Welcome to the third chapter of our 2011 year-end wrap-up, in which we focus on visual communication, including a full range of graphics, identity, packaging and otherwise visually-driven content from the past year. Without further ado:
In Part 1, I took a look at Hans Jenssen, a modern master of cutaway illustration. In this part, I’ll spotlight two illustrators from the 1940’s and 50’s, back when cross-sections were the method of choice for explaining all of the war-era and post war-era technological innovations to the American public. This was the time of science and innovation, mass optimization and industrialization.
British artist L. Ashwell Wood‘s cross-sections of machines and factories initially appeared in Modern Wonder in 1937. He eventually drew center page cross-sections for the magazine through 1941. Apparently the British government even handed out Wood’s illustrations as information leaflets during WWII!
In 1950, Wood began producing illustrations for the comic book Eagle, featuring Dan Dare, for its very first issue. Over the course of two decades, he produced hundreds of cutaways for the comic book, many of which were later collected into a series of books called Inside Information.
One of my absolute favorite things in the world are cutaway drawings, also known as cross-sections. As a child, I would pore over the drawings trying to absorb as many of the details as possible. In fact, I still do that! Cutaways are a fantastic intersection of technical drawing, graphic design, transportation design and architecture. Over the course of this blog series, I’ll be spotlighting some of the masters of the medium. First up is Hans Jenssen.
The Danish artist currently resides in the UK where he has made a career illustrating the hidden workings of vehicles, both real and fictional. In the 1990’s, DK released Look Inside Cross-Sections, a popular book series on various modes of transportation, including military planes, trains and cars. The books were illustrated by Jenssen and his artistic partner Richard Chasemore (whom I’ll cover in another post).
In 1998, DK came out with the first Star Wars: Incredible Cross-Sections book, featuring cutaways of the Millenium Falcon, X-Wing Fighter, and the Death Star. The book proved extremely successful and was soon followed up with cutaway books for the prequel trilogy, as well cross-sections of locations from the movies.
I don’t know about you, but I’m beyond sick of the seemingly endless supply of iPad accessories coming out of Kickstarter. It’s really making me wonder what doesn’t make it past Kickstarter’s review board. Anyways, it’s nice to see a graphic designer featured here on Core77 find some success with the crowd-sourcing website. We did a spotlight back in August on Chris Piascik’s mission to create 1000 typographic drawings, one per day for four years.
Now Piascik is releasing a book filled with his beautiful creations and he’s already reached its Kickstarter goal with 26 days still to go. Besides the fact that I could stare at his typographic drawings for long periods of time, his great rewards are most certainly helping his cause. From a custom drawing of your name to an illustrated quotation to one of Piascik’s sketchbooks, there’s something for everyone.
It’s coming to the end of another year in the wonderful world of visual communications. Time to test your knowledge of who did what in the CR Quiz of the Year.
We’ve divided the questions up into the months of the year. If you’re stuck for an answer, you can find them all by digging around either in this website or in your back issues of the printed magazine. Best of luck. Answers to be revealed in the New Year.
January
1. CR’s January issue introduces readers to six Ones to Watch. One of these young creatives also designed our cover – who was it?
2. Starbuck’s reveals a new stripped-down logo designed by which US consultancy alongside the brand’s in-house team?
3. Intel launches The Chase, an innovative ad featuring a 105-second chase across a wide variety of programme windows on a computer desktop including iTunes, Facebook, YouTube, Microsoft Office and the Adobe Creative Suite. Which agency was responsible?
4. “It does look like a bulbous penis, unfortunately.” Which major sporting event’s logo, launched this month, was this CR commenter referring to?
5. The Gunn Report reveals the most awarded commercial of 2010. An unlikely tale in French, can you remember the name of the ad and the client?
February
1. Can you name three of the typefaces honoured in the Best in Book section of our Type Annual?
2. Droga5 launches a campaign to remove all the advertising from Times Square in aid of the new documentary by which filmmaker? Bonus point: what was the film called?
3. VW reveals what would go on to be the most viewed ad of the year at the Superbowl. Name the ad and the agency responsible
4. Unit Editions launches its book on Dutch studio Total Design: can you name two of Total’s founding partners?
4. Penguin Books follows up Great Ideas with Great Food. Who was the art director on the series?
5. Which country threatens to boycott the 2012 Olympics because of the logo? Not as a comment on the quality of its design but because it allegedly spells ‘zion’.
