Initial sketches by Richard Green for the new-look Pelican logo (on left). He explains that the bird’s ‘eye’ was a challenge to get right (original Pelican logos shown top left in both grids; Green’s final logos show bottom right in each)
For our latest edition of Monograph, free with subscriber copies of CR, we talked to Penguin Press’ art department about the rebirth of the Pelican imprint which relaunched this month. It was a chance to discuss design decisions, logo sketches and early cover treatments – and also look to where the brand is going next…
Pelican was relaunched this month after three decades in hibernation – and while one might think that the rich heritage of the imprint might weigh heavily on the shoulders of the design team (the brand originally ran from 1937 to 1984), it was in fact the digital era that influenced its new direction as much as anything.
Our new 18-page Monograph – which is available with new subscriptions starting with the June issue – features early Pelican designs by Edward Young, William Grimmond and Jan Tschichold, but focuses on the work that the current design team, led by art director Jim Stoddart, has been doing since last year.
Pages from Hans Schmoller’s notebooks showing the first Pelican logos from the 1930s and 40s
Launching in the late 1930s with Bernard Shaw’s The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Socialism, Capitalism, Sovietism, & Fascism, the non-fiction series was to continue the Penguin ethos of printing quality books at an affordable price. Pelican was about self-improvement – making knowledge accessible to a wider readership.
Indeed, Pelican’s were to be “the true everyman’s library for the twentieth century,” said Penguin founder Allen Lane. Now, Penguin’s art department has resurrected the imprint for the twenty-first.
Pelican covers from the 1940s and 50s
Pelican covers from the 1960s and 70s
Cover experiments by the current Penguin Press art department
Grid and logos for the new-look Pelican books
With a new logo by Penguin’s Richard Green and cover, text and digital design by Matthew Young, the project has put the talents of this tight-knit team to great use.
When the brief was announce last year, Young initially worked on a responsive website for Pelican – and from his experiments with typefaces there, chose Brandon and Freight as display and text fonts, respectively.
The first five editions in Pelican’s 2014 range
The full story of the rebirth of Pelican is in this month’s Monograph – available only with a subscription to Creative Review (it comes with our June issue, a World Cup special). Go to our Shopify page to start your subscription today.
Samplers from the first five Pelican books are now available from pelicanbooks.com – the books are in shops now (£7.99). The full website launches on June 1.
In a commitment to drawn art in an age of digital communication, type designer Dave Foster has been hand-lettering all his @FosterType tweets during the month of May…
The Sydney-based type designer is using the hashtag #MayDave alongside examples of his hand-drawn work, rendering ‘@’ names and the contents of tweets in a range of different styles.
Foster’s tweets have ranged from simple replies (“Nah” or “Thanks!”) or details about lettering workshops, to lengthier statements such as yesterday’s, “It’s times like these when I wish I had more to say…”.
You can see his latest work on @FosterType and via the #MayDave hashtag – and he still has a week to go. Foster’s portfolio is at fostertype.com.
A record seven Black Pencils were awarded at D&AD this year, several of them for social or public awareness projects. Here’s our comprehensive round-up of the winners
EdenSpiekermann’s Improving Safety and Comfort on Train Platforms project for NS Dutch Railways won Black in Digital Design. It uses a colour-coded LED strip running above a station platform to help guide passengers to the right part of the train. The strip includes information on the different class carriages, as well as where there are free seats available
Also in Digital Design, Finch won Black for The Most Powerful Arm campaign for charity Save our Sons
No surprise that Volvo Trucks The Epic Split from Forsman & Bodenfors is among the major winners – this time in the Online Branded Films category. The entrie campaign also won a Yellow Pencil
Martin Riddiford and Jim Reeves’ GravityLight powers a light source or other electrical device using the power of gravity. A bag filled with rocks or sand generates power as it slowly falls. It was one of two Black Pencils from the White Pencil category (confused?)
