from
accounting standards caused the brochure’s
thickness to increase. In 1968 the paper qual-
ity was improved, and notes to the accounts
again increased the brochure size. In 1969
the report was given a white embossed cover,
and was printed on a coarse drawing paper
with five pages of linear design sketches of
clothes included, a statement clearly
intended, in a general way, to align the busi-
ness with ideas of “fashion” and upto-dateness
in the eyes of readers. This development coin-
cided with all-time record profits of &7.3m,
which, when they fell to &64m in 1970, were
presented in a no-nonsense brown card cover
and on plain paper, dropping the illustrations.
As profits grew by &lm to &7.4m in 1971, a
design element reappeared. While the bro-
chure contained only reports and accounts, a
montage of coloured photographs of shop
fronts in the chain appeared on the covers,
against a brown background. At this stage in
Burton’s history, it had begun to transform
itself into “a group of specialist retail chains,
each with a clearly defined market and a dis
tinctive face to the public” (Burton PLC Annual
Report, 1971). It was intended that it should
maintain and develop its dominant position in
the menswear market, but that it should
become less dependent on it as its newer retail-
ing activities grew. Clearly, the menswear side
was perceived as having reached a saturation
point, and growth had to be derived elsewhere.
Evans Outsizes was purchased in 1971, and
Ryman, the office supplies firm, was purchased
at around the same time.
In 1972, with the involvement of CDG
Design Consultants, a firm owned by Ryman,
the brochure featured a white cover incorpor-
ating a montage of twelve shop fronts,
intended to symbolize the diversified nature
of the group. With profits at &3.3m in 1973
falling to &3.4m in 1974, the annual reports
were entrusted to Annual Reports Ltd, whose
simple designs featured shopfronts on the front
covers, against a primrose yellow background.
In 1975, Lloyd Northover was given the design
of the annual report, and while its exterior was
a plain primrose yellow, page 3 contained a list
of the constituent parts of the group, below
which a water colour of an imaginary High
Street showed frontages representing the nine
shop chains at this time within it: Burton, Top
Shop (a female fashion chain created inside the
Peter Robinson group), Ryman, Evans, Peter
Robinson, Jackson the Tailor and Greens,
Browns of Chester and Burton of London. In
this modest way, Burton sought to convey
something of its strategic intentions.
In 1976 and 1977, developments within the
clothing sector conspired with macro-eco
nomic forces to take the business into loss in
each year (&2.4m and &5.lm, respectively). A
steady downturn in made-to-measure suits had
been in evidence since the 1960s coupled with
a growing preference for casual clothes, many
of which were being imported. The inflation-
ary pressures caused by the oil shocks of the
1970s combined with these factors to create
vast production overcapacity and trading
losses, and manufacturing capability was there-
fore radically cut. The outward expression of
these adverse forces was a return in 1977 and
1978 to plain brown covers for the annual
report which was produced by Whatmough’s,
a printing firm. Inside, the standard statutory
and quasi-statutory information was provided,
on thin, cheap paper. By 1979, however, prof-
its were at an all time high of &17.0m, and the
company’s fiftieth anniversary called for a cel-
ebratory annual accounts brochure.
This was, quite naturally in the circum-
stances, entrusted to Fitch Design, which at
that point was already one of Britain’s largest
interior design houses. Rodney Fitch, at the
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 93
head of this business, had been a former associ-
ate of Terence Conran, and had been closely
involved in the design of Habitat shops in the
1960s. His firm had been given a large share of
Burton’s store design business. The result of
Fitch’s involvement in the annual report was
a 36page brochure. On its covers, a coloured
drawing depicted mixed male and female cus-
tomers in the young and early middle-aged cate-
gories, carrying bags featuring the various
Burton Group brand names. At the rear of the
brochure, a scrapbook-like illustrated history of
the company was included. Five coloured
photographs of stores were featured on the
front end-paper, and a full-page picture of a
Top Shop frontage was placed next to the
chairman’s statement. This pictorial material
did not, however, attempt to supplant the tra-
ditional chairman’s statement, director’s report
and accounts, with notes, which remained as
the centrepiece of the report, although it was
the first to contain photographs.
In 1980, profits fell to &I26m, as the French
fashion chain, St Remy, which had been
acquired in the early 1960s recorded substan-
tial losses, and the Ryman office equipment
chain, acquired in 1971, was sold. The annual
report, again by Fitch, was a cutdown version
of its predecessor. Shop signs symbolizing the
various stores in the group were featured on
the front covers and on the end papers, includ-
ing some views of stock in the various shops,
but this did not interfere with its substance, the
usual statutory and quasi-statutory information.
In summary, Burton’s annual reports to 1980
were not substantially affected by design or
designers. Indeed, until the 1979 report was
produced, the work could have been handled
by any good commercial printer, with a little
assistance from a photographer or graphic
artist. There is no doubt that by this time there
lay within the paper, printing, graphic design
and photographic industries the technological
and creative potential for far more.
RETAIL CHANGE AND BURTON IN THE
EARLY 1980s
In 1980 Britain was about to witness what
Gardner & Sheppard (1989) have called “the
rise of retail culture”. Since the late 1950s
and early 1960s major shifts in economic pros
perity had been making themselves apparent.
Disposable income rose, and an increase in the
range and type of products available was
experienced, in the wake of gradual post-war
recovery. A relatively aBIuent and fashion con-
scious teenage market, the result of the post-
war baby boom, was looking for products,
styles and cultural experiences tailored to their
own needs. One manifestation of this was the
rise of the boutique in the 1950s and 1960s. In
1964 Habitat opened its first store, selling “an
aspirational, and affordable, image of domestic
living to a young, post-war generation looking
for a way to differentiate themselves from the
traditional pre-war values and tastes of their
parents” (Gardner & Sheppard, 1989, p. 77).
