Railtrack Group PLC was established with the privatisation of British Rail in 1994. The 1998/99 annual report comes five years after this event, at the turn of the millennium when companies and the public were looking to the future and anticipating problems such as the Y2K computer bug.
Railtrack uses an Art Deco-style for their report, harking back to the turn of the 20th century. Art Deco had a great influence on art, architecture, and design throughout the 20th century. The clean and streamlined appearance of Art Deco represented a utopian futurism to aspire to.
Art Deco imagery tends to feature people looking up aspirationally to the future. Therein lies the gist of the report’s theme, ‘The Momentum Continues’, with a clear vision statement by Railtrack that they are working to deliver the railway system of the future. Indeed, it is a clever way of addressing the company’s future without resorting to the clichéd hi-tech imagery so prevalent at the time.
The dust jacket folds out to reveal that the cover is an Art Deco billboard set within a train station, with a worker looking up towards it. This motif continues inside through pages 14 to 23. The matte pages feature more abstract Art Deco billboards by artist Andrew Davidson set within photographs of people walking or looking past the billboards, as if to look to the future – a clever, modern twist on Art Deco imagery.
Besides the feature images and the financial statements, the rest of the report is printed on glossy paper and notably features Gill Sans.
Gill Sans is, of course, the massively influential typeface that serves as the official typeface of British Rail and features prominently across its signage and posters. Created in 1926, the font can trace its roots back to 1916 and was synonymous with many British institutions such as the BBC and Penguin Books. The font itself was inspired by the Art Deco movement, neatly tying up the motifs of the report.
At just 80 pages, the A4-sized (albeit slightly wider) report is remarkably efficient and with its excellent use of a restrained Art Deco colour pallete, is certainly one of the more unique and memorable annual reports from the end of the 20thcentury.
