We’ve seen a whole host of imaginative and experimental projects come out of the practical restrictions imposed by lockdown, from animated music videos to Covid-themed emoji designs.

As a brand that is no stranger to experimentation in its campaigns, Gucci has been well placed to embrace the new normal. The fashion house’s latest creative experiment is Myristica, a comic book produced in partnership with biannual art magazine Kaleidosope to coincide with its new issue.

The team behind Kaleidoscope had worked with Gucci in the past, most recently on a book and exhibition by Harmony Korine in 2019, and had the idea to collaborate on a comic book after meeting another Gucci collaborator, cellist and songwriter Kelsey Lu, earlier this year.

“Funnily enough, this project actually started a couple months before the lockdown,” says Kaleidoscope’s publisher and creative director, Alessio Ascari. “The loose concept at the beginning was to create something that played with the idea of a fucked up superhero narrative, inspired by Lu’s artistic journey, her community, and interest in cosmology.”

Titled Myristica, the comic draws on the same themes as Lu’s recent album Blood, which is partly an exploration of her Black, queer identity. “I’ve been a fan of comics since I was a kid, and graphic novels were something I started getting more into as a young adult when I started to realise the astoundingly complex storylines that can be contained within them,” she says.

“The freedoms and fantasies that can be held and explored within an illustrated story can be so incredible and somehow relatable. When meditating on the uniqueness of my own story, and how at times I’ve felt difficulty in finding commonality as a young, Black queer woman within the world of comics, I thought this opportunity presented itself as a way to open up that dialogue. With Gucci, it’s another way to expand that dialogue to people who might not as easily expose themselves to something like this.”

The comic’s distinctive aesthetic has been conceptualised and created by Terrell Villiers and Akia Dorsainvil of Masisi Studios, who brought it to life in under two months in the midst of lockdown and the recent Black Lives Matters protests.

In the illustrations, Lu is captured wearing Gucci ready-to-wear pieces and accessories including the Jackie 1961 bag archival design, which has been revived by creative director Alessandro Michele for its AW/20 catwalk show, and accompanied by a number of guest cameos including singer Florence Welch.

“I really wanted to tie in the element of fashion that is relatable such as the Gucci bracelet on Lu’s wrist. It was introduced in the comic as something Lu wore in her childhood,” says Dorsainvil, who led on the concept development, script and dialogue elements of the project.

For Villiers, who was the lead illustrator and art director, what was equally as important was capturing Lu’s personal style. “What some might not know about Lu, is that her astounding, eccentric, eclectic, styled looks are all very precise and intentional to her artistic practice. Her outfits are the visual narrative that accompanies the narrative in her music. Learning that made styling them the most fun part of illustrating Myristica,” he says.

Find out more about Myristica here

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Framestore has teamed up with British Vogue to put a new spin on classic fashion photos, working with the magazine to model new collections onto decades-old images for its August 2020 issue. We speak to Framestore about bringing the project to life

The post How Framestore revived the past for British Vogue appeared first on Creative Review.

Architecture dedicated to people affected by Alzheimer’s disease features alongside and a conceptual home for “Disney’s unloved” in this VDF school show by the Bartlett School of Architecture.

A total of 10 student projects are included in the digital exhibition, completed by both undergraduate and postgraduate students at the school that forms a part of UCL.

It provides an insight into the diversity of teaching units at the Bartlett, ahead of its summer show in September 2020.

Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL

School: Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL
Courses: Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Architecture MArch(ARB/RIBA Part 2)

School statement:

“The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL offers a comprehensive range of architecture programmes, including but not limited to the professional qualifications needed to practice as an architect in the UK. We are world-leading teachers of architecture, passionate about exploring what architecture is and what it could be.

“The annual Bartlett Summer Show is one of the largest student architecture shows in the world. This year, in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, the school is launching a new and innovative online environment for all of our shows. The Bartlett Summer Show 2020 will open on Thursday 10 September and will be accompanied by a range of exciting online events.”

