dezeen

genius chef

hahah! Great!

superb

…and if you don’t like what you’ve read, just pop it back in and turn up the heat.

Greeeeaaaat!!! That’s communication design!
*clap clap clap*

WOW

The sort of “bollocks” the jounalists love

Simply amazing :o)

I think it’s a nifty idea at first, but as I let the idea rest, it seems sophomoric. As a share-holder I’d find it annoying to have to go through the trouble of cooking it to read it, while on an efficiency front, it’s simply a waste of energy.

At the very least they could have taken it a step further and made it with edible paper.

Does the concept of “cooking the books” carry over the cultural divide? Whether it does or not, I still need to figure out if any connection with the metaphor enhances or ruins the effect.

Still, very clever, whether or not its anything more than novelty.

JA

Okay, cultural divide doesn’t sound right. What I meant was, does the metaphor of cooking the books carry the same concept in Eastern Europe as it does in the US (and perhaps elsewhere).

Or, would there be some other hidden meanings that could be derived from this that I, not being familiar with the culture, not be aware of?

There may not be, but the idea of “cooking the book” from my view begs for there to be some level of tongue-in-cheek at play, even if it doesn’t translate as I see it.

JA

I think the idea is very cool, I do agree that as a end user of an annual report I would find it very cool and nicely designed but maybe not appropriate for this. Maybe a support piece that they have with the little book would have been enough for the cooking part. I like the book box that it came in, I wonder where it was made… similar style to Talas in NYC.

Very creative

However, if I received this in the mail as a stockholder, I would want some answers on why so much was spent on the development and implementation of this (as opposed to, say, investing in the growth of the company I’m investing in.) Annual reports very seldom act as successful standalone marketing pieces. In theory, you would think that they would do well as collateral pieces, yet studies indicate otherwise.

As a designer, I like the piece. But the results are (usually) more important than the form in projects such as this.

. . . but how does it TASTE?

It consists of two parts:

* a big book containing numbers and a report of an independent auditor

* a small booklet that is inserted inside the big one that contains the very heart of Podravka as a brand: great Podravka’s recipes.

It’s only the recipes that have to be cooked I think its a great idea.

Beautifully designed. Thoughtfully done. The gimmick is well paired to the context at least, food/cooking/heat reactive inks, and cleverly used.

Having admired the report as a utilitarian artistic object, I too am left wondering about its fundamental concepts. Using a whole oven, for each of the copies, without food being heated too does seem a serious waste of energy. And as a shareholder I too would want company resources going into making the products better, or the marketing more effective, not to producing an award winning book.

That is the best Annual Report I’ve ever seen! Brilliant and so classy. Take a bow. But I bet it cost an arm and a leg!

talk about cooking the books!

I need to buy me some Podravka stocks to get future creative annual repoorts.

Now, that’s what I call a cook book:)

I think a creative design like this should get Podravka enough press to make up for at least some of the expense. I mean, really, how often do you find stories about Croatian companies on boingboing.net, for example?

Et les aveugles dans tout ça ?

Is there a word for “sustainability” in Croatia?

Finally a meal even my son can cook!

so dumb

Amazing. But not so good technology for gun powder providers

Who is the company president? Ratatouille?

Jeez. Talk about cooking the books. Look what happened to enron.

BIG DEAL. I’ve already Topped this by including a friendly octopus to hand draw/write my designs with their own natural organic ink right before the viewers eyes.

After its done feel free to cook him at 350 F for 15 minutes! Calamari anyone?

if you looked at this report and another company’s in the same field, whose name would you remember? impressive!

In response to the non-believers:

Does anyone know how much this cookable book would cost to produce? Why assume it’s expensive? Just because it’s not a mainstream idea doesn’t make it exorbitant. Maybe the size offsets the expense?

There’s always a budget for an AR and comically enough, an AR which gets noticed generates buzz about the company which in turn can generate new invetors. Who ever heard of Podravka before this post?

A shareholder comes home from work with his new report under-arm. He prepares a casserole for dinner. Throws them both in the oven. Later he has something to read while eating dinner. Where is the wasted energy?

For Andy and anyone else: You don’t need to be a stockholder to receive an annual report. You can order one from their website for free.

Though, it doesn’t tell you the delivery times.

Doood. Well done…seriously well done.

That is fantastic. Unlike some others I would applaud the company if I was an investor. I would expect this kind of creativity from people associated with a food company

yummmmmmm

The best annual report is that of Berkshire. This concept is cool but sends a terrible message to the investors.

genijalno! čestitke!

nataša

I am a journalist working for Internews, a UK news & feature agency. We are intrigued by your annual report story and would like to run a piece about it in the British press. Can you email jpg hi-res images to go with the story?
Is this a new idea? No-one in our office has heard of it before.
Anyway, we are sure it will get lots of coverage. Perhaps we can send you some cuttings.
Thanks you
Len Adams/Writer

Now, if they could just make it microwaveable.

