Hasta La Ideas

The Folio Society has published illustrated editions of classic fiction titles including The Day of the Jackal, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Life, the Universe and Everything.

Each hardback book is housed in a slipcase and includes a specially commissioned introduction and original illustrations: Frederick Forsyth’s Day of the Jackal is illustrated by Tatsuro Kiuchi, Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues by Jillian Tamaki and Life, the Universe and Everything (the third title in Douglas Adams’ Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy series), by Jonathan Burton.

All three artists have worked with the Folio Society previously – Kiuchi worked on The Sea, The Sea, Tamaki on Irish Myths and Legends and Goblin Market and Selected Poems, and Burton on PD James Cover Her Face, as well as the first and second novels in the Hitchiker’s series. (He also designed some great film posters for last year’s BAFTA programmes, which you can see here).

Kiuchi’s illustrations for The Day of the Jackal are particularly striking and appear alongside, above and underneath text throughout the book, depicting key scenes, characters and objects.

Sheri Gee, an art director at The Folio Society, says she was impressed with some “suspenseful” monochrome images on Kiuchi’s website and thought they would be a great fit for Forsyth’s thriller, which was first published in 1971. “Thankfully, the Folio team and author agreed,” she says.

“We’d had an idea to integrate some of the illustrations with the text, which Tatsuro worked really well with – he showed a great ability to work with text and composition [and] his illustrations have just the right attention to detail and level of suspense,” she adds.

Also in the illustrated fiction series is a new version of The Voyage of Argo featuring illustrations by Daniel Egneus. In April, the publisher is also releasing a Letterpress Shakespeare series to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the poet and playwright’s birth. Each of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets and poems have been reproduced in hand bound books set in 16 point Baskerville.

Burton’s illustrations for Life, the Universe and Everything

For more info on any of the titles featured or to buy a copy, visit thefoliosociety.com

London and New York-based studio Empire Design has created a series of film-noir inspired posters for Richard Ayoade’s forthcoming film, The Double.

The Double is the second film Ayoade has directed. The first, Submarine, was released in 2010 and nominated for a BAFTA. Based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel of the same name, The Double follows the story of an awkward male lead (Jesse Eisenberg) who is driven to despair after his life is usurped by someone who looks exactly like him, but is his behavioural opposite.

Empire, which specialises in producing film ads and trailers including work for 12 Years a Slave, Dallas Buyers Club and Mandela – Long Walk to Freedom, created both photographic and illustrated ads which reference The Double’s title, its psychological themes and Ayoade’s artistic influences.

Images of Eisenberg and co-star Mia Wasikowska were shot on set by unit photographer Dean Rogers. Art director John Calvert says Empire was given exclusive access to the script and set to ensure the team had “a real feel” for visuals and lighting before designing the campaign.

Once the film was finished, Empire was briefed by Ayoade and Studio Canal and asked to convey a claustrophic atmosphere, as well as referencing the well-known leads and director.

“Richard also had some specific references such as the Jean Luc Godard movie Alphaville, Ingmar Bergman’s Persona, the poster for Jean-Pierre Melville’s Le Samurai, film noir movies of the 1940s and a self portrait by Edvard Munch. We then went away and produced around of 10 to 15 visuals, [which] were refined…until we ended up with a look everyone was happy with,” explains Calvert.

The photographs use lots of deep shadow and were lit from a single overhead bulb. “There’s very little, if any natural light in the film and you never see any sky,” adds Calvert. Type is inspired by lettering used in French posters from the 1960s but Calvert says it was given “a slight hand drawn roughness” to avoid looking too much like a retro pastiche.

The illustrated ad (above) is inspired by one promoting Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller, The 39 Steps, which features similarly bold 3D type. In keeping with the darkness and sense of claustrophobia conveyed in the photographic posters, the cityscape pictured is largely in darkness and long shadows have been added to letters for an ominous feel.

The only light in the poster comes from a spotlight shining on a lone protagonist, which Calvert says was added to give a sense of scale (La Boca and Human After All used a similar technique to great effect in their posters for this year’s BAFTAs)

“I built [the poster] using Adobe Illustrator, then added texture and shading in Photoshop. We then gave it to an illustrator, Warren Holder, who drew over the top of it to get more of a sketched feel. The drawing was then dropped back over the Photoshop file and the two merged together,” says Calvert.

Designing film posters that are bold enough to cut through the visual noise of large cities without being garish is always a challenge, but Empire’s posters for The Double do just that. They convey all of the necessary information on the film’s famous cast and acclaimed director, while creating a sense of suspense through a contemporary take on classic artwork from decades past.

The Double is released in UK cinemas on April 4. See more of Empire’s work here.

Graphic designer Peter Chadwick has launched a website dedicated to brutalism. This Brutal House will include a photographic archive of brutalist architecture and graphic design projects inspired by the movement.