Metamorphosis by Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Year 1

“The Year 1 installation is a pivotal moment in the life and tradition of Year 1 Architecture. Entitled Metamorphosis, the installation took nine characters from Ovid’s epic Metamorphoses and translated them into nine installations that were translocated into Walmer Yard – four bespoke tailor-made houses – in West London.

“The one-day event consisted of nine spatial proposals that explored the relationship between myth, transformation, and identity, which were set against a series of musical performances. The event was developed in collaboration with Jane Gilbert from UCL’s School of European Languages, Culture and Society; Laura Mark, the Keeper of Walmer Yard, Baylight Foundation; and the Topos String Quartet, a group of classical musicians from the UK and Europe.”

Photography is by Jason Brooks.

A System of Urban Flow by Hazel Balogun

“With the agenda of improving urban mobility in Amman, this Senior Citizens’ Day Centre provides an accessible route across one of the city’s hillside topographies.

“Influenced by modern and vernacular collection systems, the landscape captures stormwater to reduce the intensity of seasonal flash floods. This precious resource is circulated through a network of activity spaces, such that water acts as both a spectacle and a coolant to suit Amman’s summer climate.

“Curved stone surfaces wind and fold with one another, just like the natural caves polished by water for hundreds of years, and the tactile handrail becomes a signifier of beauty, bringing a seamless urban flow to the city.”

Name: Hazel Balogun
Project: A System of Urban Flow
Course: Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Year 3
Unit: UG2
Tutors: Maria Knutsson-Hall and Barry Wark
Email: hazel.balogun.17@ucl.ac.uk

The Sanctuary of Disney’s Unloved by Xinze (Sean) Seah

“Once upon a time, on an abandoned island, located at the heart of Disneyworld, sits a new magical kingdom created by those unloved by the outside world. Inspired by Cinderella’s dress, this new soft architecture is now home to an industrious community, who, like Cinderella’s furry companions, continually build a new home from the unwanted materials that surround them.

“The smell of homegrown pumpkin soup drifts into the grand central atrium where soft sleeping pockets surround a giant ball of yarn that is endlessly knitting their new home. This home will live forever in the shadow of Disney but will outshine it always.”

Name: Xinze (Sean) Seah
Project: The Sanctuary of Disney’s Unloved
Course: Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Year 3
Unit: UG7
Tutors: Pascal Bronner and Thomas Hillier
Email: seah.seah.18@ucl.ac.uk

An Ode to Apollo by Matthew Semiao Carmo Simpson

“This film presents An Ode to Apollo, a centre for research in acoustics and musical production, platforming both creative and scientific studies of sound.

“In defiance of the unrelenting roar of the neighbouring elevated railway line, the facility is a prototype for how we might occupy such acoustically-challenged pockets of the built environment. Contained within this architecture of attenuation, a series of inhabitable music chambers celebrate and amplify the weird and wonderful dynamics of sound and space.”

Name: Matthew Semiao Carmo Simpson
Project: An Ode to Apollo
Course: Architecture BSc (ARB/RIBA Part 1), Year 3
Unit: UG8
Tutors: Farlie Reynolds and Greg Storrar
Email: matthew.simpson.17@ucl.ac.uk

An Architecture between Cultures by Isaac Simpson

“Dominant history has always been the British gaze mapped onto the African landscape. We find ourselves always looking at the radical politics elsewhere, instead of the national politics here.

“This project will be reverse to that construction, imagining the African gaze mapped onto the British landscape, to describe a radical idea in response to the question: who should own the land of the Scottish Highlands?

“The project’s ambition is to challenge existing land-ownership boundaries by constructing a radical vessel that roams across the highlands, rehabilitating the land and cultivating conversations in a way that requires communities’ cultural diversity and appreciation.”

