Hasta La Ideas

An exhibition of paintings, furniture and installations by Zaha Hadid goes on show at the Ivorypress Space gallery in Madrid this September.

Top: Blue Beam, Victoria City Aerial, Berlin, Germany, 1988
Above: Hafenstrasse Office and Residential Development, Hamburg, Germany, 1989

Presented by curator Kenny Schachter, the exhibition will feature recent projects such as the Z-Chair and the Liquid Glacial Table, as well as older works that include Hadid’s 1980′s paintings of buildings in London, Berlin and Hamburg.

Above: Hafenstrasse Office and Residential Development, Hamburg, Germany, 1989

The exhibition runs from 4 September to 3 November.

Above: The World (89 DEGREES), 1983

Hadid also recently revealed images of an exhibition she will present at the Venice Architecture Biennale next week.

Above: Vision for Madrid Block – 18 pieces, Madrid, Spain, 2012

See more stories about Zaha Hadid »

Above: Vision for Madrid, Spain, 1992

Here’s a press release from Zaha Hadid Architects:

Zaha Hadid. Beyond Boundaries, Art and Design
at Ivorypress Space, Madrid

The exhibition showcases the work of Zaha Hadid, reflecting her research that challenges established conventions. In addition to drawings, paintings, reliefs and installations, Hadid’s furniture and product design will also be exhibited.

Above: Grand Buildings, Trafalgar Square London, UK, 1985

The exhibition’s curator, Kenny Schachter describes Hadid’s world-view as one in which ‘art, design, and architecture collapse into one another to reflect an all-encompassing way of life characterised by pushing and pulling the boundaries of aesthetics in every conceivable manner and form. What is so inspiring and intriguing about the astounding output of Zaha Hadid, is the imaginative, inventive and unquenchable expression of curiosity and creativity. Hadid defies pigeonholing in a world increasingly defined by uniformity.’

Above: Z-Chair, 2011

The MAXXI: National Museum of 21st Century Arts in Rome, Italy and the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympic Games are excellent demonstrations of Hadid’s quest for complex, fluid space. Previous seminal buildings such as the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati and the Guangzhou Opera House in China have also been hailed as architecture that transforms our ideas of the future with new spatial concepts and bold, visionary forms.

Above: Liquid Glacial Table, 2012

From their London-based studio, Zaha Hadid Architects adopts the same creative approach with regard to objects such as purses, cutlery, jewellery, decorative objects, or furniture, such as the Zephyr sofa or the Liquid Glacial table. These two pieces, along with a wide selection of works, will comprise the exhibition which suggests ‘a very democratic conception, non-hierarchical in structure’ explains Schachter.

Above: Stalactites installation, 2008

Ivorypress
C/Comandante Zorita 48 – 46 28020 Madrid Spain
September 4th – November 3rd 2012

Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Client: Ivorypress in collaboration with Rove Gallery
Project Director: Woody K T Yao
Exhibition Design Team: Jimena Araiza, Maha Kutay, Margarita Valova
Exhibition Coordinators: Manon Janssens, Claudia Fruianu

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by Zaha Hadid at Ivorypress Space appeared first on Dezeen.

A quarter of a century after its last update, Microsoft has unveiled a new logo as it prepares to launch a host of new products with a common look and feel

In a statement on a Microsoft blog, Microsoft’s general manager of Brand Strategy Jeff Hansen explained that “The logo has two components: the logotype and the symbol. For the logotype, we are using the Segoe font which is the same font we use in our products as well as our marketing communications … The symbol’s squares of colour are intended to express the company’s diverse portfolio of products.”

A video demonstrates how the new mark will work in animation.

1975 logo

1975-1987

1987 – present

This is the first time in 25 years that Microsoft has changed its logo. As we reported in our April 2012 issue, the company is in the midst of reimagining its approach to the design and branding of its products with the roll out of the Metro design language. Over the next year, it will launch new products including Windows 8, Windows Phone 8, new Xbox services and a new version of Office in which, Hansen says, “you will see a common look and feel … providing a familiar and seamless experience on PCs, phones, tablets and TVs”.

From today, the new look will appear on microsoft.com and in three of the company’s shops in the US.

Segoe, which was designed by Steve Matteson at Monotype, may not be the most exciting typeface in the world and the logo itself is hardly revolutionary but what is worth applauding here is the ongoing work that Microsoft has been doing across the business on its UI design and branding.

In various public pronouncements and blog posts, Microsoft designers have paid tribute to the influence not just of graphic design but of the Swiss International Style in particular in developing what has come to be known as Metro, the visual language based on clean typography and a grid system of coloured tiles that Microsoft has begun to implement across its products.

Metro has its roots in work done by various Microsoft design teams for the ill-fated Zune music player, Windows Media Player and even Microsoft’s Encarta encyclopedia software in combining graphic design, interaction design and motion graphic design to attempt to create a compelling user experience. But it was the Windows Phone team that developed those principles into a coherent design philosophy that is now being adopted across the group, including for Windows 8 OS.

