Hasta La Ideas

Wolff Olins has brought some of the techniques more usually associated with the world of corporate branding to the newspaper with the redesign of USA Today

When USA Today launched in 1982 (first issue below) its use of colour, bit-size panels for supporting stories and infographics was unprecedented and highly influential. Now, of course, everyone’s at it.

The paper’s new look also breaks with tradition. Newspaper redesigns typically are the preserve of specialists such as the near ubiquitous Mario Garcia. Perhaps USA Today’s choice of Wolff Olins to work with them on the project is recognition of the fact that newspapers are trying now to think of themselves as multimedia ‘brands’ rather than predominantly ink on paper operations.

Certainly, Wolff Olins has brought the language of current branding practice to bear on the paper with the introduction of a flexible logo system.

The core logo uses a a bespoke cut of Futura (the typeface used in the paper’s original logo) and a blue circle (presumably to represent the fact that the paper, uniquely in the US, covers the whole country and, in its avowedly non-partisan stance, the whole community). Supplementary logos introduce separate colours for each section.

Things get more interesting when the logos are applied in print. The idea is that relevant images overlay the circles, changing each day.

The chosen colour for each section is also applied across panels, graphs and so on.

WO worked on the strategy with CoCollective.

In print, Gulliver, USA Today’s previous text face, gives way to Chronicle Grade 1 from Hoefler & Frere-Jones, which is also used in headlines alongside the Futura. The paper now just uses two grids, one of five columns for the bulk of the content, and one of eight for tables.

Although at the time of writing the paper’s website had not been updated with the new look, its rather good (and free) iPad app does make use of the new look.

And here’s the iPhone app:

The new look works particularly well in these apps leaving us to wonder whether they or the paper led in terms of design priorities. It would certainly make sense to attempt as ‘media neutral’ an approach as possible given the current trajectory of print. With that in mind, although it may not have the impact and influence of its launch design, USA Today’s new look appears to have left it well-placed for a future where news will be predominantly delivered via the screen.

More detail on the redesign 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
Students, grads, young professionals: if you buy one issue of CR this year, make sure it’s this one. The September print issue of CR is our annual graduates special. In it, we have teamed four recent graduates with professional practitioners in their chosen field who offer invaluable advice on how to get started in their profession. APFEL meet graphics graduate Arthur Carey, BETC London ECD Neil Dawson meets Sophia Ray, illustrator Matthew ‘The Horse’ Hodson offers sage advice to Sam Tomlins and photographer Jenny van Sommers meets Megan Helyer. In addition, our September issue also features Google Creative Lab, Unit Editions’ new book on Herb Lubalin, Michael Evamy on place branding, Jeremy Leslie on new bilingual magzine Figure and Gordon Comstock on the importance of failure.

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.

APFEL’s Kirsty Carter and Emma Williams will speak at Typo London this year. Photo: Carol Sachs

Last year, the Typo conference series, which originated in Berlin, brought its mixture of high-profile speaker sessions and workshops to London for the first time. On October 19 and 20, Typo London returns to the city.

Once again, a great line-up is promised, mixing established international and UK-based practitioners with a smattering of new(ish) faces. APFEL, Ken Garland, Vaughan Oliver, Anthony Burrill, Wallpaper* editor Tony Chambers, Joshua Davis, Sara De Bondt, Erik Kessels of Kessels Kramer, Kate Moross and Lucienne Roberts are all among a stellar line-up, who will discuss their work in the context of this year’s theme, which is ‘Social’.

Explaining the topic, head of programme Adrian Shaughnessy says: “What I like about the idea of having ‘social’ as our theme is that there are so many ways of being social – both as a designer and as a human being. It is thinking about the social implications of our work as designers. It is sharing professional experiences at an event like Typo London. I also hope people will use the two days to look at what they are doing as practitioners or as students. It is no longer possible to be a designer without considering the social implications of what we do – environmentally, ethically and culturally. I hope the speakers and the audience explore these ideas and themes, but also that everyone has a chance to meet people and they’ve never met before and forge lasting relationships.”