Name: Isaac Simpson
Project: An Architecture between Cultures: The Highland Council, Scottish Highlands
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG12
Tutors: Elizabeth Dow and Jonathan Hill
Email: isaac.simpson.18@ucl.ac.uk

Apartment #5 by Clement Luk Laurencio

“The project is located in Apartment #5, Prince Regent Mews, London, in the current context of the isolation of lockdown due to the global pandemic, where travel has become restricted. It imagines a future where travel is no longer possible – where all we are left with our memories of places visited, and our photographs to recall them.

“The project redraws the apartment of confinement merging it with fragments from places that were visited on a recent trip to India. By manipulating scale, forced perspective, and atmospheric phenomena, the spaces become embellished, corrupted, and re-imagined; a labyrinth of memories.”

Name: Clement Luk Laurencio
Project: Apartment #5: A Labyrinth and Repository of Spatial Memories
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG15
Tutors: Max Dewdney and Susanne Isa
Email: clement.laurencio.18@ucl.ac.uk

Sweat, Pant, Blush by Samuel Davies

“In contrast to the professional drive towards technological efficiency to reduce domestic emissions, this project instead examines the social and architectural stigmas that surround the notion of comfort. It questions our reliance on controlled internal environments.

“A cul-de-sac of three experimental houses is proposed between Palm Springs and the surrounding desert. Within each house, everyday domestic conventions are dismantled to suit a different attitude to comfort. This exposes the power of these conventions in determining our understandings of what is considered homely, and holds the architect responsible, not for the development of new technologies, but for new ideas of what it means to be at home.”

Name: Samuel Davies
Project: Sweat, Pant, Blush: Three Houses of Three Tomorrows
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG16
Tutors: Matthew Butcher and Ana Monrabal-Cook
Email: samuel.davies.13@ucl.ac.uk

Carlisle Alzheimer’s Foundation by Philip Springall

“This project investigates the role that architecture and the built environment can play in improving the lives of those with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Carlisle Alzheimer’s foundation is a network which connects individuals in creative practice with individuals at various stages of Alzheimer’s disease. By developing creative partnerships, pairs can engage in meaningful activities to respond to the challenges of personal identity, occupation, responsibility and inclusion faced by those with Alzheimer’s.

“Situated at the Citadel, in the centre of Carlisle, the proposed scheme is designed through spaces to house creative activities of making, constructing, performing, eating, cooking, wandering, conversing and socialising.”

Name: Philip Springall
Project: Carlisle Alzheimer’s Foundation – Living alongside Creative Practice
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG17
Tutors: Yeoryia Manolopoulou and Thomas Parker
Email: philip.springall.18@ucl.ac.uk

A.T.L.A.S. by Theodoros Tamvakis

“This 22nd-century vision investigates the human condition in a future where independent space colonies are established on both Mars and the Moon. The project suggests a deep space habitat in lunar orbit that has, embedded in its formal DNA, a multiplicity of artificial gravities.

“A gravitational field generates a structure that becomes a mediator and a political common ground for future space colonies. Using the embryonic state of an astronaut inside an Extravehicular Activity suit as an analogy, the project suggests a closed-loop ecosystem, creating a living and ever-changing architecture to nurture and protect the inhabitants by creating a symbiotic relationship between architecture and humans.”

Name: Theodoros Tamvakis
Project: A.T.L.A.S.
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG20
Tutors: Marjan Colletti and Javier Ruiz
Email: theodoros.tamvakis.18@ucl.ac.uk

The Third Space by Krina Christopoulou

“The Third Space investigates how the domestic realm will be affected by the evolution of 2D computer interfaces into 3D inhabitable digital environments. In light of the recent Covid-19 pandemic, the project explores the role of architecture in learning, working, meeting up and living communally online, eliminating spatial distance through technology.

“Over the past half-century, the emergence of immersive technologies allowed us to move from the two dimensions of computer screens to the three dimensions of spatially experienced information, making our interaction with computers an increasingly-architectural concern.

“The project speculates a future where houses do not have computers in them but are computers themselves. In the home of the future, domesticity is simply the programmatic starting point of a home.”