Brilliant…Love the idea!

Brilliant. But how does it taste?

Amazing concept…

excellent! i have ordered one. Will see if they will send it to me.

Hi,

Bet that was a fun presscheck! Heavier on the garlic please. Turn down the Jalapeño blend a bit. Check closely for hickies in the steak.

god, how sad that people think this is good communication design and a good concept. It’s a pure gimmick and an incredible waste of electricity!

What are you talking about Amy? This is a wonderful concept with beautiful execution. I’ve wanted to play with these inks myself. You could say anything that was done with them was a gimmick. What a cop-out of a critique.

True creativity is hard to define, but this is surely a great example, as well as any PR manager’s dream. Who had heard of this company before? Great exposure, probably world-wide by now. There are not many annual reports that get this kind of attention. Bravo! And by the way… “cooking the books” is only a known expression in (native) English speaking countries..

it is wonderful concept as Podravka is advancing last year a lot in segment of ready made meals. and by the way its one of top 5 croatian companies. designers on the other hand are no 1 in this part of europe.

it’s amazing what people are thinking of these days — to be so creative with annual reports makes the field of design that much more exciting. awesome.

What a great big FU*K YOU to the user.

Wanna read this annual report? Well, first you gotta go through several tedious steps, which involve an oven. Why? Because the designer cares more about the cheap applause he’ll receive for this oh-so-witty idea (food company/putting things in an oven….get it?! GET IT?!) than his ostensible responsibility to communicate to an audience. Brilliant, indeed.

quite innovative…

Lisa, whats re problem. read the article first.

Very clever, indeed. And the gimmick is ONLY the cookbook. The Annual Report and all the boring numbers are there, in all their glory (?) in front of the naked eye. No thawing, no dicing, no slicing and no heat required. Then, there’s the ‘cookable’ insert and that’s where the ‘fun’ comes in to play. Go ahead and download the free .pdf version of the AR and you can read the history/future/numbers. But to get the recipes … ya gotta have some heat!

Lisa, tone down the sarcasm and read the article more carefully. The annual report does NOT require baking; only the little booklet with RECIPES does. Great idea by the way. For those living in California, Podravka’s liver pâté can be purchased at Jons and it’s quite tasty.

Okay, I stand corrected– only the gratuitous cookbook needs to be heated in order to be read. (Which sort of proves why this is a dumb gimmick– it’s sort of assumed that no one will ever go to the trouble of baking-to-read)

I find this idea irritating because it’s lacking in subtlety– the designer had no real reason to use the thermo-reactive ink, he just wanted to, because it’s cool. A genuinely brilliant use of the stuff would be for a product that’s naturally exposed to 100 degree temperatures– disposable coffee cups, for instance.

This annual report design is trying waaaay too hard, in my opinion.

This is one more example of designers’ egos getting in the way of great design. The idea of “cooking the books” seems to be a double ententre: this is a food company (the obvious) that “cooks the books” (the implied message), a real disservice to the client, while the real purpose is to promote the designers’ great wit. This is not clever–it’s just trying way to hard to prove how smart the designers are.

In a day of global warming, the reader of the annual report must waste a pile of energy in order to read the darn thing?

“I find this idea irritating because it’s lacking in subtlety– the designer had no real reason to use the thermo-reactive ink, he just wanted to, because it’s cool.”

That’s the whole point. It’s a little extra to liven up what could otherwise be a boring report. As opposed to just opening the book and reading.

You may see it as a bad idea (and I’m getting the opinion you’ve highly biased due to your initial misunderstanding of the workings of this booklet) but it’s most certainly not unoriginal nor a repeat of something we’ve seen before and it fits the theme quite well. Wether the end user appreciates having to cook something to read it or not is a different story altogether, but this is just the desert, not the main course.

We can have a little fun with our desert, can’t we?

“That’s the whole point. It’s a little extra to liven up what could otherwise be a boring report. As opposed to just opening the book and reading.”

Try to look at this design from the point of view of a real person who’s holding this object in their hands for the first time (as opposed to someone who’s just learned that it’s an “award winning” design): a kit containing an annual report and a mysterious little blank book. If you investigate further, you learn that the book can be read, if baked. Perhaps you’ll find the notion of thermo-reactive ink thrilling (”Look at this, Myrtle– it says that the ink only becomes visible when heated!), or perhaps you’ll just say to yourself, “What the fu*k? What a convoluted waste!” In either scenario, you’re still holding a little blank book.