The other White Pencil Black Pencil was for the Terre des Hommes Sweetie campaign by LEMZ. The project reportedly helped identify over 1,000 online sexual predators
In Crafts for Advertising, Dentsu Tokyo won Black for Sound of Honda/ Ayrton Senna 1989 in which the driver’s record-breaking lap at the Suzuka circuit was recreated as a sound and light experience
WAX Partnership’s Calgary Society for Persons with Disabilities 2012 Annual Report won Black in Graphic Design. It is bound with a single, central staple in an attempt to convey the difficulties of living with a disability. This is somewhat painfully explained on the D&AD site thus: “Using the insight that ‘being handicapped is hard’ we decided to make the annual hard to read”. Hmmm
This year’s Yellow Pencils are:
The Mac Pro for Product Design
In Writing for Design, McCann Erickson Melbourne won for Phubbing: A Word is Born, for the Macquarie Dictionary
Serial award winners Bloomberg Businessweek chalked up another gong in Magazine & Newspaper Design for a series of covers
Another much-garlanded project, OgilvyOne Worldwide London’s BA Magic of Flying won two Pencils in Integrated & Earned Media
And it’s no surprise to see Dove Real Beauty Sketches, by Ogilvy & Mather Brazil, picking up a Yellow in the same category
Ogilvy & Mather’s New York office won Yellow for IBM Datagrams, in Crafts for Design. which visualised stats about tennis matches to be shared on social media
In the same category, Stinkdigital won for Luxottica (Ray Ban) Social Visionaries,
As did hat-trick design for glow in the dark story book, Hide & Eek!
And Barcelona-based Mucho won for Nitsa 94/96: El Giro Electrónico. Here’s how they describe the project: “‘Nitsa 94/96: El giro electrónico’, is a documentary that chronicles the beginnings of Nitsa, an iconic nightclub in Barcelona. We were asked to design a limited edition poster to promote the film’s premiere. The visual idea is based on Nitsa’s famous revolving dance floor that the club once featured. In order to create 150 unique posters, we invented a wooden surface that allowed us to turn the paper in a silkscreen machine, printing on a different angle each time. The posters also have a fluorescent colour dot that refers to psychotropic drugs as well as to the proportions of vinyl records. “
A2/SW/HK won for the typefaces it created for The Independent Newspaper redesign (the newspaper itself did not pick up a pencil, however)
Outdor advertising/Ambient A Yellow for La Voz del Interior, Life Signs by Ogilvy & Mather Buenos Aires in Outdoor Advertising.a road safety campaign from a Colombian newspaper using real crashed cars
Digital Design Box, Bot & Dolly “Box explores the synthesis of real and digital space through projection mapping on moving surfaces. The film documents a live performance, captured entirely on camera.”
Press Advertising The Sunday Times – Rich List, Grey London
Book Design Nineteen Eighty-Four, Type as Image
Film Advertising Crafts Hennessy, The Man Who Couldn’t Slow Down, Droga5
Southern Comfort , Whatever’s Comfortable: Karate, Wieden+Kennedy New York
PETA “98% Human”, The Mill/BBDO
Daimler, Chicken, Jung von Matt
Mobile Marketing Unicef, Food Photos Save Lives, Draftfcb New Zealand
Natalia Project, RBK Communication
Smart Communications, TXTBKS by DDB DM9JaymeSyfu
Direct
Colombian Ministry of Defence, You Are My Son by Lowe/SSP3
Amnesty International Trial by Timeline by Colenso BBDO
New Museum, Recalling 1993 by Droga5
Graphic Design Royal Canadian Mint, Heart of the Arctic by Jam3
Amsterdam Sinfonietta posters by Studio Dumbar
Art On The Underground, Labyrinth by Mark Wallinger by Rose
Whitney Museum of American Art Identity by Experimental Jetset
Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, Mind and Movement by Magpie Studio
Digital Marketing Delta Airlines, Delta Photon Shower by Wieden+Kennedy New York
Dove, Real Beauty Sketches by Ogilvy & Mather Brazil
Packaging Design Nippon Design Center, Pierre Hermé Paris “These three designs were created to package the Ispahan, a macaroon that is one of Pierre Hermé’s most well-known pastries. Using a study of hand-moulding, we designed the packages with smooth joint-free curves and a delicate white texture so that they wrap the Ispahan in a fluid, curvaceous body, as if it were made of dough pressed lightly by a single touch.”
