Creative Review is now open for submissions for The Annual 2011, which will showcase the visual communication highlights from the past twelve months.
The Annual aims to be the definitive guide to the year in visual communication, including Advertising, Graphic Design, Digital Media, Illustration, Editorial Design, Music Video and more. Full entry details are here.
As the only title to cover all these areas and with nearly 30 years experience, CR will ally its skills and knowledge with that of leading industry figures to select the most significant work of 2010.
The categories are broken down into the following areas:
Online advertising
Print and press
Graphic design
Illustration
Packaging
Interactive and digital media
Commercials
Music videos
Virals
Motion graphics
Editorial design
Other
Judges for this year’s submissions are:
Andy Cameron Interactive creative director, Wieden + Kennedy London
Kevin Stark Creative director, Bartle Bogle Hegarty
Laura Jordan-Bambach Executive creative director, LBi
Georgia Fendley Brand director, Mulberry and founder, Construct
Fernanda Romano Global creative director digital and experiential, Euro RSCG
The deadline for entries is December 17.
For full entry details and to register your interest, please go here.
As Gap ditched its condensed serif and preppy blue square for something more default modern, design blogs lit up with comment yesterday. But in a strange social media-infused reaction to the various ‘reinterpretations’ of the logo that surfaced, Gap has implied there’s some crowd sourcing coming your way, based on those very designs…
Having unveiled the new identity with no fanfare whatsover, Gap’s ‘wall’ on Facebook seems to be the only place where the company has actually acknowledged its new Helvetian look. This, despite still proudly displaying its old logo as its profile image.
The reaction in the design community (see Armin’s write up on Brand New, and Mat Dolphin’s reasoned take on their blog) has largely been one of bewilderment; and this has also crossed over into more mainstream sites, like Facebook.
In gauging the reaction of those irked enough to comment on Gap’s Facebook page, it appears that while hundreds of Gap-fans are clearly venting some spleen, the brand itself just seems to be muddying the waters.
“We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding!” chirps the Gap’s wall statement, which sits rather ungainly above a very long list of comments ranging from “terrible” and “tragedy” to “LOL” and the occasional, pertinent “dislike”.
Nevertheless, any user-generated visual ‘tributes’ to the new (or indeed old) Gap logo are, the company believes, all part of the plan. Here’s the post from Gap’s Facebook page:
Thanks for everyone’s input on the new logo! We’ve had the same logo for 20+ years, and this is just one of the things we’re changing. We know this logo created a lot of buzz and we’re thrilled to see passionate debates unfolding! So much so we’re asking you to share your designs. We love our version, but we’d like to see other ideas. Stay tuned for details in the next few days on this crowd sourcing project.
Of course, this being the interweb, there will be plenty of willing contributors to any potential crowd sourcing campaign. But by optimistically claiming that “we’re asking you to share your designs” – it’s as if they’re not only suggesting a response of “I could do better than that” was to be expected, but that it should be (in the way of social media) actively encouraged.
Laird + Partners in New York are apparently behind the new logo (we’ve contacted them for a comment about the design and are yet to hear back) but whether it’s all part of a larger participatory campaign is anyone’s guess.
In the meantime, the blogosphere rages on; design fans debate an identity campaign based on a tiny jpeg; ‘friends’ of Gap denounce the work hysterically on Facebook, and the brand itself resorts to the reckon-you-can-do-better? kind of line.
The end result seems to be a decidedly confused message. Which is surely the opposite of a great identity.
Barney Bubbles’ unused paste-up design for Ian Dury & The Music Students’ album 4000 Weeks Holiday, from 1983
Currently showing at the Chelsea Space in London is an exhibition exploring the working practice of the late, great Barney Bubbles. The show gives an insight into the imaginative mind of Bubbles, featuring letters, sketches and artwork proposals, alongside finished works.
Bubbles’ contribution to graphic design has been increasingly recognised of late, especially since the publication of Paul Gorman’s monograph, Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work of Barney Bubbles. Gorman has also curated the exhibition at Chelsea Space, and the show includes many items never seen in public before, including Bubbles’ student notebooks and sketchbooks, as well as artwork proposals for bands including Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and The Damned. There are also numerous examples of finished work by Bubbles, demonstrating the prolific nature of his talent. Included are record sleeves and artworks for bands, as well as advertising campaigns for the music press and videos.
