Hasta La Ideas

US designer Lance Wyman, famed for his work on the Mexico 68 Olympics, tops a line-up of speakers, masterclasses, portfolio surgeries and studio tours at Designival, a new Liverpool design festival taking place in November

Wyman (above) will be joined on stage by Simon Manchipp of SomeOne (below) for a discussion on the present and future of branding chaired by CR’s Patrick Burgoyne. Their session will bring to an end a two-day festival from November 22 to 23 which the organisers hope will attract 500 people. Designival is the new name for the Design Symposium and is organised by Liverpool creative agencies Smiling Wolf, Black & Ginger and Uniform, and supported by ACME/Liverpool Vision.

“This is the biggest and best event we’ve held to date. It marks a significant shift. This is a celebration of the best, most innovative, most celebrated design across the world, and its now a multifaceted festival with fringe events, pop up shops, exhibitions and masterclasses” said Nick Howe, managing director of Uniform.

Events include a design-themed breakfast with guest speaker, masterclasses from Liverpool creatives Apposing, Milky Tea and Uniform, portfolio surgeries with Black & Ginger and Smiling Wolf, as well as an ‘architour’ across the city (in association with RIBA), studio tours, networking, exhibitions and an after-party.

Tickets include access to all Designival events, including keynote lectures, masterclasses and after party, all fringe events, and a free copy of The Designist city guide. Full price for the event will be £65 (plus booking fee). A limited number of early bird tickets are available for £50 (plus booking fee). Go here for tickets

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement sponsored by Tag celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

NB Studio has just released a charming self-promotional film, directed by Johnny Kelly, that explains why potential clients should consider working with them…

The two-minute animated short, directed by Kelly and James Graham, features a voice over from designer Michael Wolff.

The studio wrote a script for the project based on ideas which arose from various internal workshops. NB’s Alan Dye and Nick Finney then briefed Kelly to help make “a short film about what we do,” they say.

Design: James Graham. Animation: Johnny Kelly. Copywriter: NB Studio. Voice over recording made at Fonic. Sound design: David Kamp. NB thanks Felix Massie, Amael Isnard, Anders Freij and Nexus Productions for technical support. The film can also be viewed at nbstudio.co.uk.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement sponsored by Tag celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Hat-trick design‘s Jim Sutherland has created a typographic chess set based on characters from the Hoefler & Frere-Jones face Champion

A edition of 50 sets has been produced, using laser-cut acrylic for the pieces. The King, represented by a capital K, of course, is 50mm tall, the pawns 30mm. While Champion lends itself well to this new use, Sutherland says he had to make a couple of adjustments – the Q and P have been redrawn to make them more stable and the Kt ligature (for the Knight) has been redrawn.

The board itself is made from 2mm greyboard foiled in black. “It was a really tricky production in order to get the fine detail and the counters sharp, plus making sure everything stood up properly,” Sutherland says. “The hope is that we will go into a longer production run in the future.”

A sheet in the packaging includes information about moves and chess notation as well as a selection of chess-themed quotations. A set of postcards, also included in the pack, show how each piece moves.

During research for the project Sutherland started a tumblr site Graphic Chess, recording chess art and graphics, which includes Pentagram’s new identity for World Chess (below, more here)

The type(chess)set costs £275 and is available here

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement sponsored by Tag celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

Originally launched in 1935, Boots‘ No7 beauty product brand has recently undergone its very own makeover, courtesy of Hackney-based husband and wife design duo, Two Create…

The rebranded No7 range of products (which hit the shelves in Boots stores a few weeks ago) is the result of four years work by Two Create on the project. The brief, they tell us, was to modernise the aesthetic to appeal to new users whilst not alienating loyal fans of the brand, and at the same time introduce more coherence across sub-categories and help improve product navigation at the point of sale.

“The project began in 2008,” explains Two Create’s Lucy Snowdowne, “with the team of creatives working on No7 (us as the newly appointed designers, store designers, the advertising agency, external PR team, internal brand guardians, the technologists and scientists) spending three days together to evaluate the brand and formulate an all encompassing brief for the relaunch.

