Hasta La Ideas

Known for its intelligent coverage of both film and surf/skate culture, The Church of London has a new quarterly magazine in its stable. It comes as a handsome hardback book and is a different kind of venture for a different kind of client: Google…

TCL has been developing Think Quarterly with the internet giant since December last year. The first issue is themed as Think Data and has been sent to 1,500 of the company’s UK partners and advertisers. As the name implies, Think Quarterly will be published four times a year, alongside TCL’s already successful titles Little White Lies and Huck, its portfolio of contract magazines and the studio’s print, web and motion graphics work.

TCL were kind enough to have an edition of Think Quarterly printed up for us (well, me) and having had a chance to pore over it, it’s a very encouraging start to what could potentially have been an overwhelming project for a small creative company.

While clearly a Google project, the design of TQ only subtley references the company’s branding; there’s a wax seal, a debossed logo on the box cover and a foiled one on the book itself. Inside, the subject matter is clearly related to the business of data. Guy Laurence, CEO of Vodaphone UK is interviewed on the subject of information overload (and what to do about it); while statistician Hans Rosling is duly probed on the importance of data study in business. Journalists involved include Guardian Datablog editor, Simon Rogers, and WE magazine editor, Ulrike Reinhard.

Google claim that TQ’s intention is to offer some breathing space in our ever-increasing world of data. And certainly, slowing the intake of information down via the printed page is an interesting direction for a digital company. Indeed, when images of TQ first hit the web, the rumour was that Google had launched an online magazine. Not so: while readers can access some of the articles online at thinkquarterly.co.uk, TQ is resolutely a physical printed object, and blatantly celebrates that fact.

There are numerous elements at work here. Each edition is boxed and 1,200 copies of the run of 1,500 arrive with a bespoke cover, tailored to each individual recipient. Housed in its red slipcase, the cover depicts a brain made out of the letters in ‘Think Quarterly’. When this is removed, a light bulb (ding!) made up of sections of the recipient’s name appears, as above, à la Sagmeister’s schizophrenic canine on his Made You Look book.

It’s a sweet touch that will no doubt be a hit with recipients but compared to TCL’s usual fare, which relishes illustration and impactful cover design, the box-and-cover concept feels a little staid, if aimed at the limited edition look. Of course, TQ isn’t necessarily designed to appeal to the average design-literate snowboarder, or indie film lover, so perhaps this is merely more of a compromise, but a subtly crafted one at that.

That said, TCL’s design of the contents inside is a real treat. The studio has used an array of illustration talent to fill these pages and there are particularly strong contributions from Geoff McFetridge, Adrian Johnson, Matt Taylor and Mike Lemanski alongside photography by Spencer Murphy and Jonnek Jonnekson.

There’s also a gatefold infographic in the centre of the publication that opens out to reveal a visual history of data capture, from sundials to the Hubble telescope. Yes it’s geeky, but it’s also golden, too.

Similarly, a pop-up construction detailing usage data captured from the ‘Boris Bike’ scheme in London works brilliantly (designed with help from specialists David Carter and David Pelham). It’s difficult to get pop-ups right – let alone convey data about a bike hire scheme creatively – but this unexpected spread mixes statistics with involving, far from dry presentation. And you can’t convey the physical possibilites of print much better than that.

Think Quarterly isn’t available to buy but some of the content is also published on thinkquarterly.co.uk (also designed by The Church of London). The next issue will be out in May.

CR in print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog, but if you’re not reading us in print too, you’re missing out on a richer, deeper view of your world. Our April issue features our Top 20 logos of all time. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703. Better yet, subscribe to CR, save yourself almost a third and get Monograph for free plus a host of special deals from the CR Shop. Go on, treat yourself.

The Design Museum’s excellent Wim Crouwel show is evidence of the reverence afforded to the Dutch designer in the UK, but why is he held in such high regard? And why now?

In terms of the sheer amount of work on show, Wim Crouwel A Graphic Odyssey is one of the biggest graphic design exhibitions seen in the UK. In the current issue of CR, Rick Poynor asks why Crouwel’s influence in the UK is running so high: “What is it about Crouwel’s work that has brought him so much to the fore of late?” Poynor asks in the piece (subscribers can read it here).

“There is no question that Crouwel’s work has great historical significance, above all in the Netherlands where he helped to define the visual landscape of his time,” Poynor writes. “He is also the creator of some wonderful poster and catalogue designs that still look impressive. But he is not alone or even rare among designers in either of these achievements.”

Poynor argues that the attraction of Crouwel’s work for many today is purely stylistic: “The designers who applaud him now tend, like Crouwel himself, to put most emphasis on typography. They like visual rigour, precision, purity of form and dynamically balanced structure. They like systems and visual programmes that impose order and consistency … The history of mid-century European modernism enthrals and inspires them, but more as an imaginary utopia of style than as an ideal of how a reformed visual realm based on modernism could embody a radically new polity.”