Terence Conran recalls a “strange moment
when people stopped needing, and need chan-
ged to want . . . designers became more
important in designing ‘want’ products rather
than ‘need’ products” (Gardner & Sheppard,
1989, pp. 77-78).
In fashion terms, the general experience in
Britain until the late 1960s was for clothes
shops to offer a whole range of goods for every
age group. Younger customers selected the
youngest-looking items they could find. Some
of the seeds of the retailing revolution that was
to come were sown by no less than Conran
himself, at the behest of the managing director
of Peter Robinson, a Burton Group company,
which, as was noted, was acquired in the late
1940s. In 1966, Conran was asked to design an
in-house boutique called Peter Robinson Top
Shop. This was the first time, according to
Gardner and Sheppard, that a large women’s
wear chain had identified and focused upon a
specific segment of the population, women of
18-25. This highly successful venture, which
was to be copied by others, was externalized,
becoming a chain within the Burton Group in
94 S. MCKINSTRY
its own right in the 1970s and Rodney Fitch,
Conran’s erstwhile associate, had been given
the commission to redesign the Top Shop out-
lets in the 1970s. Indeed, Fitch’s reputation
was to be substantially made within the Burton
group, as he went on to gain the commissions
to design and redesign businesses subsequently
acquired or created by Burton in the 1970s and
1980s such as Dorothy Perkins, Top Man, Prin-
ciples, or Top Girl. By the start of the 1980s
“market segmentation” was the general prac-
tice throughout the British retail fashion sec-
tor, and it was inextricably linked with design
and the notion of “Iifestyle”. The managements
of retail fashion businesses decided on the tar-
get groups, carefully segmented by age and
income, interiors were designed to reflect or
project “lifestyle” scenarios for these custo-
mers, and the clothes were the “stars” of the
show. This was a situation that Burton had
played a major part in creating, and from
which it would shortly benefit in an unprece-
dented way.
In 1981 another development of significance
for Burton took place. Ralph Halpem, who had
been a director since 1977, took over as chair-
man. The son of a businessman who had
owned department stores and factories in
Vienna before the war, Halpem had spent a
substantial period of his working life in the
Peter Robinson subsidiary. In 1973, it was he
who had been responsible for launching Top
Shop as a separate outlet, and within a year
there were 40 such stores, the chain quickly
becoming Burton’s most profitable division.
Halpem had also been party to the launch of
Top Man, the male counterpart of Top Shop,
which catered for men under 30. Clearly, he
was a supporter, and at times initiator, of the
new shopping formulas that were beginning to
transform retailing (RetadZ, 1983, pp. 5-7).
BUSINESS PERFORMANCE AND ITS
REPORTING 1981-1994
Coinciding with Halpem’s accession, a new
designer was appointed for the 1981 annual
report - Good Relations Design. At this point
in Burton’s history, the Group Secretary, Gerald
Slater was responsible for the annual report.
The 1981 report’s covers were of embossed
silver, and inside, after the chairman’s report,
pictures and profiles of the “executive manage-
ment board” were featured. Next, seven high-
gloss coloured pages of shop interiors, featur-
ing fashion models in “lifestyle” poses, empha-
sized the company’s policy of market
segmentation. After the accounting informa-
tion, the firm’s transportation and manufactur-
ing facilities were introduced, with pictures,
and its involvement with credit cards, a rapidly
expanding feature of the 1980s was likewise
illustrated. The 1982 and 1983 reports, bearing
news of all-time record profits, followed suit,
the 1982 report having an embossed gold
metallic cover, and the 1983 version, covers
of pale metallic blue. Inside, against a back-
ground of shop frontages and interiors, record
menswear and womenswear sales and profits
were disclosed, but there was little detail con-
cerning management or policy for each chain.
Clearly, though, these reports maintained the
trend towards a more visual presentation,
although it is arguable that a shareholder who
kept his eyes open in the High Street and who
read the chairman’s and directors’ report
would have learned little from the pictures. In
a sense, the reports of 1981, 1982 and 1983
were no great advance, informationally, on
what had gone before, although presentation-
ally superior. The above details and subsequent
developments are summarized in statistical
form in Table 2.
It is important to pause and reflect on the
nature of the evolving design industry at this
stage, as revealed by the developments already
outlined. Fitch, designers of shop interiors, was
an example of the new, large design company
that had been evolving from the end of the
1960s and through the 1970s. While it was a
business that would in theory handle any
branch of design, as witnessed by its involve-
ment in Burton’s annual reports, events (and no
doubt management preferences) had conspired
to ensure that the dominant element in its busi-
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 95
TABLE 2. Burton - Annual report statistics 1981-1994
Year Sales (6n) Profit Before
TaX
(fin)
Total &sets
(fm)
No. of Pages statutory
Information
%age’
Photographs
%age
1981 219 16.4 147 39 76 20
1982 234 24.3 222 36 80 20
1983 299 39.1 239 36 80 20
1984 416 56.4 261 56 43 32
1985 551 80.2 369
84
32 38
1986 1,217 148.7 441 87
30 56
1987 1,339 183.4 523 57 40 26
1988 1,590 211.7 619 60 41 23
1989 1,819 216.8 727 68
53 34
1990 1,801 133.1 738
68 49 20
1991 1,661 (165.4) 714 57 58 15
1992 1,765 9.4 701 54 72 15
1993 1,893 18.5 853
42 69 38
1994 1,910 41.1 867 60 78 22
Source: Annual Reports kept in Burton Collection, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds.
