Hasta La Ideas

Cultural branding studio Faust has created a tactile immersive experience for kids to accompany an extensive exhibition of work by artist Nick Cave (no, not that Nick Cave, but rather the American fabric sculptor, dancer and performance artist Cave).

The exhibition, Sojourn, at the Denver Art Museum, promises an immersive journey through the artist’s imagination. The Second Skin installation, designed by Faust in collaboration with Cave, is a family-friendly interactive space that complements the main exhibition, inviting visitors to exercise their own imagination through hands-on activities.

It includes a floor-to-ceiling felt wall and felt silhouette mannequins that kids can embellish and re-embellish with colourful cut-outs, as well as kids punching bags and a super-sized projection of Cave’s film Drive-By.

Much of the design is inspired by Cave’s work. For example, the kaleidoscopic wallpaper is created from a photo of ceramic birds taken in Cave’s studio, with the graphic carpet design also derived from that pattern (see the inspiration art work below).

The punch bags are printed with graphic interpretations of Cave’s Soundsuits, his series of elaborately crafted suits, designed to create noise  when in movement, and which he uses in many of his performances. The 3-D felt mannequins are also inspired by the Soundsuits, interpreted by Faust from photographs of Cave performing in them.

Below is a video from the Denver Art Museum showing Soundsuits in all their glory – the super-slo-mo section is particularly mesmerising.

The studio also designed the exhibition’s title wall, which features the title cut through a 2.5-feet wall covered in the same ceramic bird-inspired wallpaper design of Second Skin, creating telescopic vistas into the first gallery. “It is a micro/macro kind of experience that gets the senses going and ready for a special experience,” explains Faust founder Bob Faust.

The accompanying exhibition catalogue (as well as marketing material) is also designed by Faust and picks up the cut-out letterforms on its cover with a die-cut design. It contains a 40-page journal on the making of the exhibition, set within a cut-out void in the front section of the book (see below for book cover and spreads).

Faust has been working with Cave for more than 15 years, and Bob Faust is also Cave’s studio and special projects director. “So every project is collaborative and pushes the boundaries and expectations,” he says. “We wanted to provide something for everyone, similar to how Nick’s work is, in that you can take it on a purely aesthetic level, be awed by the craft, or go deep into history or political message.

“Nick’s approach to his own work is all based on feelings and not ever from a written or sketched plan. Our hope with these projects was to set the stage for a visitor’s barriers to be brought down and their own imagination to take over.”

Nick Cave: Sojourn is on at the Denver Art Museum until September 22. For a peek at Sojourn, see Cave’s guide below.

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Studio Tipi’s cover and feature illustration for our August issue features some legendary figures from the worlds of art and design: can you identify them all?

Our August issue takes a look at a wide variety of courses and workshops readers can take to refresh their creative mojo. For our piece on univeristy short courses, we asked illustrators Studio Tipi to create their ideal university, with an all-star line-up of teaching talent. Their illustration (above, which also features on the cover) references a variety of art and design stars, all hard at work imparting their wisdom. How many can you spot?

Who, for example, is this graphic design lecturer, who evidently likes to pin up examples of his own work in the classroom?

Our photography tutor is less a famous lensman himself and more a noted portrayal of one on screen. And can you identify his subjects?

Our character design workshop is led by a famous character from children’s literature

While our film class is taken by someone whose profile may be familiar

And if you prefer film theory to the practical, we have an expert guide to Japanese cinema – can you spot who it is?

Our drawing class is led by one of the all-time greats who is sure to make a (neo)impression

And our fashion course tutor is known throughout New York for her distinctive eyewear

So that’s the faculty at CR University – can you name them all?

You can buy the August issue of Creative Review direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money too. Details here.

Penguin’s new series, Philosophy in Transit, features close-cropped shots of commuters by photographer Wolfgang Tillmans

The series is trailed by the publisher as “easily digestible, commute-length books of original philosophy”. The first four titles are written by John D Caputo, Barry Dainton,Slavoj Zizek and Susan Nieman. Each features a cover shot by Tillmans of travellers on the Tube.

The series was designed by Matthew Young, working with Penguin art director Jim Stoddart. “[Tillmans] did a very short series of photographs back in 2000 featuring people on the Tube, and these photos just felt like a perfect fit for these books,” Young says. “The idea of commuting is used as a metaphor throughout the books to explain philosophical ideas and concepts, plus they’re short A-format editions that are perfect for reading on your way to work, on the Tube perhaps.”

“Tillman’s photographs are really stylish, and feature quite close-up unusual crops. You can almost read whatever you want into them, and each reader will interpret the photographs differently … they’re the main focus, and the rest of the design is kept deliberately clean and minimal,” Young explains. The covers are set in Avenir “with a strong but balanced hierarchy that puts emphasis on the title and draws your eye to the subtitle, Philosophy in Transit.”

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The July issue of Creative Review is a type special, with features on the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, the new Whitney identity and the resurgence of type-only design. Plus the Logo Lounge Trend Report, how Ideas Foundation is encouraging diversity in advertising and more.

