Hasta La Ideas

Anish Kapoor’s first major solo show in Germany was accompanied by a handsome catalogue stained with red oil and designed by UK studio, Brighten the Corners. It has just won them the Grand Prize at the Tokyo Type Directors Club…

Symphony for a Beloved Sun was held at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. The central work of the show consisted of a series of large conveyor belts, set up high in the space, which dropped heavy blocks of red wax onto the museum floor.

Brighten the Corners say that the notion of “tension” created by putting contemporary artworks within the neo-Rennaisance environment of the Martin-Gropius-Bau was something they wanted to reflect in the show’s publication.

Each catalogue’s cover is stained with red oil paint which then seeps through into its first pages. The book is also sewn with a bright red thread and boasts a red ‘cut’ to its edge.

“We wanted our book, itself a reference to the first Martin-Gropius-Bau catalogue of 1890, to be both elegant and unsettling,” say BTC.

“Maintaining the strict classical grid for all text and images meant that landscape images stretched across two pages, occupying the space they needed and reminding the reader of the works’ scale. Finding the right landscape images was a job in itself – hours were spent with Anish Kapoor studio in the photo archive.”

“Typographic chapter dividers grouped the works into categories and played further with scale by visually exploiting the font (Stempel Garmamond) and letting it have its moment in the book.”

The catalogue is published by Walter Koenig. Brighten the Corners are in Tokyo to receive the TDC Grand Prize this week and will also give a talk at the Design Forum, TDC Day. See
tdctokyo.org and brightenthecorners.com.

Sheffield studio Peter & Paul has designed a new visual identity for Leeds College of Art based on a mosaic above the entrance of its Vernon Street building.

The new identity has been applied to prospectuses and a website designed by Leeds agency Enjoy Digital. Both feature coloured shapes that represent fragments of the mosaic.

The mosaic has formed part of the college’s identity for some time – an image of it was often used in communications – but Peter & Paul felt this image was too restrictive.

“It’s a large scale and intricate mosaic that is cherished by many of the faculty and board members within the college,” explains creative director Paul Reardon. “It represents values of craft, excellence [and] history, but doesn’t fully represent the output of the college in its modern context, and the output of students – [both] their ideas and the tools and methods that they work with,” he adds.

“There was also a bigger issue with the practicality of usage: it’s so defining as an image that it can feel quite disconnected when placed [alongside] other types of artwork, and reproduction at small sizes is also an issue, so it becomes prohibitive in how it can be applied to marketing materials,” he says.

While the college agreed its current system needed updating, however, it also felt it was important to retain a reference to Eric Taylor’s mosaic, so Peter & Paul redrew four single tiles from the piece and used them to create a series of abstract patterns. Shapes can be arranged in various formations and combined with the college logo or imagery.

The studio also worked with Fontsmith to refine the college’s logotype, which had been lifted directly from the mosaic. “We modified it for better reproduction in print and digital, whilst still retaining some subtle quirks and character of the original,” he says.

The updated logo now features the year in which the college was founded, which Reardon says is a small but significant addition. “Jacob Kramer, Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore famously studied at Leeds College of Art, Damian Hirst began his education here, as did Marcus Harvey, [and] Si Scott. The date signifies the rich history of the college and the pedigree of its alumni,” he adds.

The college’s new scheme includes four key palettes made up of four colours, and each represents a key theme: ideas, debate, progress and craft, says Reardon.

“It’s hard to encapsulate these themes in colour as everyone will have a different view [on them], so we looked at objects, sculptures and artworks that inspired us around those,” he says.

“We also came up with the idea for an app where you could take a picture of anything that inspired you and it would fragment the image into a very simple mosaic, so you could instantly put simple palettes together,” he says.

As well as working on signage, wayfinding and murals around the college, Peter & Paul is developing a large scale graphic timeline of alumni, which may be made into a sculpture.

The project is still in its early stages, but it will be interesting to see how Peter & Paul applies the system to artworks and additional communications. It’s a simple but effective solution and one that gives the college a more unified and contemporary identity, without losing all reference to its past.

London foundry Colophon has commercially released its Castledown Type Family, which has been shortlisted for the Design Museum’s Design of the Year Award 2014.

Castledown was designed by Colophon founders Anthony Sheret and Edd Harrington and is intended to help young children read and write. It’s available in eight cuts from regular to heavyweight and comes with additional cursive and dotted versions to help pupils practice their handwriting.

Sheret and Harrington have been working on Castledown since early 2012. The type family was created for Castledown Primary School in East Sussex at the request of headmaster Neil Small, who was “sick of using Comic Sans,” says Sheret.

“Neil wanted something that was clear and legible but still friendly, and had secondary options [such as bold versions] that the school could use in any situation,” he adds.

While Comic Sans is widely used in many UK schools, it is problematic: letters are crooked and it’s not suitable for use in serious contexts, such as letters about bad behaviour or sensitive issues, explains Sheret. Alternative fonts often also have a double storey ‘a’.