*Statutory Information %age describes the proportion of each report devoted to the accounts, notes to the accounts and
directors’ and chairman’s report.
ness was retail interior design and redesign,
previously the province of architects. In con-
trast, Good Relations Design was an example
of the kind of practice in which design was
subsumed as part of a group specializing in
communications. This firm was part of Chime
Communications PLC, and had, as sister com-
panies, businesses in public relations, financial
public relations and corporate communica-
tions2 Another variant on this model was the
communications company that included adver-
tising with these other elements. Indeed, Olins
(1978, p. 155) notes that it was this latter type
of firm which became dominant in Britain in
the 1950s and 1960s inspired by Lippincott
and Margulies of New York and London. Firms
such as this would recruit management consul-
tants as well as designers. Desfgn Week, the
main news organ within the design industry,
still quotes the share prices of the larger com-
panies in two groups: “Design/Architectural”
firms, and “Communications Groups involving
design” (1986-1994). What is clear from the
Burton study so far is that, until 1983, an impor-
tant designer in each category had been
involved, but it is plain that these major
players by this point were attuned to enhan-
cing, rather than transforming, the traditional
financial statements and directors’ reports.
By 1984, however, a combination of circum-
stances led to the introduction of an annual
report that, as far as Burton was concerned,
broke new ground. Deregulation of the finan-
cial sector and booming property prices in Brit-
ain had combined with falling inflation and
rising wages to expand consumer confidence,
and Burton’s profits leapt by almost 50% to
L56.4m, an all-time record. By this time, as
Gardner and Sheppard (1989, pp. 24-25)
note, “the scope for retail expansion through
organic growth was restricted - the easiest
way to sustain it was by merger and acquisi-
tion.” High Street sites were becoming increas-
ingly diicult to acquire and rents were
soaring. In variety stores and food, nearly a
quarter of businesses were to change hands
between 1982 and 1988, as did a tenth of fur-
niture stores and a fifth of department stores
(Gardner & Sheppard, 1989, p. 25). The Bur-
ton Group, sensing how things were tending
L The parent company is now known as Lowe Bell Communications PLC
96 S. MCKINSTRY
and in preparation for acquisition, decided at tics for forward planning, and so on” (Retail,
around this time that its City image required 1983, p. 7), was at the time using Lowe Bell
enhancement. Halpern, whose practice it was Financial, a sister company of Good Relations
to employ “a mixture of specialists and outside Design, within the Chime Communications
consultancies to handle public relations, mar- Group, to improve the City’s perception of a
keting, store design, sales promotions, statis- business which, in spite of its recent spectacu-
Fig. 1. Front Cover, 1984 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 97
lar success, still in some quarters carried over-
tones of men’s made-to-measure suits.
As a result, Halpern took a direct interest in
the production of the annual report for the first
time, and the synergy generated through his
involvement with the two sister communica-
tions companies resulted in a production that
was, first and foremost, a public relations docu-
ment. Its front covers proclaimed, through a
montage of design sketches of clothes anno-
tated with the Burton Group brand names,
that it was in the forefront of fashion. (See
Fig. 1.)
The message “contributing to lifestyle”,
below the company name, conveyed to read-
ers that it fully understood and was exploiting
the dominant consumer mentality which char-
acterized the period: that clothes were a means
by which the afhuent consumer could display
status and assume, or change, identities. The
contents of the report were carefully orche-
strated. Inside the front cover, a corporate
statement left readers in no doubt that:
The Group is one of the leading multiple clothing retai-
lers in the United Kingdom. Its stores feature in the
High Street of every major town and city, offering an
extensive range of high quality, fashionable clothing
and accessories to precisely defined market sectors.
The Group’s strategy is based on one over-riding
objective - identifying and meeting the lifestyle needs
of customers in each of its target markets (Burton PLC
Annual Report, 1984).
It went on to state that each division was
managed by an autonomous team, reporting
directly to the main board. There followed a
page of financial highlights, then a page of
operational milestones, profiles of the direc-
tors (illustrated), and a short financial review.
Thereafter, the chairman’s statement preceded
a stunningly illustrated series of detailed
reviews of each of the key divisions, each intro-
duced by a fulI page photograph of a model
dressed in “lifestyle” clothes appropriate to
the store chain in question, and giving particu-
lars of developments and strategy in each case.
One example is shown in Fig. 2.
The financial statements, on grey paper, then
Fig. 2. IUustration from Top Shop Review, p. 14, 1984
Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
followed. The report exuded a sense of style
and managerial competence. When it arrived
in City letterboxes at the turn of 1985, it must
surely have impressed, from every point of
view.
During 1985, as trading boomed and profits
mounted, Burton set its sights on its largest
acquisition ever, the ailing department store
chain, Debenhams, valued at &450/ &500m.
The chain, which had 67 shops, lacked an over-
all identity, the interiors “resembled grey, clut-
tered, unfathomable rabbit warrens” (Gardner
& Sheppard, 1989, p. 86). It had become, as
these authors note, “the store of last resort”.
Here lay an opportunity and a challenge to
Halpem and his board. Institutional investors
had, however, to be persuaded that the Burton
offer, which consisted of shares or a cash alter-
native, ought to be accepted, when it was
made in May. What did Burton plan to do
with it and could they be trusted with it? A
98 S. MCKINSTRY
collal ,oration with Terence Conran of Habitat- topped social space out of the centre ( ,f each
Moth ercare was set in train. The larger Deben- store. This was to allow access to redc :signed
hams stores were to be converted to the “gal- and themed “shops-within-a-shop”, reac :hed by
leria” or “atrium” concept, which involved “travelscators”. The whole concept w ‘as cre-
carvti ng an exciting, lavishly finished glass ated to entice customers on to the
upper
Fig. 3. Debenhams’ Croydon atrium, p. 45, 1985 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 99
floors, which had always been a problem for
department stores. There it was intended that
they should find a range of attractive depart-
ments and in-store concessions, some of which
would be taken up by Habitat or Mothercare.