March
1. The Brit Insurance Design of the Year Award goes to…?
2. CR profiles the designer of pictograms that represent every aspect of life. His work also appears in our Monograph booklet that month: what was his name?
3. Which punk band did we also feature in the same issue?
4. Wieden + Kennedy launches a new commercial featuring cats with thumbs: which client was it for?
5. Eurostar launches its new identity – or should we say ‘brand world’? Who designed it?
6. The Design Museum’s Wim Crouwel show opens. Which London-based designer and self-confessed Crouwel stalker co-curated it?
April
1. CR announces its list of our 20 favourite logos of all time. Which one came top?
2. Who designed the cover of our April issue?
3. Hat-Trick designs a series of RSC stamps featuring Shakesperean quotes written out by which illustrator?
4. A spoof Royal Wedding video becomes massively popular on YouTube (comments on CR range from “You can feel the smugness coming off the screen in waves” to “I LOVE this ad, it’s funny, and that… as they say, is that! “- which ad agency was responsible?
5. D&AD launches a new award for work done for creative ideas that change the world for the better: what colour pencil will the winner receive?
May
1. In CR, Rick Poynor interviews someone described as a “musician, artist, film director, writer and patron of great graphic design”. Who?
2. Name three projects honoured as Best in Book in the CR Annual
3. The Little Chef gets a makeover, courtesy of which brand design studio?
4. BBH creates an epic two-and-a-half-minute commercial for Audi in which a driver talks about his experiences of which famous race?
5. The Design Museum stages a show about which soft drink?
6. What was this little feller advertising?
June
1. CR profiles veteran ad man Sir John Hegarty: what was the name of his creative partner on the 1985 Levi’s Laundrette commercial?
2. The Glue Society creates an installation consisting of a house where it rains on the inside for an arts festival in which country?
3. Name two of the six Black Pencils awarded at D&AD
4. And the winner of the Titanium Lion at Cannes?
5. Wieden + Kennedy launches an innovative scheme by which fans of which band can create their own album cover and even earn a share of sales?
July
1. Name two of the illustrators featured in the Best in Book section of the CR Illustration Annual
2. And who designed the cover of this issue?
3. Former graphic designer and music video director Mike Mills releases his second feature film, starring Ewan McGregor. What was it called?
4. MoMA in New York opens a major show on interactive design – what was it called?
5. Which Leeds-based studio created this new identity for the National Railway Museum?
August
1. CR’s Summer Reading issue features a selection of great writing on visual communication. Who wrote this? “Early in my life as a designer, I acquired a reputation as a good bullshitter.”
2. Levi’s releases the latest in its Go Forth series of ads but which event made the timing of this ad somewhat awkward and ensured that it would not be shown in the UK?
3. Which illustrator releases a Daily Monster Maker app?
4. How old would Bill Bernbach have been on August 13?
5. The Radio Times launches a controversial website designed by which studio?
September
1. CR features a book on the in-house packaging design department of which major supermarket?
2. Name one of the graduates featured in our September Graduate Special issue?
3. Interbrand renames Airmiles as what?
4. At last some interesting work for the Olympics – a series of Paralympic posters by agency McCann Worldgroup and which illustrator?
October
1. CR features the Comedy Carpet, a major installation in which seaside town?
2. In his regular logo design column, Michael Evamy looks at the Google Android: who designed it?
3. The Imperial War Museums unveil a new identity by which studio?
4. Steve Jobs passes away: in which year was the Mac launched with Ridley Scott’s famous ad?
5. “What an appalling redesign. The choice of font is uninspired. The mark is lazy (ten minutes in illustrator?). The positioning of the mark lacks dynamism. And the strapline is so trite that it must have come out of a marketing dept group ‘workshop’.” Which logo for a major UK corporation is this CR commenter talking about?
6. Name three of the cartoon characters featured in TBWA’s Müller yoghurt Wunderful Stuff commercial
7. As the Occupy movement pitches camp outside St Paul’s it publishes a newspaper, The Occupied Times, using which Jonathan Barnbrook typeface?