After last year’s event, which was organised by Robin Richmond, Georgia Fendley and Tim Fendley. There was some crticism of prices. This year’s event is shorter and cheaper at £425 for the two days. Full details here

The original Typo London organisers, in the meantime, have launched a new, independent event to take place next May, details of which we will post shortly.

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
Students, grads, young professionals: if you buy one issue of CR this year, make sure it’s this one. The September print issue of CR is our annual graduates special. In it, we have teamed four recent graduates with professional practitioners in their chosen field who offer invaluable advice on how to get started in their profession. APFEL meet graphics graduate Arthur Carey, BETC London ECD Neil Dawson meets Sophia Ray, illustrator Matthew ‘The Horse’ Hodson offers sage advice to Sam Tomlins and photographer Jenny van Sommers meets Megan Helyer. In addition, our September issue also features Google Creative Lab, Unit Editions’ new book on Herb Lubalin, Michael Evamy on place branding, Jeremy Leslie on new bilingual magzine Figure and Gordon Comstock on the importance of failure.

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.

Our forthcoming October issue (out next week) has a major feature on the rise of Riso – the photocopier-like printers that have become so popular among the graphic art fraternity in recent years. To whet your appetite, here’s a look at the output of graphic designer Stuart Geddes‘ A Small Press in Melbourne…

Whilst researching our feature about Risograph (in which we explain the history and the mechanics of the machines, as well as profiling a number of studios putting the process to good use), we came across Gedde’s magazine, A Head Full of Snakes (cover above), created in collaboration with Luke Wood.

The magazine (spreads above and below) showcases how capable a Riso printer is of producing beautiful publications, not simply one or two colour zines. We made contact with Geddes to find out more about him and his use of Riso printing.

Creative Review: Are you a graphic designer by trade? Tell us about your practice and about A Small Press…
Stuart Geddes: Yes, I run a small (two person) publication-focused design studio, Chase & Galley, in Melbourne. We mostly make books, magazines, journals etc. A Small Press is the name we attached to our Risograph printer when we got it. It seemed like it should be an entity of its own, and the option is there to more formally become a publisher sometime in the future.

Before Chase & Galley I had another studio and worked as the art director at an architecture magazine, and overlapping with all of these I started (with some friends) another magazine called Is Not Magazine, which was published as a four-sheeter (2m x 1.5m) bill poster and posted on the streets of Melbourne and Sydney from April 2005 to July 2008.

It published a range of fiction and non-fiction content in many forms including, but not limited to, 2000 word essays, 300-500 word columns, comics, illustrations, diagrams, and 160 character (text message length) ‘flash fictions’. There was also a crossword.

See more issues of Is Not Magazine online here

CR: Can you tell us how you first heard about and started to use Riso printing?
SG: Dot Dot Dot magazine issue 15 was printed on a Riso duplicator and that was how I discovered the Riso back in 2008. I’d long been involved in independent and small press publishing, and [Riso] provided the means to experiment with actually owning a means of production, so to speak.

Above: spreads from 26 Runways26 Runways, a 56 page Riso-printed artist book by Jon Tarry, made collaboratively with Chase & Galley. The book, an edition of 75, pairs drawings of 26 runways with texts based on those locations. The book itself recalls other artists books, most specifically Twentysix Gasoline Stations by Ed Ruscha. More info and images here.

CR: What is it about Riso printing that you love?
SG: To begin with I really loved the idiosyncratic nature of the process, the mis-registration, scuffing and general crappiness of it. But as I’ve gone along I fetishise the printing style less – it’s just something you learn to design for. I appreciate more and more that what’s best about it is just that I own a real printing press and through it I can make books and magazines cheaply and quickly.

Above: Published by A Small Press, The Bedroom Philosopher Diaries is a 164 page Riso-printed book with text by musician, humorist and writer Justin Heazlewood, penned whilst on the road on tour between 2005 and 2011. It also includes photographs and illustrations by Leigh Rigozzi.

CR: We were thrilled to come across images of Head Full of Snakes online. Can you tell us a little about the project and if there’s a second issue in the pipeline?
SG: HFoS is a magazine (and a blog) I started with Luke Wood (who also publishes The National Grid magazine). He and I did a masters together a few years ago and we started HFoS at the end of last year. The idea was to do two issues a year, but we both just got too busy early this year to get a second one out although we’re hoping to have another one done by the end of the year.