During the summer of 1985, the House of
Fraser started to build up a stake in Deben-
hams, as did Harris-Queensway, and looking
upon Burton’s bid as hostile, the Debenhams
management, who felt they had been turning
the chain around, planned a management buy-
out. On 2 August, the closing date for the offer,
Burton claimed victory. Their financial perfor-
mance and image of managerial competence,
highlighted so strongly in the previous annual
report, together with widespread approval of
their innovative plans, had undoubtedly com-
bined to convince the institutions (Financial
Times, 1985, passim).
When the 1985 annual report appeared, it
assumed the new format developed the pre-
vious year, that of a corporate communications
and public relations document, with the
accounts at the rear. This time the front cover
message was that Burton Group was “creating
a wider choice”, entirely appropriate in the
light of the Debenhams acquisition. Against a
white background, eight small cover pictures
of products and customers framed the new
atrium of Debenhams Croydon store, which
also featured large inside, as a symbol of what
was to come.* (See Fig. 3.)
The review section, which succeeded the
chairman’s statement and profiles of the execu-
tive management was this time reorganized
into “menswear”, which consisted of “young
fashion”, “mainstream fashion”, “highstyle
fashion” and “sports fashion”, with “women-
Fig. 4. Front Cover, 1986 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
swear” similarly organized. Within each cate-
gory, the progress of the various chains was
discussed in some detail. As before, profits
were recorded at an all-time high of &30.2m.
Good Relations Design would naturally be
disappointed when, in 1986, Burton Group,
with its profits still soaring, gave the contract
for the annual report to Michael Peters Design.s
This practice had been founded on Peters’
brilliance in the area of packaging design, but
by 1986 was a highly successful general prac-
tice in the “Design/ Architectural” category.
The concept which gamed Peters the contract
’ Habitat-Mothercare’s subsequent merger with British Home Stores, creating Storehouse PLC, meant that if Conran had
gone ahead with his plans to locate stores in branches of Debenhams, he would have been competing with himself. For
that reason, Habitat and Mothercare outlets were not introduced.
* Ironically, the atrium illustrated was not a result of the merger, which was completed only months earlier. It had been
conceived and designed by Debenhams before the takeover.
5 Michael Peters Design ceased trading some years ago. The company which now bears the Peters name is different to that
which designed Burton’s annual reports, and does not involve Michael Peters personally.
100 S. MCKINSTRY
was the reformatting of the annual report as a provided a number of articles on health and
fashion magazine resembling Vogue. A rumour beauty, fashion, living, food and travel, and so
persists in design circles that Peters “high- on. These were interspersed with advertise-
jacked” Halpem with the idea on a transatlan- ments. When the annual report appeared, it
tic flight. Vogue always featured the face of a followed this pattern, with the face of a beauti-
beautiful model on the front cover, and inside, ful model resembling Princess Diana (who had
Fig. 5. Illu&ation in Top Shop Review, p. 41, 1986 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 101
appeared in Vogue in 1985) on the front cover.
(See Fig. 4.) The report was still, clearly, in the
same mould as its two predecessors, first and
foremost a public relations document, but
unprecedented in its glamorous visual appeal.
The main theme of the “magazine”, over-
printed on the black PVC in which the model’s
face was swathed, was “successfulIy managing
change”. Also intimated in the same way was
“Debenhams - the latest news” and “Fash-
ioning the future”. The front cover of the
report seemed to say “Burton is fashion”.
Inside, Halpern (who had by this point been
knighted) was listed as “Editor-in-Chief’, and
full page “advertisements” featured models
representing each of the main store chains,
one of which is seen in Fig. 5.
After a few of these “advertisements”, at the
front, a short group corporate statement
related the group’s success to its compilation
of “a portfolio of specialty businesses focused
on clearly defined groups of people.” Financial
highlights were next illustrated with bar charts
in the form of strips of cloth, after which the
chairman’s statement followed. This was pre-
ceded by a picture of Sir Ralph, bled over
two pages, in shirtsleeves. A model in black
satin was framed behind him, ambiguous, but
perhaps intended to symbolize change, and
alongside, a thinly veiled piece of self-congratu-
lation, a quotation taken from the I nvestor’s
Chronicle, which had noted that a few major
retailers had produced “a quality of manage-
ment unrivalled in other parts of the econ-
omy.” Thereafter, informative reviews of
major parts of the business were provided in
magazine article format, followed by the
accounts. The whole fashion magazine effect
was cemented together through the use of
playfully and informally spaced sans serif and
lower case typefaces, often using brilliant, fully
saturated colours, and offset against large tracts
of white. To complete this celebration of cor-
porate success, the front cover of the brochure
was made up as a poster, which was displayed
in the London underground system and, in lar-
ger format, on hoardings around the capital. It
seemed to encapsulate the spirit of the age.