November
1. “I like it to be powerful. I like to have some humanity in it.” That’s why his body of work still speaks to us decades later. It has humanity. Who was Rick Poynor talking about in a major feature in CR?
2. Who painted Coke’s Yes Girl, the subject of a major piece in CR this month?
3. “Such a great twist at the end! Watched the video 3 times and wanted to cry each time!! So heart wrenching… but lovely” Which ad is this CR commenter talking about?
4, Name three of the artists producing posters for the 2012 Olympics
5. “Looks like he spilt his paint and was trying to wipe it up”. Which artist’s Olympic poster was this CR commenter referring to?
6. Students from which college produce alternative Olympic poster designs featured on the CR blog?
December
1. Which city is the focus of CR’s attention in print this month?
2. Which Dutch designer, profiled in CR this month, increased her body weight by almost 50% during the course of one mammoth project during which she barely left her desk?
3. The Design Museum acquires which weapon and design ‘classic’ for its collection?
4. Which brand suggests shopping with it will allow us to avoid the Walk of Shame?
5. Which rapper-turned-design critic offered this analysis of the work of Charles and Ray Eames: “they was doing mash-ups before mash-ups even existed!”
Merry Christmas and a happy New Year from all at CR
CR in Print
If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. The January issue of Creative Review is a music special with features on festivals, the future of the music video and much much more. Plus it comes with its very own soundtrack for you to listen to while reading the magazine.
If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK,you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
The latest pocket familiar from Four Corners Books is Anthony Hope’s The Prisoner of Zenda, illustrated by Mireille Fauchon. As with its books to date, design is paramount but, for this release, it’s the bespoke typeface Rudy that really shines…
The face is used for the book’s title pages and chapter headings and was designed by John Morgan and Adrien Vasquez.
Cleverly it echoes the book’s theme of doppelgängers, which is also implied through a doubling up of title plates on the cover (one is a hologram, a nice take on the notion of authenticity). To create the Rudy typeface, Morgan explains, “the distortion of each letterform is rationalised to a twice vertical repeat.”
Rudy is named after King Rudolf Rassendyll of Ruritania from the story (and after one of Morgan’s sons) and was apparently an attempt to give the book’s pages the texture of Blackletter. Morgan also cites the typographic experiments of Raymond Hains as a direct influence on the work.
While beautifully realised, Rudy is also a great example of a book design that complements its subject matter. It works really well with Fauchon’s work, too, and a series of colour plates, folded into the book, add to its handmade appearance.
Apparently, after completing the work, the typographers had to create a final symbol, one that readers wouldn’t even see in the text: they realised they required a double @, for the email address on the book launch invitations.
The Prisoner of Zenda by Anthony Hope, the seventh in the series of Four Corners Familiars, is available now from Four Corners Books; £9.99.
We’re digging this series of illustrations by Guilherme Henrique, a graphic designer who’s currently based in Paris (via his hometown of Curitiba, Brazil). “Ville vs. Vélodrome” is a series of eight pairs of quasi-infographic images that compare and contrast the two settings: the city vs. the racetrack. (Check out our post on London’s brand-spanking-new velodrome for the 2012 Olympics here.)
The series starts with the disparate environments, progressively narrowing down to “The Competition,” “The Riders,” and “The Bike,” depicting the binary illustrations with an elegant visual language and just a few facts in each one.
The simple forms, minimal palette and clear overall aesthetic make for a nice piece of design work indeed.
The Imperial War museum has launched an iPad and iPhone app featuring 30 ‘great British posters’ from the Second World War
The app, which is free, was developed by ArtFinder. It features 30 posters from the Museum‘s collection of over 20,000. Each one has details on its designer as well as (rather too brief) “hidden stories” behind the designs and comment from IWM’s curators. You can also buy prints of the posters.
Richard Slocombe, senior art curator at IWM says “These posters were not only remarkable for their sophisticated communication and proficient design; they played an integral propaganda role. Through their subtle humour, memorable slogans and modernist approach they helped to support a variety of vital wartime initiatives informing the public and building morale.”