Paste-up artwork by Barney Bubbles
Selection of photography working proofs by Bubbles. Photo: Donald Smith
Bubbles began working as a graphic designer in the mid-60s, and died in 1983, which, as Gorman points out in the notes accompanying the exhibition, was just two months before the introduction of the Apple Mac computer. Alongside being a record of Bubbles’ work, the show is therefore also a fascinating insight into the graphic design process in the pre-digital age. An in-depth text (by an unattributed colleague of Bubbles) on display in the exhibition describes the production methods that Bubbles and other graphic designers of the time used, and the show includes a number of PMTs (photo mechanical transfers) by Bubbles, created for preparatory artwork as well as a selection of working proofs, some of which include corrections.
Proof of sleeve for Punch The Clock by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1983 (not released in this version). Photo: Donald Smith
Poster included in Get Happy!! by Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1980 (Paul Gorman’s Vote Labour sticker featured bottom left)
The text by Bubbles’ colleague also highlights the designer’s playful approach towards the rigid production processes of the time. “As well as working within its limitations, Barney liked playing with the printing process,” it states. “He enjoyed turning convention on its head by creating imperfections and being open to serendipity. The sleeve of Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ Get Happy!! bore deliberate wear scuffs, and there is a paw smudge on Rockpile’s Seconds Of Pleasure where a cat jumped onto the wet painting.”
Installation shot of finished artworks in the exhibition
Limited edition version of Damned Damned Damned by The Damned, 1977. Photo: Donald Smith
Bubbles’ sense of humour arises elsewhere too, particularly in a limited edition version of The Damned’s album Damned Damned Damned, which came complete with a deliberate printing error and an ‘erratum’ sticker stating: “Due to Record Company error, a picture of Island recording artists Eddie & the Hot Rods has been printed instead of The Damned. We apologise for any inconvenience caused and the correct picture will be substituted on future copies.”
Self-portrait in cap, from sketchbook, 1964-8
Letter and drawing by Bubbles
The complexities of Bubbles’ character are also revealed within the examples of sketchbooks and letters that are displayed at the exhibition. These include self-portraits, lists and both personal and professional correspondence, as well as photographs and concert tickets designed by Bubbles in the 1960s.
Letter from Uwe Tessow, Line Records, 1983, and Kern & Co equipment case
Display of finished artworks and music press ads
Bubbles has been cited as an influence on designers from Neville Brody to Peter Saville, and his inventive approach created some of the most striking imagery in 1970s and early 80s pop music. The show at Chelsea Space celebrates this work, while giving an excellent lesson on the practice of graphic design before the arrival of the Mac.
Process is on at the Chelsea Space until October 23. More info is at chelseaspace.org.
Wired magazine’s Scott Dadich reveals the primary goals of setting out to create a digital version of the magazine
OFFSET festival drew to a close in Dublin yesterday evening and I’m thoroughly exhausted. While I’d love to say I was hitting its myriad satellite events hard, sadly my hotel wasn’t conducive to sleep so I was too knackered to party. Despite that, OFFSET was one the of the best design conferences I’ve ever attended…
And I should point out that it is more than just a brilliantly scheduled conference. OFFSET is a visual arts festival that could (and perhaps should) be considered as Dublin’s premier annual design festival.
Exhibitions, related club nights, discussions and debates focussed on illustration, street art, short film, design, photography, publishing and artistic collaborations have been taking place all week. Way too much, in fact, for a sleep deprived visitor to the city to take in the three days during the conference – although I did check out Daniel Eatock’s show last Thursday night at the Monster Truck Gallery shortly after arriving in Dublin.
Burnt rubber circle created by a motorcyclist to open Daniel Eatock’s show at Dublin’s Monster Truck Gallery last week. Photo by David Wall of Conor & David
The exhibition saw the gallery turn into a studio for a week as Eatock encouraged volunteering participants to create as near perfect a freehand circle as possible, plus other collaborative artworks under his direction. On the opening night of the show on September 24, there was nothing in the space – but a motorcyclist revved up a high performance machine to burn a rubber circle directly onto the gallery’s concrete floor: a spectacular opening to a participatory and fun week long art event. Watch a film of the motorcycle circle being created here.