The 1986 brochure, with its prominent self-
congratulatory statements, may also be seen as
a prelude to an Annual General Meeting where
the chairman sought approval for an extrava-
gant share option package for senior execu-
tives. The background to this share option
package is relevant to our discussion. Substan-
tial share options had been granted to the Bur-
ton board since 1981, in a remuneration deal
that had almost run its course. The new
scheme was to be in the form of a perfor-
mance-related share option scheme and was
to replace a scheme that had “only” enabled
options of four times annual salary to be
granted. Under the new arrangements, if eam-
ings per share growth exceeded 30% in a five
year period, the same limit would apply. If,
however, EPS growth led to the company
being among the FTSE 100 top 25 companies,
then additional options up to a further four
times emoluments would be payable. This
could, potentially, have led to the directors
holding up to ten per cent of the issued share
capital. Prior to the AGM, concern had been
expressed by some institutions at the possible
dilution of their influence. However, the
scheme was carried through at the AGM. In
May that year, Sir Ralph Halpem and four other
directors exercised options at a profit of some
&3.5 million. This coincided with a pay rise for
Sir Ralph of 35%, resulting from a performance-
related bonus scheme that had been in exis
tence since 1983. It seems no coincidence
that the highlighting of management ability
through “profiles” and self-congratulatory state-
ments characterized the annual accounts bro-
chures from 1981 onwards (Financial Times,
January 1987, passim).
Clearly the 1986 report was difficult to fol-
low. The creative answer devised by Michael
Peters for the 1987 version was to go “up”,
in several senses, as indeed, the profits had
again done. First, the fashion statement made
on the front cover was slightly more “up mar-
ket” than its predecessor: a model in a beauti-
fully tailored red suit, and wearing a large
picture hat, gave off a less sensuous air than
the previous report’s front cover. (See Fig. 6.)
102 S. MCKINSTRY
Fig. 6. Front Cover, 1987 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
Second, the size of the report was doubled to a
remarkable A3, which when opened, gave the
reader the sense of handling a fashion
designer’s portfoli~.~
Inside, as before, substantial business
reviews around the repeated theme of “suc-
cessfully managing change” followed the chair-
man’s statement, with the accounts at the rear.
Because of the large format used, the typeface
size was reduced, allowing the number of
pages to drop. A feeling of classic gravity was
added through the use of monochrome photo-
graphy in parts of the report. Of relevance in
interpreting this striking but relatively
restrained report was the strong possibility
that Sir Ralph, whose private life had been
highlighted in the tabloid press the year pre-
viously and linked with the glamorous annual
report of 1986, was now adopting a lower pro-
file.
The 1988 report, with profits still rising,
introduced a new general concept, that the
company had “come of age”. This keynote
notion was not printed on the cover, as pre-
viously, but suggested instead by a portfolio-
like cover, made of grainy turquoise drawing
paper, its front decorated with a small cream
strip bearing the logotypes of the different
brands. Its flap opened to reveal a mission state-
ment, and the various sections were accessed
by colour-coded tab indices. As ever, no
expense was spared, with lavish photography
and high quality paper throughout.
The final report by Michael Peters Design, as
ever, was a virtuoso piece. The annual review
section of the 1989 report was butted on to the
financial review upside down, so that each end
could be read from the front by turning the
document through 180 degrees. In comparison
with the financial review section, which had a
navy blue cover, the general review featured a
casually and brightly dressed young couple in a
happy embrace, conveying a general sense of
upbeat modernity, which the reader was
intended to associate with the company. (See
Fig. 7.)
Serrated index strips reinforced the fashion
theme and at the same time emphasized the
message that the company now had three
important divisions, retailing, financial services
and property. This report was the last in a ser-
ies that displayed high visual originality and
various forms of tactile appeal that sought to
compel a response.
By 1990, the forces of economic change had
gripped the firm. Escalating interest rates had
begun to affect mortgage repayments and to
bite savagely into the disposable income of
the general public. That year the profits
slumped by some 40%, as a result of a slight
drop in turnover, the first for ten years, falling
’ A small number of A4 reports were also produced, to fit into City tiling cabinets. For this reason, surviving copies may be
found In both A3 and A4 formats.
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 103
Fig. 7. Front Cover, 1989 Report. (Reproduced by
permission.)
margins and increasing interest costs, which
had almost doubled over a period of four
years. In addition, the company, which had
been cultivating their property development
business throughout the decade, decided to
make extraordinary provisions of &169m
against it. Sir Ralph Halpern resigned in Novem-
ber that year, a fellow director of some years’
standing, Laurence Cooklin, taking over as
Group Chief Executive, with Sir John Hos-
kyns, who had just joined as a nonexecutive
director, taking over as Chairman. As is usual in
such circumstances, a fresh annual report
designer was appointed, after a “beauty par-
ade”, the term employed in the design industry
to denote the selection process, which consists
of a number of invited designers producing a
portfolio of work and/ or responding to a sam-
ple brief. The successful bidder was Sampson
Tyrrell, part of the huge WPP Group, a world-
wide communications business.
Clearly the “creative challenge” was consid-
erable: how to emphasize a solid business strat-
egy for the future, against a background of
reports that were creative, and perhaps even
controversial. As was customary for a new
design agency, the Iirm undertook extensive
soundings of City opinion re Burton’s, and a
programme of shop visits, to get the “feel” of
the business. The resultant report was given a
crisp, glossy coat, half black, half white, with
little embellishment, and bearing the words “A
strategy for the 90s”. As usual the verbal mate-
rial came before the accounts, which were
right at the end. Inside the front cover, a short
policy statement headed “The Group in the
90s” advised that it would be attending to the
“largest and fastest growing mass markets” and
that cash management would be rated “as
highly as retailing flair”. The chairman in his
statement predictably announced a “return to
the core retailing business”. This was followed
by a series of reviews of the retail chains, with
models caught in motion by means of freeze-
frame photography. It was also announced that
the Burton chain was “seeking the older custo-
mer”. The report, while still clearly an expen-
sive one, managed to convey a sense of
optimism without appearing extravagant.
A dramatic drop in trading performance
called for a completely different design
approach and resulted in responsibility for
the next report being given to Merchant Cor-
porate Design, in conjunction with the Square
Red Studio, this business being part of the
Brunswick Group, a large communications
company. The 1991 report was prepared
against a background of substantial losses of
&165.4m, and what was required for its audi-
ence was a sense of reassurance that a situation
of the utmost gravity was completely under
control. During the year, sales had fallen by
eight per cent, and a further &139m was writ-
ten off property. A %lblm rights issue was suc-
cessfully completed. The new top management
had clearly decided that, coinciding with the
losses and impending new standards, Burton’s
accounting should be cleaned up. The 1990
gearing was restated at 62%, reflecting off-bal-
ance sheet borrowings of &136m, which were
104
S. MCKINSTRY
being included for the first time. Smith (1992,
pp. 82-86) notes that Burton had been
involved in off-balance sheet finance since
1986. On this new basis, gearing had been
reduced to 43% in 1991. The annual report
cover bore no textual message, but its
restrained and serious character was empha-
sized with a mid-grey jacket, upon which a
tiny pattern of brand names was picked out
in pale grey with a touch of yellow, suggesting
the “core business” approach. The review part
of the report was printed in a conservative
black typeface, on white, and the accounts, as
in the previous year, were on recycled off-
white paper. Inside the front page, in contrast
with the messages of the 198Os, reference was
made to the economic circumstances in which
the company operated, “the toughest experi-
enced in the last 20 years”. Clearly, manage-
ment took credit for the good years, and the
economy was now taking the blame for bad
Fig. 8. Debenhams’ customers, p. 11, 1991 Report.
(Reproduced by permission.)
years. However, the 62 word statement
included the reassurance that changes were
being made to return the group to its position
as “the U.K.‘s leading and most profitable fash-
ion business.” The usual reviews of the chains
followed, each with a single picture of a typical
customer (not models), and a brief commen-
tary. An example is shown in Fig. 8.
This section was vastly reduced in size, and
was intended to introduce a note of realism.
The whole brochure was serious in tone,
shorter and therefore cheaper than its immedi-
ate predecessors, but still, as an object, a qual-
ity document.
In 1992, a year when the company
returned to a modest profit of &9.4m, Mer-
chant Corporate Design found a solution
that satisfied the chairman’s desire to make
a personal statement regarding the changes
that were being made, untrammelled by
direct commentary on the results. This was
achieved through the expedient of two docu-
ments, a separately bound review, and a cor-
responding accounts brochure, held together
in a sober navy blue folder, the same colour
as the brochure jackets. Inside the review,
the opening page heralded “A New Direc-
tion”, illustrated in grave but fashionable
monochrome. (See Fig. 9.)
An “interview” with Sir John Hoskyns
revealed that he considered the board needed
to “rebuild” the group. Good profits from the
1980s had diverted attention away from inter-
nal problems. The recession was “only partly to
blame” for the firm’s downturn. The group had
diverted from “its real business”. A “break with
the past” was required, and the Chief Execu-
tive, Laurence Cooklin, resigned, making way
for John Hoemer, of Debenhams. The chains
had been competing with each other, and
“teamwork” was missing. A programme
named “Blueprint” was initiated to rationalize
the group’s presence in town and city centres.
A section of the review was headed “Back to
Basics”. The chairman’s statement made speci-
fic mention of the audit committee’s regular
meetings.
The same formula applied for 1993. A grey
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 105
Fig. 9. Title page, 1992 Review brochure. (Reproduced by permission.)
106 S. MCKINSTRY
P0r-l
folio contained a separate review and headed up “Laying the foundations for the
accc mnts document, but this time sumptuous future”. Inside, chain reviews were integt *ated
cola Iur photography returned to the covers into a continuous story which emphasized that
and interior, emphasizing the products and out- “best practice” was being dissemin lated
lets. (See Fig. 10.) Profits had doubled to throughout the group. It was announced that
f18. 5m, and the first page of the review was during 1993, the Burton’s chain had “retu rned
Fig. 10. Front Cover, 1993 Accounts brochure. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 107
to its roots as the good value source of clothes
for the mainstream British male.” It is clear that
the document was intended as a contrast to its
more sober monochrome predecessor, and
that the controlled release of colour was to
convey a feeling of growing optimism.
By 1994, with profits close to the 1983/ 1984
levels, the need for separate and clear state-
ments of policy, and therefore separate bro-
chures, was no longer felt, and the annual
report again became a single document. It
still, of course, retained its public relations
bias. The 1994 design was, however, in a con-
servative vein. Merchant Corporate Design,
whose design for the 1994 Coats Viyella PLC
report was awarded the Stock Exchange/ Char-
tered Accountants’ prize, gave the report a
tame but brightly pleasant front cover, its top
third banded in kingfisher blue, and the lower
two thirds showing four rather dark coloured
photographs of a shop interior, a staff design
discussion, and two High Street views. A brief
statement on the index page stated that the
company was “one of the largest fashion retai-
lers in the U.K.“, and had six divisions. Strate-
gic aims were therefore implicit, as against
their explicit antecedents. The whole bro-
chure was on white “environmentally respon-
sible” papers, and was printed in a transitional
serifed typeface, such as might be found in a
conservatively designed academic book. The
whole document gave off a sense of respect-
ability and restraint. After the chief executive’s
and chairman’s reviews were individual chain
reviews, continuing the policy of showing
photographs of “real” shop interiors, staff and
customers. The report was notable for two
innovations: sales, profits and numbers of
stores were shown in bar chart form alongside
the pictures in the reviews. This was the first
time individual chain results had been provided
to readers. Second, a financial review, by the
Finance Director, was included, revealing a dra-
matic slashing of gearing to only 9.2%, made
possible through the sale of the balance of
the non-retail property portfolio and careful
cash management. A progress report on the
“Townprint” programme was provided and
illustrated (Fig. 11).
