Strichpunkt

With the Megatrend Reports, Bosch has established a special kind of annual report: each issue is dedicated to a new future topic. One of Germany’s leading creative agencies, Strichpunkt, has been responsible for the individual realisations – annual show bags conceived with a wild mix of styles. The reader is in for a treat page after page, for both content and design think outside the box and help make the future a little more tangible.

Interview with Strichpunkt

Red Dot: “Thinking ahead. Footprints of the future. Tracks into Tomorrow.” Is looking into the future generally what makes Bosch’s annual report so special?
Strichpunkt: Absolutely! Nobody knows the future. Global shocks such as Covid or the war in Ukraine are evidence of this, as are the mega-opportunities (e.g. AI) and mega-problems (e.g. climate change) with their complex interdependencies. Instead, we ask “What if ...?”. This is what we mean when we look for footprints of the future and tracks into tomorrow: openly thinking and exploring the future. Together with experts from all disciplines and with the competent minds of our time from research, science and sociology, from political and strategic consulting, and from the arts. The Megatrend Report allows itself to do something that – for a large corporation like Bosch – is very special: free, unregulated thinking.

How did the graphics evolve?
The main topic of the current Megatrend Report is the emergence and development of artificial intelligence, the resulting technologies and products, as well as their social and economic interactions. We took inspiration from this, felt our way forward, experimented with AI tools such as Stable Diffusion and with old masters, and developed stories. We let ourselves drift, rummaged through the texts and interviews, and literally followed the tracks into tomorrow.

Do you rethink each issue or are the Megatrend Reports meant to stay true to their line?
The inspiring and challenging thing about our joint work is that neither Andrej Heinke from Bosch nor we ourselves know what the results of this six-month endeavour will look like. In this respect, every Megatrend Report is not only an expedition into the future, but also an experiment with content and visuals. Over the years, the collage of very different topics has resulted in something like a style; not a visual style, but rather an attitude driven by curiosity. The form develops individually from the content. The unexpected that lurks around every corner, the surprising discovery when you turn each page – this is a deliberate part of our concept.

How much fun is this project for you?
A lot of fun! Each Megatrend Report is a big experiment for us, and a very special project. The freedom of thinking and the close cooperation and co-authorship with Andrej Heinke are simply extraordinarily inspiring – even after almost ten years of truly intensive “cheek to cheek” collaboration!