Branding Lidl, Dill – The Restaurant by INGO
“Lidl tried to convince Sweden about the quality in their products. Low price and quality just don’t go together. We built and opened a gourmet restaurant. The British two starred Guide Michelin Chef Michael Wignall was in charge of the cooking. What nobody knew was that ALL food that was used was bought at Lidl, down to the smallest grain of salt. The restaurant, named DILL was open during 3 weeks and fully booked from first day to last.”
Tama Art University, Tamabi by MR_DESIGN “TAMABI is a nickname for the Tama Art University which is one of the top art schools in Japan. These official advertisements needed to incorporate the university’s slogan ‘MADE BY HANDS’ and principles : the avant-garde, the challenge, and creating something new. We focused on the hand-crafted. We produced many different visuals in a simple format and with a limited selection of motifs. This series consists of about 100 variations. A lot of variations represent the university’s slogan ‘MADE BY HANDS’ and principles. Also we tried to represent the spirit of art and design.”
Harvey Nichols, Sorry, I Spent It On Myself by adam&eveDDB
Writing for Advertising 350 Action, Climate Name Change, Barton F. Graf 9000
Art Direction Mori Building , Tokyo City Symphony by SIX
Music Videos Les Télécréateurs, Gesaffelstein Pursuit directed by Fleur & Manu (two Yellow Pencils)
Is Tropical, Dancing Anymore directed by Raphael Rodriguez (NSFW!)
Magazine & Newspaper Design Series of Moscovskie Novosti newspapers
Crafts for Design Yoshida Hideo Memorial Foundation, The Beautiful Black List by Dentsu Tokyo “Celebrating its 50th anniversary, D&AD exhibited successive Black Pencil works together for the first time. We named these collectively as the ‘Black List’ and executed the exhibition’s total design. The main theme is that of the whale. We feel its ability to travel the world without boundaries is equal to D&AD’s unparalleled potential for new discovery.”
Further details (including two radio Yellow Pencils) and credits here
The versatile new pocket-sized Olympus TG-3 makes it very easy to take great photos on fly—whether on land or in the water. We tested the soon-to-be-released camera in and around New Orleans and found that a…
Le peintre Andy Denzler peint des portraits de femmes et d’hommes avec un effet strié qui ressemble à un bug d’image et à une mauvaise réception d’écran de télévision. Les traits des modèles se dessinent à travers les striures, avec une certaine sensualité. Une sélection de ses différentes séries est à découvrir ci-dessous.
L’artiste anglais Chris LaBrooy, dont nous avons déjà parlé à maintes reprises, a créé une sorte de sculpture digitale très originale en retouchant un avion tout jaune qui aurait un très long intestin grêle étalé à l’arrière. Une exécution insolite et drôle à découvrir en images dans la suite de l’article.
Adobe’s Typekit has just launched a new site dedicated to honing typographic skills, via a series of lessons and resources, under the name Typekit Practice…
“Typekit Practice is a collection of resources and a place to try things, hone your skills, and stay sharp,” runs the site’s introduction. “Everyone can practice typography.”
On offer are featured lessons, including one on using shades for “eye-catching emphasis”, a list of useful online references (blogs, articles, talks etc), and a reading list of books on typography. Of course, there are also links to Typekit’s own fonts and its accompanying blog.
Aimed at both the type novice and expert, Typekit Practice is certainly informative – the lesson on shades offers some good pointers as to the various shading techniques available – from ‘drop’ and ‘close’ shades to ‘offset’ and ‘printer’s’ iterations – while the site itself is clearly laid out and nicely written.