“From there we worked with No7 on various design directions and visualised concepts which we showed across the UK to women that used the brand as well as some that didn’t,” Snowdowne continues. “We opened up a conversation and evaluated what women thought of our ideas at every stage of design development. No7 users reviewed our ideas on material finishes and product shape, and handled prototypes and discussed beauty regimes.

“The research not only steered elements of the structual packaging design, but also gave us an insight into the way women navigated beauty products instore and at home, which allowed us to devise new systems for the range. We assigned colours to skin types, grouped products into families and ensured that variants such as ‘day’ and ‘night’ were easily distinguisable both in out of their cartons.”

The design studio also created a series of brand principles on which each of the 70 different brand packaging formats have been based and made a few changes: pewter replaces gold on various brand packs with a range of colours introduced to visually differentiate between products designed for different skin types and product categories. The logo itself (which remains unchanged) appears larger than it used to and is cropped on cartons which suggests a bold new brand confidence.

The No7 Men range has also received a new look with bright colours distinguishing between various product catetgories such as Daily Care or Shaving, and the product descriptions are set in uppercase lettering for a bolder, more masculine look.

twocreate.co.uk

All photography by John Selby.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.

A forthcoming London show features some great examples of 1960s and 70s Polish film and theatre poster design collected by archive and shop, Eye Sea Posters…

From October 19, a selection of posters will be shown in the Iluzjon exhibition at 18 Hewett Street in east London. The rare examples on display (and for sale) will include posters by Wiktor Górka, Waldemar Świerzy, Franciszek Starowieyski, Andrzej Krajewski, Jerzy Flisak, Maria Ihnatowicz, and Jan Młodozeniec.

Czarna Komedia by Franciszek Starowieyski, 1969

What typically makes Polish film and theatre posters of this time so distinctive is an avoidance of recognisable visual references from many of the films in question.

Under communism, Poland’s state run film and theatre organisations commissioned original works by poster artists, often rejecting the imagery that accompanied Western film promotion. As a direct result, however, these Polish artists created some of the most expressive and often surreal designs ever committed to poster form.

Presented by Protein, Iluzjon is on at 18 Hewett Street from October 19 to 29. Eye Sea Posters’ extensive archive of posters is at eyeseaposters.com. London-based artist and curator, Stanley Schtinter, will also be curating an evening dedicated to Polish cinema; while Protein will be hosting a Forum event that explores the history and influence of Polish poster and graphic design.

Budowniczy Solness by Waldemar Świerzy, 1971

Klute by Jan Młodozeniec, 1973

Harem by Andrzej Krajewski, 1971

Read our post from almost exactly a year ago when we first wrote about Eye Sea Posters and talked to founder James Dyer here.

CR for the iPad
Read in-depth features and analysis plus exclusive iPad-only content in the Creative Review iPad App. Longer, more in-depth features than we run on the blog, portfolios of great, full-screen images and hi-res video. If the blog is about news, comment and debate, the iPad is about inspiration, viewing and reading. As well as providing exclusive, iPad-only content, the app will also update with new content throughout each month. Try a free sample issue here

CR in Print
In our October print issue we have a major feature on the rise of Riso printing, celebrate the art of signwriting, examine the credentials of ‘Goodvertising’ and look back at the birth of D&AD. Rebecca Lynch reviews the Book of Books, a survey of 500 years of book design, Jeremy Leslie explains how the daily London 2012 magazine delivered all the news and stories of the Games and Michael Evamy explores website emblemetric.com, offering “data-driven insights into logo design”. In addition to the issue this month, subscribers will receive a special 36-page supplement sponsored by Tag celebrating D&AD’s 50th with details of all those honoured with Lifetime Achievement awards plus pieces on this year’s Black Pencil and President’s Award-winners Derek Birdsall and Dan Wieden. And subscribers also receive Monograph which this month features Rian Hughes’ photographs of the unique lettering and illustration styles of British fairgrounds

Please note, CR now has a limited presence on the newsstand at WH Smith high street stores (although it can still be found in WH Smith travel branches at train stations and airports). If you cannot find a copy of CR in your town, your WH Smith store or a local independent newsagent can order it for you. You can search for your nearest stockist here. Alternatively, call us on 020 7970 4878 to buy a copy direct from us. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 970 4878 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.