Using the Riso was partly about the idea starting out as a fanzine, and to retain some of those lo-fi characteristics, but also, as we both customise and maintain motorcycles, it was in the spirit of this that we wanted to manually make this magazine, and have a hand in every aspect, from editing and planning to designing, printing, collating, binding and distribution. It was of course also a pragmatic decision, I have A Small Press in Melbourne, and Luke has Ilam Press at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch NZ.

CR: We saw a mention online of the Melbourne Risograph Printers Guild…
SG: The Guild is a tongue in cheek thing really. There are a few people here in Melbourne with Risographs, using them for different purposes, and we’ve got together a few times to discuss things, split bulk paper orders, and so on.

CR: So who else in your neck of the woods is doing interesting things with a Riso printer that our readers should check out?
SG: Brad Haylock is doing some great publishing under his imprint Surpllus. Aside from his Riso he also has a jogger, guillotine and semi-industrial perfect binder, so the whole setup.

Xavier Connoly runs Dawn Press, probably the only go-to Riso printer (the rest of us largely use them for our own projects to a greater or lesser extent). Xavier came to the Riso thing from photography, so has been doing some amazing work with photo reproduction and separating images using non-CMYK colours, greens, browns, purples etc. Some of these are visible through the link below to a great little bookstore here called Perimeter Books.

Rob Cordiner is more invested in zine culture than the rest of us probably, and you can see this stuff in the information section of his site at
cordiner.com.au. Rob is also the man behind Smalltime Books.

See more of Geddes’ work at chaseandgalley.com.

Look out for the October / Risography issue of CR next week!

Credit: The topmost image of Geddes’ Riso printer is by Tomas Friml.

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
Students, grads, young professionals: if you buy one issue of CR this year, make sure it’s this one. The September print issue of CR is our annual graduates special. In it, we have teamed four recent graduates with professional practitioners in their chosen field who offer invaluable advice on how to get started in their profession. APFEL meet graphics graduate Arthur Carey, BETC London ECD Neil Dawson meets Sophia Ray, illustrator Matthew ‘The Horse’ Hodson offers sage advice to Sam Tomlins and photographer Jenny van Sommers meets Megan Helyer. In addition, our September issue also features Google Creative Lab, Unit Editions’ new book on Herb Lubalin, Michael Evamy on place branding, Jeremy Leslie on new bilingual magzine Figure and Gordon Comstock on the importance of failure.

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.

Intrigued by how branding and graphics are portrayed in on-screen fiction, whether it be TV or film, johnson banks’ Thought for the Week blog talked to Anastasya Martynova, in-house art director of the BBC’s recent ‘mockumentary’, Twenty Twelve…

From a new poster for the E20 club in East Enders to the wood-blocked look of the Daily Prophet newspaper in the Harry Potter films, branding and graphics are becoming increasingly prominent in on-screen fiction, writes the studio’s Michael Johnson.

Type designer Mark Simonson even dedicated serious time to the validity of the ‘found type’ in Mad Men once.

However, the programme that has been the talk of the johnson banks studio this summer was the BBC’s recent ‘mockumentary’ Twenty Twelve, which, in case you didn’t know, followed the organising of the London Olympics.

The programme’s ODC (Olympic Deliverance Committee) mirrored our real LOCOG (London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games).

It was full of sharp writing, and witty catch-phrases, but we enjoyed it on a whole other level – for its amusing fictional branding and graphics.

From the phrases and imagery that adorned the ODC and imaginary PR company Perfect Curve’s offices, to the marketing campaigns that they ran (‘Jubilympics’ was our favourite, see below) there was one person in charge of producing it all: the programme’s in-house art director, Anastasya Martynova. So johnson banks’ Julia Woollams talked to her to find out more about the process.

Thought for the Week: How did you come up with the designs for the show’s graphics and branding?

Anastasya Martynova: The graphics were inspired by Olympic Games graphics from past years, as well as the 2012 Olympics graphics. Perfect Curve was inspired by trendy ‘Nathan Barley-esque’ East End design agencies.