Dig for Victory, 1941. Although both photographer and designer are unknown, the app does reveal that this poster features the boot of gardener William Henry McKie from Acton. The picture was taken on his allotment at Acton Vale (see local paper cutting here)
Grow Your Own Food, 1942, by Abram Games
Doctor Carrot (1941) and his counterpart Potato Pete were introduced in a bid to get children to eat more unrationed foods
Make-Do and Mend (1942) were two of a series of cheery characters introduced during the war
The poster that has become a phenomenon. Over a million copies of Keep Calm were printed in 1939 in anticipation of air raids. Similar posters proved a failure with the public and so Keep Calm, despite its current fame, was never actually used in the war
The app, which includes the examples shown above and below, is available here
CR in Print
If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. The January issue of Creative Review is a music special with features on festivals, the future of the music video and much much more. Plus it comes with its very own soundtrack for you to listen to while reading the magazine.
If you would like to buy this issue and are based in the UK,you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
There are plenty of interesting bits and pieces going on outside of architecture as well so far this week, so let’s commence:
After four months of a lockout of unionized art handlers at Sotheby’s, things still don’t seem to be progressing toward stability. According to a report by the Securities and Exchange Commission, the lockout has now cost the auction house $2.4 million in fees ranging from temporary employees to extra security. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reports that the company just gave its CEO, William Ruprecht, a $3 million raise. Union representatives for the art handlers are quick to point out that their entire contract dispute totals $3.3 million.
In Washington DC, the Smithsonian has reportedly hired Wolff Olins to help in a major rebranding. The main thrust of that effort is set to be the roll out of a new tagline next year: “Seriously Amazing.” The Washington Postreports that the organization has thus far paid $1 million “for research and creation of the slogan.”
The Wire’s Sleeves Received Tumblr brings together the most interesting sleeve design from new releases sent in to the magazine’s office. As our special music issue’s Monograph features some of the best cassette art from the website, here are a few more highlights from The Wire’s progressive post bag…
Jennifer Allan, online editor at The Wire, organises the Sleeves Received Tumblr and photographs the weird and the wonderful packaging designs. Some of the strangest feature in the current CR Monograph, where artists and musicians have used the audio cassette as the medium for their sound/music and also visual art (two spreads shown, below).
Featured here are some other recent highlights from Sleeves Received blog, which you can view at thewiremagazine.tumblr.com. More information on The Wire at thewire.co.uk.
This split 7″ from Horaflora/Bromp Treb has a laser cut, rubber stamped cover designed by Sightlab for the Yeay! label (edition of 300).
Label Drid Machine is behind the artwork for Dead Clubbing by Anders Hana, a one-sided picture disc with screenprint on the reverse.
The Lord’s Jesuit Trifle Syndrome CD is packaged in a takeaway bag. Art and design by Mrs Mill.
LA-based Jaws’ Stress Test is a five-track album released on the Hundebiss label that comes in a folded recycled paper sleeve.
Johnny Kafta’s Kids Menu is a Lebanese label where packaging also serves as the envelope. Here, Radio Paradise by Mike Cooper In Beirut and the Scrambled Eggs & Friends releases come in padded envelopes printed with the cover art (addresses and stamps appear on the reverse).
Ernst Karel’s series of field recordings of Swiss mountain transportation comes in an edition of 500. Swiss Mountain Transport Systems features sounds of chairlifts, funiculars and aerial tramways, and is on Gruenrekorder.
The cover painting used on South of No North’s album, Octopussies Liqor Store, is by Robert Steven Connett. The etching on the record is based on an artwork by Ernst Haeckel, reinterpreted by Annie Davey.
For our current issue of Monograph, which is available to CR subscribers, Allan chose some of her favourite recent cassette releases.
On the left is Unholy Triforce’s Sandin’ Yr Vagina, a cassette filled with sand, packaged in wax-sealed emery board and a plastic bag. On the right is the Sitar Outreach Ministry’s Spring of 1970. The tape is wrapped in dried sunflower leaves and packaged with seeds. Both are released on Auris Apothecary, 2010 and 2011, respectively.
Above: various cassette releases from the Fag Tapes label (back and front covers shown).
If you would like to buy the new issue of CR and are based in the UK, you can search for your nearest stockist here. Based outside the UK? Simply call +44(0)207 292 3703 to find your nearest stockist. Better yet, subscribe to CR for a year here and save yourself almost 30% on the printed magazine.
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