Windows 8 start screen

The new logo comes out of this thinking and style. In our April issue, Jeff Fong, who was creative director on Windows Phone 7, explained how a team of designers at Microsoft started working on conceptualising a design direction and principles for the Windows Mobile redesign using transportation wayfinding as a major inspiration. “It’s a clear, direct visual language that helps people navigate a complex environment. Why not take inspiration from that and apply it to helping people navigate complex technologies?” he said.

The new interface, they decided, should be clean, light, open and fast. Unnecessary visual elements, including gradients and faux 3D were to be stripped out. Particular emphasis was to be given to motion, to the way in which one element transitioned to another, and to typography. And the interface would be ‘honest’ in that it wouldn’t be dressed up to look like real world objects or materials – no ‘skeumorphic’ shading or glossiness (Apple take note).

Windows 7 screen

For so many years, Microsoft’s graphic design has been about as stylish as its founder. With Metro it has developed a coherent, clean, considered typographically-led approach across its entire portflio of products. Moreover, it is one that rejects so many of the clichés of tech companies in favour of an attempt at least to learn from the masters of graphic design – in developing Metro, for example, the Microsoft team cited Vignelli, Müller-Brockmann and even Experimental Jetset as influences on their thinking.

This is not the most visually exciting piece of work that we will cover on this site, but there’s certainly something very interesting and ambitious going on at Microsoft and its approach to graphic design.

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Dezeen is looking for designers and other creatives to participate in a series of live events we’re hosting at 100% Design in London from 19-22 September.

Dezeen Live at 100% Design will a series of live one-hour shows that will include interviews, discussions, reports and music from Dezeen Music Project. The shows will be filmed and will be broadcast later on Dezeen.

We’re looking for proposals for short (no longer than five minutes), unusual features to include at the end of each show. If you have an idea for a performance, product demonstration, act, sketch or similar that you think would work as part of Dezeen Live, please drop us a line!

Please send a one-page PDF outline of your idea (including images and links to video or audio files if relevant) to dan@dezeen.com.

Dezeen Live at 100% Design will take place from 5-6pm each day from Wednesday 19 to Saturday 22 September at a purpose-built auditorium at the show, which will take place at Earls Court in London during the London Design Festival.

We’ll be announcing the full line-up soon but speakers confirmed so far include designers Dominic Wilcox, Benjamin Hubert, Katrin Olina, Tom Hulme and Philippe Malouin; trend forecaster Li Edelkoort; curator Beatrice Galilee and more. Dezeen Live will be hosted by Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs.

See more details on Dezeen Live and all the 100% Design seminars here.

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call for participants appeared first on Dezeen.

Every year we devote our September issue to showcasing work by a selection of bright young hopefuls emerging from education. This time, however, we thought we’d do things differently…

Instead of just interviewing each of our selected graduates, we’ve paired them up with a seasoned pro in their respective field. We asked them to interview each other for the grads to glean as much helpful advice from the professionals as possible, and for the pros to give helpful, realistic crits of each graduate’s work.

Our thanks go to Kirsty Carter and Stephen Osman of APFEL who talked to Leeds College of Art graduate Arthur Carey:

Neil Dawson of BETC who talked to Chelsea’s Sophia Ray:

Matthew ‘The Horse’ Hodson who shared his insights with (also of Leeds College of Art) Sam Tomlins (the duo also took the time to submit portraits, each one depicting the other):

and to still life photographer Jenny van Sommers who gave invaluable advice to Megan Helyer, a graduate of Cleveland College of Art and Design. We’re very grateful to all of them for giving up their time for this project.

The idea, of course, with this series of articles is that they provide useful, perhaps even essential, reading for any young creative starting out and trying to establish a professional practice.

Also in the issue, Eliza Williams talks to the key players at Google Creative Lab to find out more about their working philosophy

And in Crit, David Crowley reviews the new Unit Editions book that looks at the career of the master US designer and art director Herb Lubalin.

Jeremy Leslie looks at how a new wave of magazines, such as the bilingual Figure, are using a central theme to explore the wider culture, and Michael Evamy takes a looks to identify the dos and don’ts of town and city branding

Meanwhile, Gordon Comstock asseses the vital role of failure in advertising as part of an essential learning curve all creatives must embrace.

Plus, in Monograph this month we showcase a series of typographic works (created especially for this issue of Monograph) by Jonathan Barnbrook all of which immortalise various tweets by Barnbrook offering advice to students.

Oh, there’s also a chance to win a one-off A2 digital print of one of these Aesthetic Sense artworks by Barnbrook on our regular Gallery page in the issue.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Bicycle skeletons evoke stories in a WNYC art display

If you live in a city you’ve likely seen one: a bicycle chained to a rack or sign post for weeks, months or years. Forsaken or simply forgotten, it rusts and decays in the elements and is pillaged for parts, losing a wheel, then the seat, the handlebars and…

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