TFTW: Obviously the graphics are all quite tongue-in-cheek – did you need to get approval for any of them from LOCOG?

AM: At first it was difficult to get much out of LOCOG. For example, coming up with the Olympic logo was tricky – I couldn’t use the Olympic rings, or the words ‘London Twenty Twelve’ (that’s why the final one only says ‘London ‘12’).

As the series gathered momentum, LOCOG were a lot more welcoming and let me use some official images in the ODC office, plus we were allowed to film on site. I was also pleasantly surprised that Lord Coe even made an appearance. It was wonderful to find out that we had quite a following from some of the actual Olympic staff!

TFTW: Were any of the branding and graphics stipulated in the programme’s script, or did you have free reign on that?

AM: I worked very closely with John Morton [the programme’s writer and director], who had a very clear vision of how he wanted the characters to come across. He helped me come up with slogans and give life to the little personalised details for each character. I’d come up with draft ideas from his script, then show John and take it from there. Actually though, the crazy sentences in Perfect Curve’s offices and the ODC wall words were dreamed up by the production designer, Les Stephenson.

TFTW: Where did you take your inspiration from in terms of the various Perfect Curve campaigns in the series?

AM: The campaigns were scripted by John, but I was given free reign in coming up with the way things looked. The thing that I found really inspiring (and amusing) was that there were a lot of parallels to actual campaigns, which of course I researched and took some inspiration from. ‘Jubilympics’ was my favourite campaign – I couldn’t stop coming up with different posters (and unsurprisingly, not all were seen)!

TFTW: How would you sum up your experience on the show?

AM: It was a lovely show to work on, a team effort and a labour of love. I’m so pleased that it was so well received, and very honoured to have been part of something so special with such a talented cast and crew. I’d love it if the show carried on to Sochi 2014 next but I don’t think the BBC’s budget will stretch to that!

We’d like to thank Anastasya Martynova for talking to us. Reporting by Julia Woollams. In case you’re reading from afar and don’t know what the heck we’re on about, here’s a clip featuring the creative briefing for the ‘Jubilympics’ concept at Perfect Curve.

This article was originally posted on johnson banks‘ Thought For The Week blog and is republished with permission.

Artists Daniel Eatock and Andy Holden have collaborated on the new picture disc single from band Ice, Sea, Dead People. Each side of the disc features a unique artwork created by holding a felt-tip pen down on piece of paper spinning on a turntable…

The designs were created at a live event at the Stanley Picker Gallery at Kingston University. The band played the two songs that feature on the single (You Could Be A Model and Ultra Silence) ten times each, while participants applied their pens to the spinning discs of paper. The film of the event, below, also forms the video for the track.

While You Could Be A Model was played, the audience were instructed to move the pen back and forth towards the centre; while ISDP performed Ultra Silence, the direction was a single line moved towards the centre.

According to the project website at youcouldbeamodel.com the idea was that all the pens would touch the paper at the start of each song and be lifted off at the end – but the finished artworks show some definite ‘hovering’ took place, with some sneaky dots and dashes working there way into the designs. Craig Sharp then finished it all off with some great type.

The special edition picture discs of You Could Be A Model/Ultra Silence are released on Lost Toys Records and limited to 180 copies (£15 each). The discs are available to pre-order at shop.losttoysrecords.com. See also iceseadeadpeople.com.

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
Students, grads, young professionals: if you buy one issue of CR this year, make sure it’s this one. The September print issue of CR is our annual graduates special. In it, we have teamed four recent graduates with professional practitioners in their chosen field who offer invaluable advice on how to get started in their profession. APFEL meet graphics graduate Arthur Carey, BETC London ECD Neil Dawson meets Sophia Ray, illustrator Matthew ‘The Horse’ Hodson offers sage advice to Sam Tomlins and photographer Jenny van Sommers meets Megan Helyer. In addition, our September issue also features Google Creative Lab, Unit Editions’ new book on Herb Lubalin, Michael Evamy on place branding, Jeremy Leslie on new bilingual magzine Figure and Gordon Comstock on the importance of failure.

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.