Castledown, however, has a single story ‘a’ and has been designed in line with how children are taught to write. Letters have also been slightly weighted at the bottom, which aids children with dyslexia or other reading issues by curbing the brain’s ability to reverse letters.

Before designing the typeface, Sheret and Harrington held a series of workshops with Castledown pupils to gauge their opinions on various fonts and letterforms. “We showed them a range of fonts, asked them which they liked and which they didn’t, and spoke to them about their cursive handwriting exercises and homework,” says Sheret.

“Conducting research within an institution, particularly an educational one was different to how we normally work,” he adds. “The process was also in two-parts — when working on our standard commercial releases, they are slow burners that are split tasks, but because this family would be implemented into schools we first worked on the proportional side of the family, and [then] the cursive.”

The first versions of Castledown were released last summer and the typeface has since been implemented throughout the school with a positive response from pupils and staff. Sheret and Harrington have since been working on the additional cuts and plan to release a Castledown handwriting app and wooden stencils.

“It’d be nice to see it take off in other schools too. We’d like to offer a complete educational package [with wooden letters and an app]. We kind of think of this as the Jamie’s Dinners of school fonts,” says Sheret.

Castledown is currently on display at the Design Museum’s Designs of the Year exhibition and Colophon has released a limited edition specimen book to celebrate its release.

Colophon is also hosting an exhibition at KK Outlet next month to celebrate the foundry’s fifth birthday and will be showcasing designs by Anthony Burrill, Studio Makgill and Dries Wiewauters. For details, see kkoutlet.com

YCN has launched a new visual identity overseen by Matt Willey and changed the meaning of its initials from Young Creative Network to ‘You Can Now’.

The new system and brand message were launched to reflect the organisation’s growth since it was founded in 2001. It was originally set up as an annual awards scheme for new talent and now runs a number of events and a members’ magazine.

Willey was asked to work on the identity after re-designing YCN’s magazine last summer, and founder Nick Defty says he has been working on it since the end of last year.

YCN’s old logo

“YCN has grown and changed so much in recent years…we wanted to signal this change [and] it felt like the perfect moment to look at our visual identity. The old didn’t express the idea of ‘You Can Now’, either graphically or in words,” he adds.

The new logo features a bespoke typeface. Klim font Founders has also been applied to print communications and YCN’s website. “We wanted something that felt ‘freshly smart’ – something to communicate the spirit, positivity and energy at the heart of YCN, but also the professionalism at the heart of everything we do,” he says.

The new design

“We have deliberately kept to a black and white palette given the riot of colour that comes from the content we frame. That’s not to say we might not use our new logo in colour in the future; but it feels great in black,” he adds.

While the logo appears only in black or white, members can choose from a range of colourful membership card designs, created by other YCN members.

“We have always loved the idea of people choosing their own card designs, and the card offers the perfect place to present the work of people from among our membership…we plan to regularly add new designs to the selection,” says Defty.

The organisation has also been working with London studio Hover on a series of animated icons to help show the various services YCN offers members. “[The icons] are suggestive of creativity and the things we help our members do: whether its connecting with each other or a new client. We will continue to use these playfully over time,” adds Defty.

Animated versions of the logo will be used in a series of online ‘peer guides’, advising members on issues such as price commissions.

It’s a versatile design which should serve YCN well both online and in print, and the animated icons provide the brand with a flexible but coherent system through which to advertise its various services. The company has also launched a new membership scheme, introducing a flat annual fee of £69.

Secret 7″, the record fair that offers shoppers the chance to pick up a unique vinyl artwork by a world-famous artist at a bargain price – or just a nice looking sleeve by an as-yet-unknown designer – returns next month.

The event is similar to the RCA Secret Postcard Sale in its design, though for Secret 7″ artists are invited to contribute an artwork inspired by a song. Seven hundred one-of-a-kind record covers have been created for this year’s fair, by a mix of big names – Jake & Dinos Chapman, Antony Gormley, Sir Paul Smith, Jeremy Deller, Kate Moross, Fred Deakin and Dan Tobin Smith have all contributed works – and talented unknowns. Each of the records will go on sale for £45 on April 19, Record Store Day, though buyers won’t know who has designed the sleeve they’ve purchased, or even which song it is for, until they have coughed up the cash. All proceeds raised will go to the War Child charity.

The songs featured this year include: Black Sabbath, Age Of Reason; Elbow, Grounds For Divorce; Jake Bugg, Strange Creatures; Lorde, Team; Massive Attack, Karmacoma; Roxy Music, Virginia Plain; and T-Rex, Get It On. This is the third year that Secret 7″, which is organised by Universal Music, has taken place. All 700 covers this year will be displayed at Downstairs At Mother, Mother’s in-house gallery space, on April 12-13 for the public to peruse, before the sale on the 19th. The limited edition 7″ records have been pressed by The Vinyl Factory.

Shown below are a selection of the sleeves from this year’s Secret 7″, to view more visit secret-7.com.

To help promote this year’s event, artists Stanley Donwood, Pete Fowler, Alex Chinneck and Fred Butler discussed the project and the importance of visuals and design in music. See their opinions and ideas in the film below: