Food company cooks the books

In an innovative and stylish amalgamation of marketing and cuisine (and, I suspect, tongue-in-cheek humour), Croatian food company Podravka's 2006 Annual Report is offered in what appears to be a blank book, entitled "Well Done".

But no, they aren't really cooking the books - they expect the recipient to. After the book is wrapped in foil and baked in an oven at 100°C for 25 minutes, thermo-reactive ink blossoms into sight, displaying a range of beautifully detailed pictures, a range of recipes with comments, and an independent auditor's report. And if you overcook the book? Well, just like any ill-tended meal, it burns.

Half-baked idea or art? You decide.

The recipes are also available in a beautiful interactive book from the Podravka website, and further details and full photographs of the cooking book can be found on YouSayToo.

Previously, Podravka & Bruteka & Zinic (designers of the 2006 report also) won the red dot Communication Design & Best of the Best Awards for their 2005 Annual Report "Excerpt of the eternal debate about the heart".

Again, this didn't just present the company's financial data for the previous year. In a stylish continuous-paper format (reminiscent of the days of dot-matrix printers), it furnishes the reader with several recipes accompanied by a Croatian author's stories in handwritten text, detailing how these foods played a role in his childhood, and how "he not only associates them with nourishment but with a world of taste experiences and memories". Again, this is available via the Podravka website.