THIS, you find non-boring?

Unusual gimmick, but the energy used to ‘cook’ the report does not do much to enhance environmental responsible image of Bruketa & Zinić or Podravka. Perhaps CSR hasn’t reached Croatia yet.

Judging from these comments, it strikes me that the female commenters are more hostile to the design than men. Coincidence?

What if John Deere included a patch of sod within its annual report packet, and instructed the recipient to mow the sod in order to reveal “12 tips to a more beautiful lawn” (the sod is specially treated so that some of the grass blades turn a different color, when cut… or some-such high tech explanation). Brilliant, or stupid?

Max, every time you fart you produce more CO2.
But if you insist, maybe you can bake it with some food.
I love this piece!

Wow, I really like this. I would think that the energy used to cook the book is negligible compared to processing the paper, printing the book, and shipping it.

True it is a gimmick, but it is memorable, and from what I could see the design is beautiful as well. I want to order one now.

btw, I’m grey.

Oh, kakšna dobra ideja! Odlično!

a very nice food annual report (podravka) .really its wothwhile to say “cook me before to feel my words”

I can’t believe some of you thinking this is too gimmicky? This is a legitimately good idea. Our job as designers is not merely to communicate - if it were, we wouldn’t need designers, we’d need type-setters. Our job is to engage the viewer/reader to get a message across. To create some excitement about things like dog food, napkins and bottled water. OF COURSE the end user is going to pop this thing in the oven…it’s neat. They want to see it. Then they’ll go throug page by page to see what happened. Try getting that result by just setting some type.

…and to say this is a waste of energy that is impacting global warming is ridiculous. How much energy does your iBook waste…I’d wager to say you’re wasting energy just by turning it on, judging by some of your views on design.

Wow! great idea! I have good ideas too but do not knolw how to make them work i.e. what scientific processes I have to go through in order for it to ACTUALLY work. Who do you ask? How is it produced? By whom? What kind of services do you call on to? Please please can someone answer this for me. I am really really stuck. Thanks.

Printer: http://www.ibl.hr

Great design IMO. Josh has explained this best: most people, whether they think it’s just a gimmick or not, will end up baking the book and going through it to see the changes, even those who think it somewhat stupid. You can’t beat having the majority take interest; if only a fraction of the attention this would bring were applied to any other business you can be assured it would do well. +1 to the designers

Does anybody know where I can get samples or some reference materials for thermal inks. Ideally I’d like to produce my deigns using colour rather than just balck and white like the expamles above.

Thanks

I think it’s a great idea. Frankly most people ( in India, at least) don’t even read Annual Reports. They are volumes that go straight to the dust bin and are considered boring and unnecessary to read. Most Shareholders only look at the share price!

As an investor and a communicator, I think it’s a great idea. I would not throw this into the bin and take the trouble to bake the little book and read it. More so, I would keep it to show to others - ” Hey ! Look what came in the mail!” There’s nothing wrong in using technology - I’ve been hunting in India for a printer that can do this for some brands, wanted to use perfumed paper for something else, it all adds to the magic!

I think these guys deserve a standing ovation - but I’d really like to know what the share holders thought of it!

cyrus

“well done”… hahahha

Well done:)
This seems to me what Design is all about.
… consitists all neccesarry components.
Artistic, humorous, innovative, APPROPRIATE.
Bravo za ovo, Carevi !

this is total wow! what an idea.
and to be able to make it functional.
creative thinking at its best

well, well…as a Croat I must say I’m amazed and very proud of those two young and very succesfull guys….I see everyone is trying to find a deeper meaning, the hidden one, behind cooking the book! The only one I can find, and it again, has to do only with the creativity of Bruketa&Zinic who were very funny…if what I’m about to say, was at all the hidden meaning. So, Croatia is nowdays facing big coruption scandals, some of them related to big companies…Podravka is one that is not problematic, and a rare one that is daring to show their business results so publicly (cause, things like that are not public at all in Cro). So if this was the way to present the company as one of the few that is demistifying their finances, in a metaforical sense…these guys did it great! Concerning business and finances - everyone is “cooking” something in Croatia! Hidden things become visable! But only in Podravka…it seems

The Podravka is a Food Company,so she is making food product s,so why the cook book,and after you cooked and read the annual report,you get on the other part of the book,secret receipt s who use only the best chef s in Cratia Hotels, for they who didn t know.
The Podravka is a top 5 compny in Croatia with an 60 year experience of making food product s.
We are a small country,and ideas like this,and a brand like Podravka(SuperBrand of Russia and Poland 2005) makes Croats proud nation,i say.
Like Lalec,i an Croat too,so you can read his comment,with my agree about everything he s said.
And Phill,phill your knowledge with this:The annual report is printed in Conqueror Laid Brilliant White 120 g/m2, Munken Polar 130 g/m2 i Soporset 90 g/m2 paper and it is writed in press …
Oh yeah,the rewards of this cook book is:Art Directors Club New York - silver Award, Red Dot - The Best Of The Best, Cresta - Category win, I. D. Annual Design Review - The Best In Categoy, Type Directors Club, Graphis - Gold Award, Creativity - Golden Award , Good Design, HOW International Design Awards, Moscow International Advertising Festival - Golden Award, International Forum Communication…

Great Yob,guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My favourite!! Love the idea…bloody brilliant!!!