I should also mention that at the conference there were two rooms running events simultaneously. While talks were delivered in the main auditorium of the theatre, upstairs in “Room Two” a series of discussions and debates had been scheduled. Topics such as routes into illustration/graphic design, the benefits of internships, and getting your childrens book published were explored, and delegates were also offered the chance to ask questions – in dedicated hour-long sessions – to some of the conference’s illustrious speakers, such as graphic design legends Lance Wyman and David Carson.
On Saturday evening I sat in on the Future of Publishing group discussion in Room Two, fronted by a panel comprising Unit Editions’ Adrian Shaughnessy, Stephen Heller (author and former art director of The New York Times), Scott Dadich of Wired magazine (as well as being the creative director at Wired, Dadich is in charge of digital magazine development for Condé Nast), and Hugh Linehan, online editor at The Irish Times.
When Stephen Heller suggested, in his role as devil’s advocate, that the death of print publication was inevitable, Linehan said he doubted that was true and that, actually, almost all forms of communication ever invented, bar the telegram, are still going strong: cinema, painting, magazines, newspapers. All of this stuff still exists and thrives despite the arrival of new technologies and media over the years.
Printed matter may decrease in terms of the sheer amount of newspapers and magazines that are sold, but people will still want the physical things, Linehan added. He then memorably likened the will-printed-publications-disappear situation to the part in Spinal Tap where the band’s manager defends decreasing sales of the band’s albums by saying: “Er, I just think their appeal is becoming more selective…”.
I’d made sure I got to Dadich’s talk on Friday evening (shortly after completing my first post from OFFSET), hoping he’d talk about the development of the Wired iPad app, and he didn’t disappoint.
He explained how he’d been thinking about digital magazines for years and also how he’s been talking to the bods at Adobe for several years about introducing functions within InDesign CS5 that will enable editorial designers to also design and develop iPad versions alongside their print publications.
As well as showing Wired’s approach to structure, and thus the architecture of the magazine’s iPad edition (the slide above shows the basic architecture of the Wired Reader), he talked about various interactions that his team have developed and embedded within the iPad editions of Wired magazine – most notably an interactive feature where users can explore the surface of Mars.
He then showed the difference between how the New Yorker iPad app is different to the Wired Reader because the content demands to be updated more – so it makes more sense to have a much more html-led content management system, rather than an InDesign reliant one.
Each title entering the world of digital editions, either on the iPad or other tablet style gadgets must, he suggested, understand their audience, their content and, of course, the very nature of the interactions possible via said gadget. His goals when working on the Wired Reader (see this post’s topmost image) can be applied by most titles in terms of basic approach.
There were more great talks on Saturday, all of which ran like clockwork until David Carson’s talk, scheduled for 3pm.
At 2.55pm, three of the festival’s organisers were in the foyer of the theatre looking worried. No sign of Carson. But then, hang on – here he is with only a minute to spare. And so relax… I took my seat in the auditorium and waited. And waited a bit more. Carson finally took to the stage fifteen minutes late. Not too bad considering he’s been known to not turn up at all to scheduled talks. The auditorium was packed: apparently there were about 1,200 people in attendance. Carson began by struggling to find his opening slide on his messy-looking laptop desktop…
After making a bit of a show of not really being able to navigate through the myriad images he’d brought along for his talk, Carson did manage to show lots of images.
Predominantly he shared dozens of photographs he’d taken of things that make him tick, things that inspire him day-to-day. Amusing street signage, beautiful rubbish bins in Zurich, a shadow cast by typography on glass, surfboards, and the occasional image of a young woman’s breast kept the audience amused and entertained.
As well as these photographs of things that inspire him, Carson also showed various projects he’d worked on explaining his approach to each particualr piece.
Although his talk lacked any kind of formal structure, the gist of it can be compressed to just a few sentences: “Put some of yourself into the work,” he said. “Nobody can pull from your experience so use it in your work – it will be unique and you’ll have a lot more fun with it.”
Regardless of the fact that Carson then proceeded to run over his allotted time (despite promising to wrap up several times when prompted to do so, thus totally screwing with the well-honed timetable for the rest of the day’s events) – one thing was clear. Carson was putting something of himself over in his talk – and he was clearly having fun with it.