Name: Krina Christopoulou
Project: The Third Space
Course: Architecture MArch (ARB/RIBA Part 2), Year 5
Unit: PG24
Tutors: Penelope Haralambidou and Michael Tite
Email: krina.christopoulou.14@ucl.ac.uk

Virtual Design Festival’s student and schools initiative offers a simple and affordable platform for student and graduate groups to present their work during the coronavirus pandemic. Click here for more details.

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Toyota Motor Europe has joined numerous other car brands by opting for a flat redesign of its logo with a revised visual identity created by The&Partnership that includes removing its wordmark.

The new logo and branding was created by agency The&Partnership for Toyota’s Europe division and sees the automaker’s name removed and its old, 3D design flattened, leaving just a simplified, 2D emblem made up of three overlapping ovals.

This change, according to The&Partnership and Toyota, was an acknowledgement of the brand’s visual recognition amongst European consumers, meaning it no longer needs to plainly state its name to be identified.

This the first time the Japanese auto company have rolled out a new logo since 2005, and the first time it has renewed its visual identity since 2009.

The new logo follows in the footsteps of many other car brands including Nissan and BMW that have swapped out the 3D designs of their logos for more minimal, 2D formats.

However, head of art at The&Partnership Dan Beckett doesn’t consider this wave of flat design to be a “trend”, but rather a practical resolution to the growing issue of readability at a time when digitisation has taken over.

“By their very nature, people experience car brand logos in the real world in the form of shiny silver things stuck on the nose of the car,” Beckett told Dezeen.

“Twenty years ago it became fashionable to render logos with a shiny, three-dimensional aspect, but it wasn’t just car brands, even masters of simplification – Apple – did it,” he added.

“In print it looked OK – made the logo pop a little bit. But with the advent of digital brand touchpoints, and especially small mobile screens, all those fiddly bevels and gradients meant the logos became little grey smudges, indistinguishable from one another.”

“So I don’t see it as a new trend,” he continued. “I see it as the logical solution to a universal problem created by a different trend. It’s just more car brands got on that first bandwagon.”

The rebrand was commissioned to ensure Toyota’s “longevity in a digital world”, as well as keeping its visual identity in line with its expansion into electrified vehicles, online retailing and new ownership models.

“The key to this project was not to simply see it as bringing the brand identity up to date, but preparing it for years to come,” said Beckett.

“As well as re-modernising the brand we also sought to bring a more premium feeling while working hard to simplify the brand architecture and creating a design system which will be fluent across today and tomorrow’s touchpoints,” he continued.

“Toyota has recently made great forward strides in its product design and we really wanted to see that reflected in the visual identity.”

The rebranding project was started in July 2019, and involved The&Partnership working with Toyota Motor Europe for over one year to create an online toolkit for those working with the brand to access.

The design studio was given a four-point brief: to be forward-thinking, to prioritise mobile display, to grant the company a more “premium” feel, and to offer consistency across all parts of the business and its sub-brands.

The agency also designed bespoke typography, called Toyota Type, for both digital and physical formats. The sans serif font features a monochrome colour palette with a red accent as a “distinctive nod” to the carmaker.

“The design communicates simplicity, transparency and modernity,” said Toyota. “It is perfectly adapted to the digital space but equally effective in the physical world.”

This new typeface accompanies several name changes across Toyota’s different business areas, as “Toyota Insurance Management” becomes “Toyota Insurance Services”, and “Toyota Plus” has been renamed “Toyota Approved Used”.

The new logo, which was launched yesterday, will be rolled out across all internal and external Toyota brand communications in Europe, while the current logo will continue to be used for Toyota vehicles.

The current retailer signage will also remain in place and will be reviewed in the Toyota 2025 Network Strategy. The new logo won’t be featured on any of Toyota’s vehicles.

Toyota joins a long list of automakers that have also ditched the 3D design for a “flat” logo in a bid to modernise their brands.

Nissan was the latest company to launch its flat emblem – which reduced its original design of a circle overlaid with a rectangle for a pair of stylised lines – following on from BMW, Volkswagen and MINI.