As Brown writes on the TK blog, ” Lessons stand on a foundation of references to articles, blog posts, books, websites, talks, and other solid resources.”
It looks like Typekit Practice could evolve into a useful collection of hints and tips for those starting to play with typographic technique, and for others looking for some well-researched information on the discipline.
“We have lots of ideas for Typekit Practice,” writes Brown, “plus an extraordinary group of authors and teachers helping us think up valuable lessons and make good references. Come practice with us.”
Harvey Nichols has launched a new magazine-style website optimised for use on smartphones and tablets. It’s an interesting approach to content marketing, but the site’s design seems to have divided opinion…
The new website was designed in-house and built by agency Ampersand Commerce. It aims to offer a better and simpler user experience and new features include a ‘MyHN’ section where users can create a profile and shopping shortlists; a ‘fashion emergency’ button which takes them to a live chat with a stylist and a ‘click and try’ service, which orders products to store for a one-on-one appointment with an adviser.
The most noticeable change, however, is the emphasis placed on content. Users can still use drop down menus to browse products by department and category but the homepage is now a mix of editorial features and social content. Articles are grouped into six categories, including trends, editor’s picks, inspiration and brand focus.
Features are identified by icons and hashtags and include a mix of full-screen photoshoots, scrapbook-style grids and more traditional product lists and written content. Colour coding and symbols are also used to group products, sections and services.
The site took around a year to build and five months was spent planning design and user experience. Harvey Nichols’ multichannel director Sandrine Deveaux says designers were given a fairly open brief, but asked to “make products look stunning, ensure people find what they are looking for as quickly as possible and fuse content with product as seamlessly as possible.”
The new site is the brand’s first designed with smartphone and tablet users in mind, and Deveaux says the re-design was driven by a change in consumer behaviour. “We have heavy usage on tablet and mobile, and the move away from desktop looks inexorable,” she says.
“[This] creates its own unique challenges, especially given that the vast majority of our customers are iPhone users, where the screen size is significantly smaller than most android devices,” she says. “One of the most striking changes is the shift from traditional left hand category navigation to persistent top level. We’ve been heavily influenced by tablet usage where long scrolls are the norm, and felt that left hand navigation isn’t fit for purpose anymore,” she adds.
Harvey Nichols isn’t the first brand to adopt this kind of content marketing approach – Net-a-Porter, ASOS, Topshop and Urban Outfitters’ websites all feature style guides and editorial features – but these are usually confined to a particular section of the site. Harvey Nichols’ takes the idea a step further, putting equal emphasis on content and product.
This does encourage longer browsing and may lead to customers stumbling on new collections, but it won’t be to everyone’s tastes. While the magazine format has proved successful for high street brands, there’s a careful balance to be struck by upmarket shops who want to offer more content and interaction while retaining a sense of luxury.
The response to Harvey Nichols’ new site was largely positive on Twitter but on retail and marketing blogs, it has divided opinion. Some likened the layout to low-cost templates, while others felt the focus on content was distracting.
But perhaps some of this criticism is a little unfair. There is still a widespread expectation that luxury brand sites should focus on white space and full-screen photos, but Harvey Nichols aim is to do more than showcase products. As Deveaux points out, Harvey Nichols is a brand that’s known for its cheeky sense of humour, and the new website clearly reflects this.
“Harvey Nichols positions itself as…being exclusive but accessible. One of the joys of the brand is that it differentiates itself with humour and wit. Our challenge is to ensure that the core values are communicated to the existing customer base at the same time as offering an online customer experience that appeals to the next generation of customers,” she explains.
It’s almost a year since Bangladesh’s Rana Plaza clothing factory collapsed, killing more than 1,000 people. To mark the event, the Guardian has released a powerful interactive exploring life in Dhaka’s factories and the journeys our clothes make from factories to shop floors.
The shirt on your back: the human cost of the Bangladeshi garment industry combines compelling video footage with photography, infographics and written editorial. It’s a thought-provoking look at both the impact of the fast fashion industry, and the tragic events that took place on April 24 last year.
The interactive is divided into six sections: it opens with a video showing the frantic pace of daily life in Dhaka and goes on to introduce three factory workers who survived the collapse. Editorial and infographics also explain the growing demand for cheap labour that has led to hundreds of factories being built illegally or without planning permission and the daily pressures factory workers face.
Full-screen video footage of the collapse includes some harrowing scenes of bodies being pulled from the wreckage, interspersed with survivors’ accounts of searching for their friends and family. At each stage of the feature, viewers are reminded how little a factory worker has earned, and how much retailers have made, in the time they have been reading.
The piece ends with a look at the aftermath of the collapse and international reactions to it, as well as how survivors’ lives have changed since. Readers are also invited to comment on issues raised on the Guardian’s website, or share photos of their clothes and details of where they were made on its user generated content platform, Witness.
Thirteen staff have been working on the interactive since October. Footage was shot by director Lindsay Poulton and director of photography David Levene, who travelled to Dhaka in November.
Francesca Panetta, executive producer and special projects editor at the Guardian, says: “As well as being a major news event, this story seemed to fit the interactive treatment very well – it’s complex and there’s a lot of detail, but it’s also very visual.
“Covering it in this way allowed us to add some historical context and a look at where we are now, as well as some more nuanced details. Of course, there are a lot of challenges with this format…as you need a large team with very different skills and it uses new technology that has to be tested and refined,” she adds.
The responsive platform is the same one used by the Guardian to mark the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream speech last August, and the interactive was designed by Daan Louter. The muted colours and simple graphics reflect the feature’s sombre tone, without distracting from Levene and Poulton’s photography.
Panetta says it was also important to ensure the design is intuitive and that viewers are aware of their progress throughout. “It had to be clear so people didn’t feel lost and knew where they were in the story and how long [it] was going to take,” she says.
At 20 minutes, it’s a long piece and one that demands undivided attention, but the mix of content and varied narrative structure ensures it doesn’t lose pace. “With any kind of narrative, you need to think about the momentum of the piece and whether you should be using writing, film or sound,” explains Panetta.
“It’s important not to lose that linear continuity or tension, so you have to really think about where to switch from text to video. We also used cinematic techniques with sound and music to provide some added continuity,” she says. Music composed for the piece is based on location recordings made in Dhaka, and Poulton says it is designed to grow from the sounds of the city.
It’s a moving interactive, and one of the Guardian’s best to date. The mix of audio, video and written copy is much more immersive than any of these mediums could be alone, and the layered narrative provides a look at the clothing industry and its impact on Bangladesh’s economy, as well as an insight into factory life.
Iain Sinclair, American Smoke. Cover by Nathan Burton
Penguin Books has launched a partnership with WeTransfer where selected book covers for new titles will be showcased via the full screen backgrounds to the file transfer website…
The first series to be shown via the website is for the publisher’s Street Art Series of novels which feature covers by artists: ROA, gray318, Nathan Burton, Sickboy and 45rpm. The series actually launched last year – details on the ten participating artists are here – but today’s launch will pilot what looks to be an ongoing collaboration between the publisher and WeTransfer.
Zadie Smith, Embassy of Cambodia. Cover by gray318
For the Street Art series the covers are photographed as still lives, surrounded by objects which reflect the subject of the books. If users click on the image they are taken to Penguin’s online store.
While the project isn’t launching with an entire set of brand new cover designs (three from this series were released in June last year), the tie-up is an interesting way of promoting forthcoming editions. WeTransfer has 20m monthly users so the cover artwork – and the book, of course – has the potential to reach a wide audience. The next series of covers will be premiered on WeTransfer later this summer.
Nick Cave, And the Ass Saw the Angel. Cover by ROA
Zoë Heller, The Believers. Cover by Sickboy
Joshua Ferris, Then We Came to the End. Cover by 45RPM
WeTransfer have also recently collaborated with the British Fashion Council, designer Nelly Ben and Where’s Wally.
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