Next up, Mark Farrow took the stage with Adrian Shaughnessy in comfy looking chairs to look through various pieces of work by Farrow’s studio Farrow Design. The interview format worked really well, with Shaughnessy digging for extra insight on working processes without giving the feeling that Farrow was being put on the spot.
Pharmaceutical style packaging for Spiritualized’s Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space album
One of several images created for Manic Street Preachers’ Lifeblood album and campaign, art directed by Farrow, shot by John Ross. “To be honest, I consider this image as much my work as I do it John’s,” says Mark Farrow. “I know John feels the same way.”
“I put this in [the slideshow] because, well, I’ve worked with Kylie.” Mark Farrow
As well as talking about projects such as the identity and packaging for Peyton and Byrne, work for Levi’s, artwork and packaging for bands Manic Street Preachers and also Spiritualized, perhaps inevitably it was work done for the Pet Shop Boys that was discussed in most detail, with Farrow talking about the work on the Yes album and the subsequent Pandemonium tour as a special case study.
While Farrow spoke of the collaborative relationship he has with the Pet Shop Boys, Shaughnessy asked about the relationship with the record label who, Farrow told us, don’t get involed, they just “take delivery of the artwork.”
(Actually, we posted about Farrow’s work on the sleeve in March last year. Read that post here. Read about the special edition vinyl edition in our blogpost about it here.)
Shaughnessy asked Farrow at this point about whether he thought that he had copied in any way the Richter artwork. “Where we ended up is far away enough from what was a reference point for us,” Farrow explained. “Gerhard Richter doesn’t own coloured squares.” Shaughnessy then pointed out that Farrow’s ideas get ripped off a lot. “That’s completely fucking different,” came Farrow’s instant and laugh-inducing reply. “There’s nothing wrong with being influenced by something,” Farrow continued. “Where we ended up is so far divorced from that image, I really don’t think it’s a problem.”
Perhaps the most telling revelation about the work on PSB’s Yes artwork – and of Farrow’s relationship with the band – was that there were originally 12 tracks on the album, with one square of the tick on the cover representing a track on the album. “But the tick looked much better if it was just comprised of 11 diamonds,” said Farrow.
The band duly dropped a track to make the album artwork work better. Er, wow.
Lance Wyman’s first ever poster, created at high school
OK – I realise this is a long post – but I just wanted to share one last highlight of OFFSET 2010: graphic design legend Lance Wyman talking yesterday morning.
Wyman condensed his life story into just an hour, starting with his childhood in Kearny, New Jersey, the tales his grandfather told about his contemporaries such as Billy The Kid, through to his studying of industrial design (the term graphic design hadn’t been coined at that stage) at the Pratt school in Brooklyn, and his early days designing for General Motors.
His wayfinding work for the Chrysler Pavilion at the New York world fair in 1964/5 was charming and hinted at the kind of universally readable icon-based work that he would later become famous for / prolific at.
Of course, he spoke of his experience working on the 1968 Mexico Olympics logotype and identity and how, because Mexico didn’t have much money to spend on architecture (Tokyo had spent a fortune on new stadiums and other buildings for the 1964 Olympics) the Mexican Games “became the graphics Olympics.” With graphics being applied to all sorts of things, both on a huge architectural scale, right down to clothing and hats….
Lance Wyman’s original compass drawing showing how the numeral 68, the year of the Mexico Olympics which he designed the identity for, could actually work, graphically, with the five rings Olympics logo
As well as talking of how the icons and other graphical elements of the Mexico 68 work were influenced by Mexican culture, both ancient and modern, Wyman also showed how his graphic work was referenced in work, such as the one above, during the student uprisings of 1968. They found that Wyman had created a graphic language that they could use and recycle to express their feelings visually.
Wyman showed more great work that he created in Mexico over subsequent years, such as the Mexico City Metro logo, typeface and icons created for the Metro’s opening in 1969, and the logo and mascot (shown above) designed for the 1970 soccer World Cup held in Mexico. He also told how he loved seeing the mascot hand painted (not always correctly – see image below) around Mexico city.
Wyman spoke of his return to New York and of setting up a studio with Bill Cannan – Wyman & Cannan. He showed a selection of the studio’s brilliant logo and icons for the National Zoological Park in Washington DC, created as part of a comprehensive branding and wayfinding system…
… and his later studio’s work for Minnesota’s Zoo exhibit areas:
To see Wyman present his work was a real treat and a really good moment for me to bow out of Dublin’s Grand Canal Theatre and head towards the airport to return home.