The site is the latest in a series of conceptual and self-initiated projects from Chadwick – we covered his CMYK desk with built-in printing press last year. As well as a global architectural directory, it will include photographs of brutalist buildings around the world, research projects on brutalist architecture and logos, typefaces and poster designs that draw on brutalist aesthetics.

The site (built by Matt Flyn and Joel Baker) is currently a holding page, but Chadwick has photographed several buildings around London, including the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate in Camden, Pimlico’s Hide Tower and Balfron Tower in Bow, and will upload images over the next few weeks.

He’s also enlisted the help of photographers in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco and is hoping to work with creatives around the world to build a global archive and launch commercial design projects inspired by brutalism.

Alongside his photographs, Chadwick will be selling several brutalist posters on the site, including a monochrome series:

And one depicting buildings in the London district of Thamesmead, which was built to re-home families living in cramped Victorian slums. Headline text is taken from original recordings and press coverage of Thamesmead from the 1960s and 70s, and the colour scheme is a reference to A Clockwork Orange, which was filmed there.

The full set of Thamesmead posters (24 in total) will also be produced in a newspaper printed by The Newspaper Club. “It is ironic today that some of those so called East London slums are now gentrified whilst Thamesmead a so called ‘Town Of Tomorrow’ remains unloved and decaying in part. It is a shame as Thamesmead is a design classic,” says Chadwick.

Chadwick says he set up the site “to satisfy a long standing personal interest in architecture…triggered when I first saw the Trinity Square car park in the film Get Carter.”

“As a practising art director / graphic designer we hope to offer the viewer an interesting visual and in some cases critical alternative viewpoint through the eyes of graphic design. I see the site as a long term project that will deliver projects and a photographic archive of the highest calibre including collaborations with like minded graphic designers, photographers, illustrators and hopefully architects to name but a few. In London alone we lose fantastic buildings every year, it is my intention to document as many as I can before they are lost forever,” he says.

Photo: Olivier Saillant for Chanel

For its 2014 Fall/Winter fashion show at Paris Fashion Week, Chanel turned the Grand Palais into the world’s glitziest supermarket complete with 500 Chanel-branded products in packaging designed specially for the show

At the Chanel Shopping Centre, sneaker-wearing supermodels – who have probably never set foot inside a real-life supermarket – strutted through the aisles pushing trolleys or carrying Chanel shopping baskets with leather and gold chain handles and the double C logo.

Photos: Olivier Saillant for Chanel

Seating was mocked-up to look like upturned supermarket cartons sealed with tape. The trolleys were equipped with Chanel tweed-covered locks, while the check-out sign featured a symbol of a Chanel customer wearing one of its trademark jackets.

Photo: ELLE France

Photos: Olivier Saillant for Chanel

The soundtrack was frequently interrupted by announcements of an in-store promotion on Noix de Coco (coconuts), or to say that a little girl was waiting for her mother at the checkout.

Chanel’s version of Pringles. Photo: ELLE France

Chanel won’t say who designed all the packaging but whoever it was had the dream-job of producing the complete Chanel-branded range of 500 products with over 100,000 mocked-up items on the shelves.

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

These included Jambon Cambon (the address of Chanel’s first boutique in Paris), Coco Pop cereal, Chanel N° 9 eggs (a pun on the French (n)oeufs = 9), Lait de Coco (coconut milk), Mademoiselle Cognac and Cocoquillettes pasta. The product range extended to Coco Carbone car oil, detergents, feather dusters and doormats.

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

“A supermarket is for everybody, the rich included,” said Chanel creative director Karl Largerfeld, generously. “It’s a modern approach to luxury. If you’re lucky enough to be able to buy these things, buy them, but don’t wear them to show how rich you are….The big thing in Chanel is that we can play with everything and do whatever we want. Nobody tells us what to do, we are totally free.” Which is nice.

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

Photo: ELLE France

The cheese counter, Chanel-style. Photo: ELLE France

Initially destined for a charity auction, the products were snatched off their shelves by avid fashionistas at the end of the show (check out the film here). A Chanel doormat with the legend ‘Mademoiselle, Privé’ was particularly in demand.

Many thanks to ELLE France for all the packaging images – see their story here

One of the UK design industry’s true greats, Mike Dempsey, is to give the next Typographic Circle lecture

In a talk entitled Life Without CDT, a reference to the studio he co-founded in 1979, Dempsey will be looking back on a 40-year career during which he was won just about every industry accolade going.

Since stepping back from the business, Dempsey has also revealed himself to be a witty, insightful and occasionally sharp-tongued commentator on the design scene via his Graphic Journey blog, Should be a good one.

Mike Dempsey: Life Without CDT is at JWT, Knightsbridge Green, London SW1 on March 27. Tickets are £10 for members (£16 for non-members) and £6 for students (£10 for student non-members). Details here