Poynor goes on to argue that “the current wave of Crouwel adulation” ignores some problematic aspects of his work, specifically his ideal of graphic clarity and neutrality. “I was always saying that the designer should not be too much visible,” Crouwel had once told Poynor. “He should not stand between the receiver and the sender. But I realised afterwards that I was always there – but never in my ideas. There is a kind of contradiction.”

“It makes no sense to fetishise Crouwel or other modernists whose work 50 years ago was a response to conditions of rapid economic development in European social democracies,” Poynor argues in CR. “And it would be even more misguided to treat his archive as a ransackable storehouse of fashionable stylistic effects. These views of Crouwel, coming from non-Dutch devotees, misinterpret both his national context and his intentions. We should study his example, and study design’s past, the better to understand where design is now.”

Subscribers can read the whole piece here, or you can buy the April issue of CR today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703.

Wim Crouwel A Graphic Odyssey is at the Design Museum, Shad Thames, London SE1 until July 3. Exhibition design by 6a Architects. Show images courtesy 6a Architects.

Rick Poynor also writes about Crouwel here on Design Observer

CR in print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog, but if you’re not reading us in print too, you’re missing out on a richer, deeper view of your world. Our April issue features our Top 20 logos of all time. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703. Better yet, subscribe to CR, save yourself almost a third and get Monograph for free plus a host of special deals from the CR Shop. Go on, treat yourself.

At a press conference this morning, London Mayor Boris Johnson announced the launch of London & Partners, a new agency “to showcase London as the best city to visit, invest and study in”. With, of course, a new logo.

And no, this isn’t a joke. When we first heard about this from Michael Johnson (who has blogged about it here) our first thought was ‘oh yeah, look at the date’ but it seems to be real.

London & Partners (site here) “will pool the extensive knowledge and expertise from the previous agencies under one roof and deliver a single strategy for the promotion of London with one voice and mission”.

This project has been rumbling on since the back end of 2009 (see our story here). At one point it seemed to have been shelved but then the project was handed to Wally Olins’ Saffron which was due to unveil something last summer. We presume this is derived from their work but will confirm more details as we get them.

UPDATE: We have just spoken to Ian Stephens of Saffron. He has confirmed to us that the logo is based on work that Saffron did for the original London identity tender and handed over to the GLA last July. However, extraordinarily, the Saffron work did not include the graphic of the river which has since been added, and not by them. “It’s familiar,” Stephen says of the logo, but “it’s their logo, not ours.” Saffron delivered identity guidelines, tone of voice etc last July at which time the London and Partners body didn’t exist. “They have taken our own work and added a squiggle,” Stephens says. However, he has been told that the promotional campaigns that will feature the London and Partners identity will do so using the original design and not the new one, with added ‘squiggle’.

UPDATE #2: Here’s a short promotional film introducing the new logo. It most definitely has the squiggle in it:

CR in print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog, but if you’re not reading us in print too, you’re missing out on a richer, deeper view of your world. Our April issue features our Top 20 logos of all time. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703. Better yet, subscribe to CR, save yourself almost a third and get Monograph for free plus a host of special deals from the CR Shop. Go on, treat yourself.

New quarterly arts journal The White Review has serious intentions and an elegant way of expressing them…

Launched last month its title is a reference to La Revue Blanche, the Parisian avant-garde journal published 1899-1903, but other than adhering to the spirit of publishing the work of progressive artists, TWR pares down the design leaving breathing space for imagery and finely set text.

Editors Benjamin Eastham and Jacques Testard claim TWR is “a space for a new generation to express itself unconstrained by form, subject or genre”.

It features several elements that celebrate the notion of print itself. There’s a contents card (above), marbled end papers, a fold-out cover print (by Viktor Timofeev) – all things are rare in publishing these days.

But TWR combines an austere design attitude with a very contemporary feel; reflected, too, in the journal’s well-honed online presence.

Designed and art directed by Ray O’Meara, The White Review is beautifully presented. O’Meara’s studio, The Office of Optimism, has produced an array of great print work and typeface design. CR saw his work at his Royal College of Art degree show last year (see here) and for TWR O’Meara has created the bespoke face, Joyous (Blanche).

Alongside new fiction and essays, issue one features interviews with Dame Paula Rego, Andrew Schiffrin and Tom McCarthy, and a reportage section featuring Marcus Leatherhead’s portraits of the Adivasi people in India (two spreads shown, below).

Literary periodicals, on the whole, generally don’t have the production values displayed by TWR. The relatively short-lived Butterfly, and the more succesful Zembla (both the creation of Dan Crowe, who recently launched PORT), injected a real sense of quality design into the genre.

Though both titles were more expressive, occupying magazine-like territory rather than the self-imposed constraints of a periodical (see London Review of Books et al), the latter is cleverly where The White Review has positioned itself. It has the potential to cause a bit of mischief in this somewhat staid arena.

Furthermore, TWR’s printed design translates well on its website (designed by Julian Mills), with textual considerations clearly taken into account: the interviews, for example., adopt the neat transcript Q and A style, as in the recently uploaded discussion with author DBC Pierre.

There’s also plenty of ‘online only’ content that will no doubt keep readers interested prior to the second printed edition.

And to my mind, this is all to be celebrated. TWR affirms the subtle pleasures inherent in printed reading matter, but equally shows how well this thinking can be transferred across to the digital realm.

The White Review is priced at £12 in the UK, with £2 for P&P. You can purchase issue one from TWR website, here. More at thewhitereview.org.

TWR issue two is published in May and features interviews with author William Boyd (creator of the ‘lost’ abstract expressionist painter, Nat Tate), sculptor Richard Wentworth, and critical theorist Michael Hardt. It will also include writing from Joshua Cohen, Diego Trelles Paz and Aidan Cottrell Boyce; with photography from JH Engstrom and art by Noam Turan.

CR in print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog, but if you’re not reading us in print too, you’re missing out on a richer, deeper view of your world. Our April issue features our Top 20 logos of all time. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703. Better yet, subscribe to CR, save yourself almost a third and get Monograph for free plus a host of special deals from the CR Shop. Go on, treat yourself.

To celebrate the launch of a brand new bespoke typeface created by Dalton Maag for Nokia, branding and communications agency DesignStudio has commissioned a raft of new posters by the likes of Build, Cartlidge Levene, Hello Von, North and Alex Trochut (who also designed the front cover of the new April issue of CR. His poster shown above).

The new works, which will not simply utilise the new typeface but be based on the same guiding design principles – that of classic Finnish design – were showcased at an event last week in London where an auction of the 13, A1 prints, each limited to just 20 editions, raised over £3000 for the British Dyslexia Association. Here’s a look at some of the work created for the project:

HelloVon‘s poster is printed in one colour (silver) on Light Grey Colourplan paper. “This was somewhat of a unique challenge for me,” says Von of the commission, “especially when considering my fellow exhibitors, as I do not come specifically from a typographic or traditional design-based background. In light of this I chose to single out a letter whose shape resonated with me but also symbolised the calm simplicity inherent in the original font design. To me, it was more interesting to steer away from a flat, graphic representation and treat the letter as an object or form in its own right, with its own quietly fluid internal world.”

Nokia’s own design department, Nokia Design, created four video loops to be shown at tonight’s event. Each letter, number and glyph of the typface is shown. The above image shows a collection of stills from the movie superimposed over each other.

Non-Format‘s poster (above) focuses on the negative space found in and around the typeface’s letterforms. “Sometimes it’s only by looking closely at the spaces between objects that their hidden connections can be truly revealed,” they say. “This print takes the letters that spell out the name of Nokia’s new typeface, ‘pure’, and explores the shapes that fall between each of the four characters. A single colour has been chosen for each of the resulting shapes which have then been silkscreen printed, one on top of the other, in one of 24 possible ink layering combinations. Artists often refer to the space surrounding objects as ‘negative space’. Non–Format would like to suggest this be renamed ‘positive space’. ”

This is North‘s poster. “The aim was to convey the qualities of the new font with as little of our own design input as possible,” they explain of their poster. “Exploring close–up details led to the idea of twenty individual posters which share fragments of a single, giant 12,000 point letterform. Each of the posters is a one–off edition, which ‘tile’ to form a complete image when displayed together.For us, the lowercase ‘ö’ characterises both the font design (the relationship to the Nokia ‘surround’ shape) and the Finnish alphabet (one of the significant extra vowel letters). We also enjoy that the letter can be interpreted as an emoticon… like Bruno Maag’s face if someone slipped Helvetica into his coffee!”

The exhibition (poster, for it shown above which features the Nokia Pure typeface) was designed and curated by branding and communication agency DesignStudio  – which has been working with Nokia for over two years – as an innovative way to launch the new font. All the posters can be viewed at and bought from pure.wearedesignstudio.com and all profit of sales goes to the BDA.

Of the typeface itself, Bruno Maag says it is at the heart of how Nokia is going to be presenting itself to its users in the future. “The design is all about functionality and purity of use,” he explains. “We have deliberately steered away from condensed proportions that necessitate large x-heights and dictate character shapes with a square appearance. Instead we focussed on more relaxed proportions that allow a softer appearance that benefit the the user’s reading experience, whether on screen or on paper. Every aspect and detail of the font’s design has been considered and weighed.

“The spacing is kept generous to prevent characters merging together in the demanding environments of screen display and the fonts used on User Interfaces are fully hinted to always present the cleanest and purest pixel rendition of the characters.The first wave on language support, besides the Latin alphabet, will be Greek, Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew, Devanagari and Thai. All of these scripts will have the guiding principles of Nokia Pure in common: functionality and purity. That the fonts are beautiful is a given. “

pure.wearedesignstudio.com

CR in print

Thanks for reading the CR Blog, but if you’re not reading us in print too, you’re missing out on a richer, deeper view of your world. Our April issue features our Top 20 logos of all time. You can buy it today by calling +44(0)207 292 3703. Better yet, subscribe to CR, save yourself almost a third and get Monograph for free plus a host of special deals from the CR Shop. Go on, treat yourself.