The Design of Corporate Annual Reports in London, 1980-2000

年度报告是一种长期存在的公司问责制和治理机制。经济历史学家将英国对财务报告的正式规定追溯到19世纪，当时一些经济上重要的行业，如银行、保险公司和铁路公司，都受到法定报告要求的约束。这些公司发布年度（有时是半年度）财务报表，以便董事会既可以证明投资者的资金是如何使用的，又可以证明支付股息的合理性。然而，直到1967年，年度报告才成为所有英国有限公司的受托要求，并成为企业沟通的主要手段。从那时起，年度报告包括了公司在上一个财政年度的活动和财务业绩的综合报告，并已发送给当前和潜在的股东和利益相关者。本研究考察了英国设计公司在20世纪80年代和90年代制作的年度报告，这是一个使用外部设计服务制作报告的公司数量和印刷报告数量显著增长的时期。首先，年度报告在多大程度上促进了1980-2000年间英国政治和经济体系的变化；其次，设计师在多大程度上帮助实现了这一贡献。在设计史上，这份年度报告基本上被忽视了。现有文献的限制仍然没有受到挑战，特别是那些涉及设计和视觉问题的文献。此外，尽管20世纪80年代英国的政治和经济变化具有重要意义，尽管在20世纪后期，年度报告对英国设计公司来说是一项越来越有利可图的业务，但历史上很少关注社会变化与公司年度报告设计之间的关系。尽管一些历史学家和评论员已经认识到，上世纪80年代末市场活动的增加与企业对企业形象重要性的自我质疑日益密切相关，但很少有人对年度报告如何促进了1980年至2000年间英国政治和经济结构的变化进行批判性分析。大多数关于年度报告的写作都局限于金融和商业领域，在设计专家撰写的研究中，分析同样受到限制，而牺牲了年度报告运作的更广泛背景。很少有来自设计领域的作品超越成功的概念，着眼于更广泛的工作背景。本研究旨在通过提供一种设计历史方法，将历史学家的批判性研究与设计过程的知识相结合，开始改变已有文献出现的领域的不平衡。通过探究政治和经济背景、年度报告和设计者之间的关系，本研究旨在填补20世纪后期围绕年度报告设计的知识缺失。此外，希望将对象分析与访谈相结合，为金融史和会计史带来新的方法，并对年度报告在设计史中的意义有新的认识。

The annual report is a long-lived mechanism of corporate accountability and governance. Economic historians have dated the formal regulation of financial reporting in the United Kingdom to the nineteenth century, when companies in some economically significant industries, such as banks, insurance companies and railways, were subject to statutory reporting requirements. These companies published annual (and in some cases semi-annual) financial statements so that boards of directors could both demonstrate how investors' capital had been used and could justify payments of dividends. It was not, however, until 1967 that annual reports became a fiduciary requirement for all UK limited companies and a prime means of corporate communication. Since then, annual reports have included a comprehensive report on a company's activities and financial performance throughout the preceding financial year and have been sent to current and potential shareholders and stakeholders.This research examines annual reports produced by British design companies in the 1980s and 1990s, a period of significant growth in both the number of companies using external design services to produce their report and in the number of reports being printed. It asks firstly, to what extent annual reports contributed to a changing political and economic system in Britain between 1980-2000 and, secondly, to what degree did designers aid in delivering that contribution. The annual report has been largely neglected in histories of design. The restraint of the existing literature remains unchallenged, particularly that which deals with design and visual matters. Furthermore, despite the significance of the political and economic changes in 1980s Britain, and despite the fact that annual reports were an increasingly lucrative business for British design companies within the late 20th century, little historical attention has been given to the relationships between social changes and the design of corporate annual reports. Although some historians and commentators have recognised that the increase in market activity in the late 1980s went hand-in-hand with an increasing self-questioning by businesses of the importance of corporate identity, there is little critical analysis of how annual reports contributed to changing political and economic structures in Britain between 1980-2000.Most writing concerning annual reports has been confined to the fields of finance and business and within the research that has been written by design specialists, the analysis is equally circumscribed at the at expense of the broader contexts in which the annual report operated. There is little writing from within the fields of design that looks beyond ideas of success and towards wider contexts at work. This research aims to begin to shift the imbalance in the fields from which the established literature has emerged by offering a design historical approach that combines the critical enquiry of a historian, with a knowledge of design processes. In asking after relationships between political and economic contexts, annual reports and designers this research aims to begin to fill the lack of knowledge surrounding the design of annual reports in the late twentieth century. Moreover, it is hoped that the combination of object analysis with interviews will bring new methods to histories of finance and accounting and new insights into the significance of the annual report within design history.