These last enhancements show a developing
awareness of the demands of the City for annual
report information. In connection with the
1995 annual report awards issued by the Stock
Exchange and the Chartered Accountants, Sir
David Tweedie noted with approval in a press
release that there was a general tendency to a
greater disclosure in recent accounts of
“financial and operational activities”, and
John Kemp-Welch commented on ‘the better
balance being achieved in financial reporting in
the U.K.” in the sense that it was tending to
meet “the reasonable expectations of share-
holders without being overelaborate” (L.on-
don Stock Exchange and the Chartered
Accountants, Press Release, 8 February 1995).
Burton’s latest report fits these criteria entirely,
and they are clearly understood by their award-
winning design agency. What is of more rele-
vance is the rather obvious desire of the pre-
sent board to present a solid and safe image to
the City.
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION
It has been shown above that, particularly
since 1984, the annual report has been used
by Burton as a corporate public relations and
communications document of the first magni-
tude. Every conceivable design device has been
used by the company and its design contractors
to portray it and its top management in the best
possible light, and to iniluence the perceptions
of the City and the individual investor. Indeed,
the publicity material issued by annual report
designers makes it clear this is their aim (Lowe
Bell Communications, 1994).
We are now in a position to ask how Bur-
ton’s use of design and designers in annual
reports fits in chronologically with develop
ments in annual reporting both in the United
States and in the United Kingdom. Clagett and
Hirasuna’s text to the Cooper-Hewitt Museum’s
A Hi stori cal Revi ew of Annual Report Desi gn
(1988) suggests that, by the early 1960s annual
108 S. MCKINSTRY
Fig. 11. “Townprint” illustration, p. 25, 1994 Report. (Reproduced by permission.)
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS I09
reports designed slightly earlier by Paul Rand
and Robert Miles Runyan for IBM and Litton,
respectively, led the way in portraying the
“personality and character” of firms. These
designers were among the lirst to deploy
“striking typographic arrangements, coated
paper stock, the deliberate use of white space
and dramatic pictures by famous photogra-
phers” (Clagett & Hirasuna, 1988, p. 17).’ It
was not until the mid-1970s, though, that the
annual report emerged in the United States, “as
possibly the most important corporate market-
ing piece” (ibid). This chronology is corrobo-
rated by the appearance of Graphis Annual
Reports (1971), “the first book ever to be
devoted to the conception and design of
annual reports”, its foreword also indicating
that the development of the annual report
into a major corporate communication was a
contemporary American phenomenon.
In terms of U.K. comparators, the reports of
some key firms have been examined, although
this is clearly an area where much more detailed
research is required. In the retail field, Marks
and Spencer, until 1983, produced a plain bro-
chure containing only statutory and quasi-statu-
tory data. By 1984, a similar report was wrapped
in a bright green cover, and in 1985, the cover
featured a colour photograph of a store and the
statement “Investing in the Future”. This con-
cept was not carried on inside the report in a
thoroughgoing way, however, and it was only in
1987, when Addison Design became involved,
that the report came to resemble, in length,
opulence and balance, what Burton had been
doing for several years. A similar pattern
emerges in the reports of Boots PLC. Until
1977, these were relatively plain, and that year
some coloured pictures were added to celebrate
the company’s centenary. Divisional reviews
appeared in 1985, when Charles Barker City
Designs became involved. By 1987, in lavish-
ness, coverage and organization, the Boots
report came to resemble that of Burton. In the
non-retail field, ICI’s reports before the 1980s
exhibit a little more designer involvement than
others. Pictures of directors, in black and white,
were provided in 1963, but soon dropped. In
1967, trade marks and logotypes were given in
colour inside the front covers, and again imme-
diately dropped. In 1971, a coloured picture of
ICI’s Wilton Works featured on the front and
rear covers, and coloured cover pictures contin-
ued until 1980, when, coinciding with a drop in
profits, the report reverted to plain paper. In
1983, with the involvement of Timothy Guy
Design, a report capable of being described as
a corporate communications document was
first produced, under John Harvey-Jones’ chair-
manship. In BP’s annual reports during the
1960s and the 1970s an increasing level of
reviews and pictures finally culminated, in
1985, in a document comparable with Burton’s
1984 report.
In summary, Burton’s first use of the annual
report as a major communications medium in
1984 places it among the earliest of those IJ.K.
companies examined to do so, and perhaps ten
years behind developments in the U.S.A. in this
respect. It is noteworthy that in spite of its use
of designers of fashions and shop interiors
before and throughout the 1970s this placed
it very little distance ahead of firms which were
less involved in design. A “total design” con-
cept linking brands, shop interiors, annual
reports and other corporate stationery was
never applied.
The final objective of the paper is to evaluate
post-1984 developments in Burton’s annual
report, and in doing so to address one impor-
tant question. Has the emergence of the annual
report as a corporate public relations tool been
a desirable development? This is not a naive
question. In his thoughtful history of typogra-
phy, Kinross (1992, pp. 142-143) has noted
that recent criticisms of graphic design in offi-
cial documents have centred around the use of
typography to reinforce the language of the
“text” and that “the needs and desires of users
. . may be at awkward variance with the
’ The rhetorical power of paper should not be underestimated. Gilbert, a U.S. paper producer, advertises its products as
“paper with presence” (B-W, May/June 1986, p. 49).