If it wasn’t press week here at CR towers this week, perhaps I could have stayed for the rest of yesterday’s talks… I was particularly sad to be missing the Wooster Collective talk, and also animator David O’Reilly’s talk too. I bumped into O’Reilly on the Sunday and he’s a different character since I last interviewed him back in 2007 when we named him as a Creative Future and commissioned him to create a new piece of work, Please Say Something. He’s promised to show me new work soon and keep in touch.
So that was my OFFSET experience which, apart from the insomnia, was a thoroughly positive and enjoyable one. My hat is doffed in the direction of organisers Richard Seabrook and team who, to their credit, have entirely self-funded the whole event and who have yet to work out whether this year’s event has even broke even.
Ireland’s economy is just as screwed as ours here in the UK – if not more so, with unemployment rising at a similar frightening rate to property reposessions. Encouraging its own design community to be inspired and to work harder, as well as giving designers and creatives from around the world a very good reason to visit Dublin, OFFSET is a huge asset to Ireland as well as to the international design community at large. I really hope we get to again next year.
The sun is shining in Dublin on this the first day of design festival Offset‘s three days of scheduled talks and events taking place at the city’s brand new Grand Canal Theatre. First to take the stage: Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook…
Sadly my enthusiasm for sunshine is lacking today due to a terrible night’s sleep at my hotel where, ironically, design disaster dictates that all the room doors slam shut – meaning whenever a guest arrives back to their room of an evening (which they did until about 4.30am last night) a door slams.
But, I’m up, and I’ve been at the wonky-looking Grand Canal Theatre since kick off at 10am…
First talk of the day was given by Adrian Shaughnessy and Tony Brook of Unit Editions and – by the looks of things – sleep deprivation isn’t an issue for anyone else: the auditorium was packed.
Shaughnessy started by talking about his experience working at Intro with Julian House on a number of great projects – from record sleeves for Primal Scream (“they talk about drugs like a wine connoisseur talks about wine – they really know their drugs”) and Stereolab and, perhaps more importantly, on various publications. He then talked about “becoming an editor” and learning to curate content whilst editor of VROOM magazine.
Brook then spoke about the philosophy for Unit Editions – about the pair’s desire to take the lessons they’ve learned about working with other publishers and create books “by designers, for designers”. He listed books that the pair identified as benchmarks for the kind of thing they wanted to publish. Books on the list included Typography Today by Helmut Schmid; the 8vo book, On The Outside, published by Lars Müller, and books by FUEL.
“I collect posters,” Brook told the assembled. “It’s a bit like alcoholics anonymous. I collect posters and I’ve got it bad.” The point he was making is that loving design is a really important aspect of what he and Shaughnessy are doing at Unit. Despite setting up a publishing company in the age of the internet, Shaughnessy insisted that “designers still have an engrained love of books, of the object” and, also insisted that most publishers just don’t think like designers, hence his and Brook’s desire to publish the kind of books they know their audience will appreciate and treasure.
They then went on to show that through creating a great website and letting design blogs know about what they’re up to – they can offer their books exclusively for sale through their own website and not bother with Amazon or other outlets.
They also told us about their Research papers – newsprint publications focusing on design projects they find fascinating. They showed spreads from Folkways – the first of these papers published by Unit Editions – which collected record sleeve designs created by Ronald Clyne, a designer and ethnic sculpture collector who created a huge number of sleeves for esoteric US label, Folkways, in the 60s and 70s. “All this stuff is online, but nowhere is it curated,” explained Shaugnessy, “so in a way we’re reclaiming this stuff from the internet.”
Spread from Folkways. Read our blog post about it from March this year (when it was published) here
The pair then gave the assembled a sneaky peek at their forthcoming Research paper, ThreeSix, which will look at the creation of a modular typeface by Hamish Muir – with an essay by Wim Crouwel. Plus a preview of their soon to launch revamped website, and a look at images from their forthcoming book, Supergraphics which will look at this kind of work:
…and which will feature an essay by CR’s very own Mark Sinclair. Watch this space: uniteditions.com
I also sat in on this morning’s talk by Dublin-based studio Image Now‘s Aiden Grennelle – who gave an insightful overview of his journey as a designer, kicking off with his fascination and respect for designers like Josef Müller Brockman and Otl Aicher. He shared a great story about realising, whilst up an A-frame ladder painting the ceiling of his studio, that being several feet above the floor was the best place to be in the space – and consequently commissioning two umpires chairs for his studio from the manufacturers in England that provide the likes of Wimbledon with umpire chairs.