To all you naysayers: Envy is best served with humility. You just wish you would have thought of this first. You’d be loving the publicity. Don’t kid yourself.

It’s a wonderful concept in a regularly boring annual report world. How many times have you sat down dreading having to layout and design one of these things, knowing that 99 percent of the people getting it won’t read it. All that nitpicking at every little detail… and the CEO actually thinking that someone is going to read his little blah blah blah.

Doing something like this, as the designer and producer, really gets creative juices flowing and would sure make it a lot more fun.

And as for “cooking the books” being a bad choice - maybe in Croatia there is no such adage. Open your mind up a little.

Wonderful. Made my day reading this article.

While I may never had thought of this, should I had managed to I would have likely computed the energy required to activate these thermal-reactive inks and discovered that burning X lbs/tons of coal for fun is unacceptable given contemporary levels of environmental awareness. Though I suppose I could have thrown it in with the roast?

Cookbooks whose text appears after baking? Perfect for a women.

podravka my good friend

greattttttttttt

Amazing marketing and it gave the company fantastic publicity. I am sure it’s not an annual report that was destined for the rubbish bin.

Inspiring! Something whimsical along with something many “regular” people would rather not read at all.

absolutely amazing

Phenomenal idea. If it costs a little extra so what!? Sometimes the extra investment is worth it and in this case it definitely is.

Ha. That is awesome and genius. Very creative way to bring some interest and creativity to a company.

I think you spent all your free time on this job, db!:)

Hmm not a bad idea, but I like the one done
by Underware for their typeface Sauna so much better.

http://www.underware.nl/site2/index.php3?id1=underware&id2=publications&id3=readnaked&id4=general

Exceptional Idea. This was some very very creative thinking.

This is an absolutely inspiring piece of design and to those of you who claim that this project “is unacceptable given contemporary levels of environmental awareness,” are sorely unaware of the actual environmental issues of our time. As much as I appreciate the sentiment, the target is all wrong- as individuals in their homes using a conventional oven for 20 minutes isn’t even a blip on a chart of what factors do the most damage to our environment. Companies such as Dupont, Exxon Mobil, GE, Ford, ADM, Boeing and many, many others have such a real and disastrous effect on our environment that your petty oven complaint is just laughable. I guess you’re just looking for anything you can to criticize.

Yeah, yeah, Bravo! for the annual report but why are all of these expensive reports (this one, and those from the previous years; even if we consider that the design itself could be pro bono the printing process itself must cost a lot) made for the company which at the same time is not profitable and is generating losses per stock?

hahaha..
it’s a very nice book!

This is such a crazy idea! Love it! Just wondering about the environmental impact if everyone reading the annual have to stick it in the oven… The carbon footprint can be quite hectic. BUT it is a great idea and well executed. Well done!

POR ESO YO APRENDÍ A COCINAR DESDE CHIQUITO.
A LOS 6 AÑOS HACÍA PARA TODOS FLAN CON CREMA. JAJAJA!!!

Excelente idea, como novedad y creatividad es una idea genial!!!!
Y sobretodo que eligieron un libro para plasmar la experiencia, lo que deja en claro el nivel cultural de quienes desarrollaron el proyecto.
El libro sigue viviendo….
Gracias
Celia M.E. Portaneri
Bibliotecaria y Documentalista
Rosario - Argentina

Can I use the microwave?

Nice Idea! Its good to see such idea’s being implemented Great stuff, Bruketa & Zinić OM Team!!!!

Wow, that looks very amazing. But for the every day use it’s probablly nothing. At least the ofen is hot once you’re able to start to cook.

That is pure genius.

Nice Work guys, great idea to spice up an otherwise boring project. Love the effort and creativity involved.

This has got to be the most creative annual report i’ve ever seen. Well done.

Fuck man, this is great!

Very cool! Gets someone intimate with cooking and involved with the process, love it!

BTW, Bruketa & Zinić won Graphis Awards for Podravka in both 2005 and 2006, search here:
http://www.graphis.com/archive/winners/search/