The Hugo Boss annual report of 2007 is a puzzling affair. For a company associated so potently with contemporary fashion, the design of the report is surprisingly average.

 

Content is split between two books – the report proper and a company profile. The annual report is the more interesting of the two books. In it, photography takes an odd twist – the main images are black and white architectural photographs of the company’s buildings. There are almost no people visible in the images. It’s a strange, lonely approach to corporate photography.

The single page of colour photography is reserved for the Managing Board where four portraits occupy a single page coated in a thick, gloss lamination.

 

 

The report makes restrained use of a silver ink to separate sections of the book and for titles. This ink has been carefully matched to a metallic light blue ink for the second of the two books, the company profile.

 

 

 

The company profile is an odd book too, but for a different reason. Here the photography is haphazard – low resolution images from the catwalk, overexposed images from after parties, photographs of accessories that make the book look like an inflight magazine, the list goes on.

Towards the end of the book, photographs disappear, to be replaced with what look like vector art silhouettes. The mish mash of styles and techniques is jarring. 

 

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