Grennelle candidly likened his early approach to design to UK band Spaceman 3’s motto, “taking drugs to make music to take drugs to”. He showed some of the colourful club flyers he was designing as a result – and then recalled the time he couldn’t prepare a poster for print for a client because he was recovering from a particularly heavy bout of raving. His friend, on request, duly sorted the file and sent it over, print-ready but, because he didn’t know the surname of the chap whose name was to appear on the poster, put in a surname so silly he felt sure that Grennelle would spot it on the file and change it before sending it to print. Grennelle was so hungover / broken that he didn’t spot what needed to be done and – relieved that his chum had sorted the poster – simply sent it off to print. This is how the poster ended up reading:
Cue much laughter. Grennelle then steered his talk towards talking about work completed since joining Image Now in 2000. Among the work he showed was some great work for Dublin Bus which included creating maps and timetables for the service
…and also for Eircom and for Dublin’s James Joyce Centre in Dublin – sharing stories about how each project developed.
Grennelle’s speech culminated in talking about a poster he created for Blanka’s Exhibition in Mono – which is both a homage to Josef Müller Brockman as well as a graphic representation of George Foreman and Mohammed Ali’s classic Rumble In The Jungle boxing fight in Zaire in 1974. I was slightly surprised that Grennelle mentioned my name at this point as the person who recommended that Blanka get him involved in the project. I own a copy of the poster and had completely forgotten that I had pointed Blanka in the direction of Image Now and Aiden. Totally made my day to “learn” of my role in the story of a poster I’ve loved since first seeing it.
The poster sees each of the fight’s eight 3 minute rounds (180 seconds) converted into overlapping semicircular (180 degrees) graphic slabs – enabling each degree of each 180 degree semicircle to represent a second of the particular round it signifies. Each connecting punch and all of the action is noted in the appropriate place, thus charting the whole fight, blow for blow.
I also sat in on Philip Hunt of Studio AKA (above) talking about the studio’s work. Hunt introduced the work of Studio AKA and explained how the 30 strong company balance commercial work with self-funded films – all in the name of developing the skills of its small but talented roster of animation directors. He showed work by Studio AKA directors Marc Craste, Steve Small and Grant Orchard, talking openly about dealing with clients, collaborating with clever creatives at ad agencies and the joy of producing great work. As well as the work that gets commissioned and included on the company’s reel, he also readily admits there’s a “drawer of shame” in which various projects are filed – he even showed a few projects from said drawer…
Towards the end of his allotted time, Hunt spoke of the processes involved in his adaptation of illustrator and author Oliver Jeffers’ Lost and Found story. The resulting film (still shown above) was first screened on Channel 4 in December 2008, but Hunt spoke of how he worked with Jeffers in adapting the design of the characters and the world they inhabit, and also how his own children’s behaviour influenced some of his directorial decisions. Here’s the trailer for the film which he played:
To find out more about Lost and Found, we blogged about it just before it was shown on TV back in December 2008. Read that post here.
Right, I’m going to pack up the laptop and head back to the venue to catch the talk by London’s POKE studio and also the following talk by Wired creative director Scott Dadich who I hope will talk about the development of the Wired iPad app and the magazine’s philosophy in regard to – to coin a phrase uttered by Adrian Shaughnessy earlier today – publishing in the digital age. More from Dublin soon!
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Barnbrook in London has produced a modular identity (and a rather lovely looking catalogue) for the 17th Biennale of Sydney which is currently running in the Australian city until August 1. The contemporary art festival, which is subtitled Songs of Survival in a Precarious Age, will showcase (in seven venues) over 440 works of art by no fewer than 166 artists and collaborators from 36 different countries.
The biennale’s subtitle was inspired by American experimental film maker, anthropologist and musicologist Harry Everett Smith (1923-1991) who released a box set of historic recordings entitled Anthology of American Folk Music in 1952.