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Apple has released a 10-year roadmap to ensure that every device it produces has a net-zero climate impact by 2030, as part of its plans to become carbon neutral.

The company announced today its commitment to achieving a net-zero carbon footprint across its product life cycles and manufacturing supply chains in 10 years’ time.

Apple said its global corporate operations are already carbon neutral but plans for its entire business, including all of its devices, to have a net-zero climate impact by 2030.

Outlined in its 2020 Environmental Progress Report, the goal is to reduce its emissions by 75 per cent and to develop carbon removal solutions for the remaining 25 per cent to create a net zero sum.

“Climate action can be the foundation for a new era of innovative potential, job creation, and durable economic growth,” said Apple’s CEO Tim Cook.

“With our commitment to carbon neutrality, we hope to be a ripple in the pond that creates a much larger change.”

Apple publishes 10-year climate roadmap

Apple has created a 10-year climate roadmap as part of its report, which details the interventions and changes it intends to make by 2030.

The measures are developed around five pillars: low-carbon design, energy efficiency, renewable electricity, direct emissions abatement and carbon removal.

As part of its plan to create low carbon products, Apple is developing a carbon-free aluminium smelting process that releases oxygen instead of greenhouse gases. It is currently working with aluminium suppliers to create the new production method, which it claims is the first of its kind.

The first batch of this low-carbon aluminium is currently being used to produce a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

“The innovations powering our environmental journey are not only good for the planet – they’ve helped us make our products more energy-efficient and bring new sources of clean energy online around the world,” Cook said.

Disassembly robot Dave to aid recycling effort

Apple will also expand the deployment of its recycling robot called Dave to disassemble the Taptic Engine of old iPhone devices to recover rare earth magnets, tungsten and steel.

According to the company, all iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watches released this past year are made from recycled rare earth elements from the old hardware.

Apple also plans to partner with Pittsburg’s Carnegie Mellon University to develop electronics recycling technologies at its Material Recovery Lab in Austin, Texas.

In addition to these measures, Apple announced it will expand its energy efficiency and use of renewable energy, including investing $100 million (£78.5 million) in projects for suppliers through the US-China Green Fund. Others suppliers will also shift to more renewable energy.

Apple to develop renewable power plants

Apple said the environmental effect of this change is equivalent to “taking more than three million cars off the road each year”.

“Apple now has commitments from over 70 suppliers to use 100 per cent renewable energy for Apple production – equivalent to nearly eight gigawatts in commitments to power the manufacturing of its products,” it added.

It currently has its own plants in Arizona, Oregon, and Illinois and each year they produce over one gigawatt of renewable energy – equal to powering 150,000 homes. More than 80 per cent of the renewable energy Apple uses is sourced from its plants.

On top of its own operations, Apple also plans to develop new renewable systems for communities in the Philippines, Scandinavia and Thailand.

Emissions will be offset by environmental nonprofits

Apple plans to offset further emissions by donating to nonprofit environmental organisations, such as Conservation International.

It currently invests in conservation projects in China, the US and Kenya, and will now help restore a mangrove forest in Colombia that stores almost 10 times the amount of carbon compared to traditional forests.

“Businesses have a profound opportunity to help build a more sustainable future, one born of our common concern for the planet we share,” said Cook.

By implementing all of these measures, Apple expects its entire business can be carbon neutral. Last year it reduced its carbon footprint by 4.3 million metric tons, and reduced emissions from man-made fluorinated gases used in manufacturing that contribute to global warming by 242,000 metric tons.

News follows Microsoft and Google climate commitments

Apple’s corporate operations are already completely based on renewable sources, and its data centres have been powered by renewable energy since 2014.

Apple’s goal aligns with that of Microsoft, which plans to be carbon negative by 2030, and Google, which also announced to have zero emissions by 2030.

Ivy Ross, Google’s vice president of hardware design, has mirrored Cook’s sentiments that big tech companies “have an obligation” to do more for climate change in an interview with Dezeen.

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