Hasta La Ideas

By 2014, Manchester’s famous Cornerhouse centre and Library Theatre Company will be based in their new, aptly named site, HOME. But the nascent arts organisation already has a new identity system, courtesy of Glasgow’s O Street studio…

The designers worked with Manchester’s Creative Concern to create the identity for the new centre, which will open in its new building designed by Mecanoo and _space architecture in just over a year’s time.

The Cornerhouse and the Library Theatre Company were officially brought together in April 2012, as the Greater Manchester Arts Centre Ltd, but both identities and names will remain in place until HOME is adopted at the new site.

O Street developed a logotype and a bespoke typeface for HOME – the images shown here will, say the designers, “be used to inform the applications across environmental, digital and printed collateral”.

As Design Week reported in May last year, Creative Concern were brought in to work on the branding strategy, while O Street were chosen to work on the various creative elements.

Among them are ideas for how display type might be worked across various applications; in some instances, creating new words out of other words – a play on the unfixed nature of the letterforms. The display font features a pair of screw holes on each letter suggesting that they can be fixed and then repositioned accordingly.

Cornerhouse say that HOME will “produce the best in contemporary theatre, visual art and film, learning and participation, creative industries and digital innovation”.

CR in print
The March issue of CR magazine celebrates 150 years of the London Underground. In it we introduce a new book by Mark Ovenden, which is the first study of all aspects of the tube’s design evolution; we ask Harry Beck authority, Ken Garland, what he makes of a new tube map concept by Mark Noad; we investigate the enduring appeal of Edward Johnston’s eponymous typeface; Michael Evamy reports on the design story of world-famous roundel; we look at the London Transport Museum’s new exhibition of 150 key posters from its archive; we explore the rich history of platform art, and also the Underground’s communications and advertising, past and present. Plus, we talk to London Transport Museum’s head of trading about TfL’s approach to brand licensing and merchandising. In Crit, Rick Poynor reviews Branding Terror, a book about terrorist logos, while Paul Belford looks at how a 1980 ad managed to do away with everything bar a product demo. Finally, Daniel Benneworth-Grey reflects on the merits on working home alone. Buy your copy here.

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