In turn, Barnbrook took inspiration from Everett Smith’s work to develop a modular identity system for the festival comprising a myriad typefaces shapes, patterns and illustrations that can be combined, the studio tells us, “to create unlikely juxtapositions that individually reference the history of print and typography and which create an unmistakably contemporary voice.”
The identity is based around a modular system of blocks, designed to be flexible in order to work across a multitude of applications, from the cover of the festival’s catalogue (cover and spreads shown above), to the festival’s website, bags, T-shirts, posters and signage. The modular blocks are uniform in shape to allow easy tessellation and there are two layers.
A primary layer block contains textual information and illustrations drawn from old scientific reference books, stills from Smith’s films, astrological manuscripts and mathematical text books…
The secondary layer blocks form abstract shapes…
and patterns based on geometry and halftone printing techniques…
The various elements are designed to be put together thus:
All designs can be applied in monotone (black), duotone (red and black) or tritone (black, red and white).
“The typography is deliberately awkward,” the studio tells us. “Forced justification, bad kerning and strange combinations of typefaces are inspired by letterpress, early/mid-twentieth century print, and specifically reference Smith’s American Folk Music sleeve notes. The challenge was to create a system that doesn’t appear formulaic and predictable but has a unified voice – a celebration of diversity and unity.”
Here are some shots of the identity applied across signage, banners, posters and other items:
To find out more about the 17th Biennale of Sydney – and to see how the identity works online / on-screen – visit biennaleofsydney.com.au/
The June issue of CR focuses on CGI, with six illustrators collaborating with six CGI studios to create original images. Plus, this year’s Graduate Guide supplement and, for subscribers, a World Cup Wallchart
Our Graduate Guide has a wealth of advice and information for graduating students as well as degree show listings
Meanwhile, in the issue, we have organised a bit of cross-pollination between two very different styles of imagemaker.
We ran our first CGI special issue last July. In it we talked about the fact that, although CGI is a great photo-realistic problem-solving tool, it might be more interesting to see what use the technology could be put to in creating new kinds of imagery. So, for this issue we picked six illustrators and designers, most of whom have a hand-drawn aesthetic, and matched them with six CGI studios. We asked each pair to come up with one image which would represent a synthesis of their skills.
For the cover, we have a crop of one the images created for us. It’s based on this original pencil drawing by Von
Von and Ed Taylor, creative lead at CGI studio Taylor James, then worked together on how this image might translate into 3D. Eventually, they came up with this
Elsewhere in the issue we have a profile on Paul White and Me Company, currently celebrating 25 years of visualising the future
In Crit, Rick Poynor grapples with a difficult but rewarding new book on corporate identity from Dutch studio Metahaven
James Pallister checks out the Pick Me Up graphic art fair
And Jeremy Leslie checks out the first, faltering attempts to make magazines work on the iPad
In Monograph this month, for subscribers only, we have Kheiron, one of Me Company’s abstract image series, this time on the theme of hands
Last, but by no means least, we have the latest in our subscriber extras. You may recall that, over the past year, subscribers have received fold-out binders for Monograph, a Christmas tree, a kit to grow tomatoes, prints from the Photography Annual and postcards of previous covers.
With this issue, design studio Greenspace has kindly donated a copy of its World Cup Wallchart to all our UK subscribers.
Set in Cordale by Dalton Maag, the chart lists all 64 matches at the World Cup with the match number, date and kick-off time. The result of each game can then be written in, but only by arty types with extremely neat handwriting and fancy pens, of course.
Here’s the whole thing, as modelled in true design style by our deputy editor Mark
The June issue of CR goes on sale on May 28. Next issue: July and our first Illustration Annual
Manchester-based Dorothy has created a striking poster to promote Tate Liverpool‘s current exhibition, Picasso: Peace and Freedom, which runs until August 30…
The exhibition is the first to focus on the post-war period of the famous artist’s work in depth – a period in which Picasso was a member of the French Communist Party.
The poster features a bespoke font designed specially for the exhibition – inspired, Dorothy tells us, “by the posters designed and distributed by striking workers and students in the Paris uprising of May ’68.” The font, entitled Picasso ’68 is being used across all exhibition branding, advertising and a range of merchandise including the poster shown above – which has been produced as a limited edition screenprint which is for sale exclusively in the Tate shop.
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