110 S. MCKINSTRY
wishes of producers.” If there has been disquiet
about the manipulative design of official docu-
ments, it appears not to have been paralleled in
the field of annual reports. Neither here nor ln
America has any substantial level of dissent con-
cerning the changing character of the annual
report been recorded. As noted above, its chan-
ging function was accomplished over several
decades as the design industry matured and mar-
ried its interests with those of large entities.
The first cause for concern in this area is the
relationship that exists between the design
agency and the commissioning company. As
Clagett and Hirasuna note, “The corporation
determines the final form because it holds fman-
cial control and wants to convey its own mes-
sage” (1988, p. 30). This is perhaps a natural
relationship in other spheres, but what is differ-
ent in the area of annual report production is the
fact that its legal justification, the requirement
for audited accounting statements, was origin-
ally intended as a protection for shareholders
and creditors, achieved through independent
third party check. What has now happened is
that management’s “self-written report card”, as
Clagett and Hirasuna (p. 30) put it, supersedes,
both in volume and position, the audited
accounts. On the face of it, this seems an ill-
advised development, if the non-statutory mate-
rial is capable of overriding in the minds of read-
ers the numerical and other statutory messages
now relegated to the rear of annual reports.
It appears unlikely that financial journalists,
City analysts or lenders are so gullible that they
place much credence on management state-
ments, however artfully presented, that are at
variance with the audited material. This seems
to be borne out by the remarks of John Kemp
Welch, quoted above, to the effect that a “bet-
ter” balance, a trend away from the “over-ela-
borate”, was showing itself in today’s annual
reports, and also by a recent MORI poll of
City analysts which indicates that they value
least the photographic content of annual
reports (MORI, 1994). The small shareholder
also needs to be considered in this context.
Burton’s annual report for 1988 reveals that
33% of equity was then in non-institutional
hands. Who knows how many bought, sold,
or held shares during these years, influenced
by the appearance and dominant messages
rather than the substance of the annual
report? Of relevance, too, is a recent British
survey which indicates that 54% of sample
firms gave annual reports to employees (Arlin,
1993, p. 9). The recent privatizations in Britain
have also led to large numbers of employee
shareholders, who may be assumed to lack
the technical and discriminatory skills that
might lead to a less sanguine view of annual
reports. Are readers such as these well placed
to make judgements about management’s one-
sided, visually assisted “trailers” for remunera-
tion packages, such as that presented by Bur-
ton’s annual report in 1986, and should
shareholders pay for these out of profits?
It may be argued that corporate communica-
tions and advertising, the latter, according to
Olins (1978, p. 73) involving “a web of truth,
half truth and sexual and social innuendo”,
already surrounds us on every hand, and since
society has accepted that, it should also accept
the executive self-advertisement, stemming
from the same industry, that has come to be a
regular component of the annual reports of
quoted companies. It is well known that specia-
lists disagree profoundly on the effects of adver-
tising (discussed by Schudson, 1984, pp. 222-
233), so its harmfulness, or otherwise, is highly
debatable. We do not propose to enter this
contentious field, except to say that the adver-
tising industry on both sides of the Atlantic is at
least subject to regulation, whereas the self-
advertisement of boards and companies is not;
in contrast, it derives much of its credibility from
the regulatory basis of the audited statements
that accompany it, while at times, putting a
gloss on the underlying realities they contain.
The safer option, therefore, would be to
insist, by regulation or some related means,
that the design effort in annual reports should
be focused strictly on the interests of share-
holders. This would amount to turning the con-
siderable talents of the photographers, graphic
designers and copy writers who present man-
agement’s ideas and agendas so well, to the
task of devising creative, beautiful and effec-
tive means of illustrating and explaining the
required statutory and quasi-statutory finan-
DESIGNING ANNUAL REPORTS 111
cial, quantitative and factual information. This
would make it more comprehensible and lead
to more effective shareholder participation and
more rational decision making. If the technical-
ities of business and accounting cannot be sim-
plified much, their clearer presentation can
surely aid understanding.
In a sense, this is a plea to close the stable
door after the horse has bolted, but as was
observed, there are some signs, from the
1994 Burton report, inter alia, that a more
sober and restrained approach is being
adopted. Whether or not this stems from a
genuine pent-up disliking for the excesses of
the 1980s or is simply another bandwagon
now occupied by the beneficiaries of that era,
remains to be seen.’ In either case, unless there
is external intervention, designers will con-
tinue to do very competently what they are
paid for by management.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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British Petroleum PLC (BP), Annual Report and Accounts, 1963-1986.
Boots PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1972-1991.
Burton PLC, Annual Report and Accounts, 1930- 1994. (Copies of the 1930- 1989 accounts are kept in the
Burton Archives, Box 185, West Yorkshire Archives, Sheepscar, Leeds).
Clagett, L. St Hirasuna, D., A Hi stori cal Reui ew of Annual Report &sign (New York: Cooper-Hewitt
Museum, The Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Design, 1988).
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Edwards, J. R., A Hi story of Financial Accounti ng (London: Routledge, 1989).
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Burton’s takeover of Debenhams);
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* The cycle of annual report design that this study has revealed has gone from “little design involvement” up to the 1970s
to “total design involvement” in the 1980s to “restrained design involvement” in the 1990s. This might be interpreted,
optimistically, as a Hegelian thesis-antithesis-synthesis triadic cycle, and that a sensible balance has now been struck. Over
against this, these movements correspond closely enough with economic cycles to suggest a financial causation and to
raise the possibility that when prosperity reappears, lavishness and all that goes with it will again return.
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