Studio Contents has designed a new brand identity for contemporary arts company IOU featuring a modular, evolving logo and flexible grid system.

Based in Yorkshire, IOU is known for its bizarre and often surreal performances and projects – past works include rooms filled with robotically controlled cameras zooming in and out of animated scenes, LED light installations and sound experiments with metal tubes.

Studio Contents’s identity system is intended to reflect the organisation’s reputation for unusual art “whilst maintaining a modern and professional edge” and uses a modular logo type that can be moved, resized and adapted to suit different mediums.

“The logo is created to work in a rather unorthodox way, the idea being that IOU’s work is renowned for the extraordinary,” he says.

“A complex but flexible grid system—which is designed to expand or contract to fit a majority of canvases, almost like a responsive web design approach to print—creates a guide for positioning each character of the logo. The idea is that the logo is always in a different configuration every time it is used. It will rarely be shown inline, however we had to offer this as an option for practical reasons,” he adds.

Typographic lock ups and imagery, including photographs by Percy Dean (below), are also positioned to fit within this grid. “The aim is to create a sense of the eclectic which still somehow works – very much the sense a viewer of an IOU performance, installation or artwork will feel.”

Cuts in the logo type and different colour combinations are intended to reflect IOU’s sculptural work and its increasing digital focus. “The tactile textures of metal are represented in the gold/bronze colour. The digital can be represented by either white or black in the logo depending on where it is being shown,” he says.

The supporting typeface for the logo is Neuzeit, explains Gilbert “and we only use one weight of it – Book. Any emphasis is done with colour or underlines,” he says.

As well as signage, merchandise and stationery, Studio Contents has produced a responsive CMS for IOU (developed by James Galley) that allows viewers to browse years of past, present and future projects.

Before starting work on the project, Gilbert held a series of brand workshops to help understand IOU’s ideals, which he says were key to the project’s success.

“Without this process to inform the design brief I don’t believe we would not have hit the mark so effectively – if you don’t get [a company] how can you design it? Ideally, we do this on every project and have quite intense two to three-day workshops with clients to cement exactly what makes them tick.

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The July issue of Creative Review is a type special, with features on the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, the new Whitney identity and the resurgence of type-only design. Plus the Logo Lounge Trend Report, how Ideas Foundation is encouraging diversity in advertising and more.

Distil Studio has designed an identity system for a new sportswear brand, Pavilion, based on the concept of ‘versus’.

Founded by rugby fan Barney Havelaar Cook, Pavilion will be launched in September this year. Its initial product range will include hats, scarves and training tops and the brand is aimed at “anyone who’s passionate about sport  – people who won’t necessarily wear team scarves but like sportswear and heritage fashion,” says Distil Studio director Neil Hedger.

The Pavilion logo uses custom bold sans type and the underlined ‘v’ is designed to reflect the visual language of fixture boards, says Hedger.

“We were given the brand name Pavilion, so we went to a few for inspiration. We looked at fixture boards at each and that got us thinking – ‘versus’ is a fundamental part of every sport, representing triumph, defeat, team spirit and celebrations – so why not make that a key part of the brand’s identity?” he says.

The black sans type is designed to contrast Pavilion’s traditional name, says Hedger. “People would probably expect a serif logo but we wanted something more modern. For the versus idea to really work, the ‘v’ needed to be strong so we made it bold and added tramlines,” he explains.

The ‘v’ also appears as a standalone icon on selected garments and could be adapted to suit a range of colour schemes and product ranges, says Hedger.

Stickers designed to appear on packaging also use colour and a play on the concept of ‘versus’, featuring phrases such as ‘blood v sweat’ and ‘pride v glory’ over photographs of fixture boards and rugby teams – an idea Distil will be developing for a series of promotional posters to be launched during next year’s rugby season.

As well as the brand’s main logo, Distil has designed a symbol made up of a ball of wool between two knitting needles – a reference to the brand’s rugby roots that will appear on stickers, labels and bags. “We had four possible symbols before we chose the ‘v’ and this one wasn’t strong enough to work as the logo, but we thought it was a nice, playful idea that embraces the spirit of Pavilion and reflects an emphasis on craftsmanship,” adds Hedger.

Distil are also working on Pavilion’s website, which will be launched in September and will use a customised e-commerce template rather than a bespoke site design.

There’s no shortage of heritage-inspired leisure brands but Distil has designed a strong identity system with some clever touches and memorable details – the ‘v’ is immediately recognisable and can be adapted to suit future product lines; while the bold logo should help Pavilion stand out against established competitors.

“It’s a small start up on a tight budget but hopefully, we’ve created a credible brand identity and a solid icon that the company can work and grow with,” says Hedger.

Buy the current print issue of CR, or subscribe, here

The July issue of Creative Review is a type special, with features on the Hamilton Wood Type Museum, the new Whitney identity and the resurgence of type-only design. Plus the Logo Lounge Trend Report, how Ideas Foundation is encouraging diversity in advertising and more.