Hasta La Ideas

Meet Sir Benfro (above). He’s an adventurous chap with a magic, glowing balloon. Float with him through forests, over oceans, and down into the bowels of the earth, but beware the bizarre and wondrous creatures that inhabit Sir Benfro’s world…

Yes, Sir Benfro is the star of a new illustrated iPhone (and iPad) game app (main menu screen, shown above). He is, says the game’s maker Tim Fishlock, “a naturalist, scientist and explorer. Sir Benfro has made some of the most important discoveries of his generation. Without him we would have no idea that instead of laying eggs, the female Stingomp knits her offspring from the laces of old pairs of sneakers.”

Fishlock, who created the original artwork for the game, collaborated with Giles Hammond on the project who brought Sir Benfro’s world to life.

The idea of the game is very simple – keep Sir Benfro afloat for as long as possible, collecting magical fireflies (called Light Emitting Daves) which power the balloon. As well as playing the game, players can use the Spotter’s Guide to take a closer look at and learn about some of the strange beasts that share Sir Benfro’s world (and obstruct his path), such as the Timorous Fizzle:

Here’s a short trailer for the game:

Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon Official Trailer from Explore and Create on Vimeo.

Sir Benfro’s Brilliant Balloon launched today and is now available from iTunes’ App Store for priced at £0.69 in the UK and $0.99 in the US.

CR in Print

If you only read CR online, you’re missing out. From the meaning of beans to the power of love, the February issue of Creative Review features our 20 favourite slogans of all time and the stories behind them.

What makes a great slogan? We investigate the enduring power of these clever little phrases in our special slogans issue, dedicated to our choices for the top 20 slogans.

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.

After relaunching its entire line of comics last year, publishers DC has unveiled a new identity, its second since Milton Glaser’s classic stamp design was replaced in 2005. Almost immediately, Landor’s new design met with the power of comics nostalgia…

‘The New 52’ was how DC referred to its restart of 52 monthly stories from issue #1 in an attempt to attract new readers, introducing new characters and freshening up some old favourites along the way. It also saw the launch of same day publishing for both its printed comics and their digital versions. And last week DC revealed a brand new identity design created by Landor. This being the world of plugged-in comics fans, blogs and forums across the internet quickly lit up.

Landor’s vast flexible ‘system’ is of course a long way from the look of the Detective Comics series that launched in 1937 and carried Batman’s debut two years later. The founding of DC Comics Inc – off the back of National Allied Publications – took the series title as the company name, later reducing it to DC. Now DC is the publishing wing of DC Entertainment and is owned by Warner Bros., itself part of Time Warner (DC’s rival, Marvel, is a Disney brand).

So at face value DC’s new identity reflects its current standing within American corporate culture. But perhaps it points further to the inherent differences between a “comics” publisher and an “entertainment” company. Indeed, Landor’s design looks less like it belongs on a printed front cover than it does on screen, or in motion. The hint of ‘reveal’ certainly suggests the latter. (Armin over at Brand New makes some good observations about various “formal deficiencies” within this potentially exciting identity system.)

And this is no doubt the point. Comics have always enjoyed a life outside of print, particularly in film, online and, much more recently, in app form. But the ‘culture’ of comics still seems bound up with strong feelings of nostalgia. With a particularly fervent core readership, any changes to a title’s key elements – like plot development or artwork – are bound to generate a reaction. Likewise for a logo that marks out a particular comic series as coming from the famous DC stable.

Someone who managed to do that perfectly was Milton Glaser. In the mid-1970s he was approached to create a new identity for DC. His design (above, left), a shield of four stars inlaid with the company’s initials – known as the ‘DC Bullet’ – was in use from 1977 until 2005 when it was reworked (above, right) by Brainchild Studios.

While I have fond memories of Glaser’s design, it was the logo used at the time that I first encountered comics. So whether I ‘liked’ it in late 1980s doesn’t particularly matter: it’s the design I recall when I think about the dark inks of Batman comics, or the vivid yellow of the Watchmen (see top image). It’s embedded itself and now has a resonance that, I imagine, many others feel similarly attached to.

Will Landor’s design, with its clever nod to the superhero’s twin identity and the ‘peeling back’ of the mask, remain as fondly remembered in another thirty years? The logo exists in a completely different world to the one in which I bought comics: the way we experience it – and later recall it – will of course be different too.

More details on the new DC identity can be found here on the DC Comics blog.

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.

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of BFI Film Classics, the British Film Institute’s renowned series of books on landmarks in world cinema. To celebrate, CR and BFI Publishing are giving one student the chance to design the cover of a special edition of one of these renowned books.

BFI Film Classics is ‘a series of books that introduces, interprets and celebrates landmarks of world cinema’. For its 20th anniversary, 12 books in the series are being re-issued in a special, limited-edition set. Each will sport a new cover (including Chloe Giordano’s design for The Wizard of Oz by Salman Rushdie, above, and Mark Swan’s cover for Went the Day Well? by Penelope Houston, below).

CR and BFI Publishing are offering one student the chance to design the cover of one of the titles in the series – Mark Sanderson’s book on Nicolas Roeg’s classic 1973 chiller Don’t Look Now. The winning design will be used on the 20th anniversary edition of the book, to be published in August 2012.

This competition is open to students in full- or part-time education on an art or design course in the UK only (sorry overseas readers). It will be judged by a panel consisting of representatives of BFI Publishing, Sight & Sound magazine, CR editor Patrick Burgoyne and author Mark Sanderson.

In addition to having their design appear on the front cover of the anniversary edition of Don’t Look Now, the winner will receive an exclusive invitation to the series launch event at the BFI, a set of all 12 BFI Publishing Film Classics 20th anniversary editions and a one-year subscription to Creative Review.

Two runners-up will each receive a copy of all 12 BFI Publishing Film Classics 20th anniversary editions.

Deadline: February 13, 2012. Download an entry form with full details and terms and conditions here.

The limited edition, collectable set of the twelve 20th anniversary BFI Film Classics will be published in August 2012 and will feature the following titles:

The Wizard of Oz by Salman Rushdie, cover by Chloe Giordano

Citizen Kane by Laura Mulvey; cover by Eric Skillman (above)

Blade Runner by Scott Bukatman; cover by Paul Pope

Vertigo by Charles Barr; cover by Nick Morley

Taxi Driver by Amy Taubin; cover by Marc Atkins (below)

Went the Day Well? by Penelope Houston, new foreword by Geoff Brown; cover by Mark Swan

Metropolis by Thomas Elsaesser; cover by Cristiana Coucerio

Singin’ in the Rain by Peter Wollen with a new foreword by Geoff Andrew; cover by Louise Weir

Don’t Look Now By Mark Sanderson; cover by you?

There are also three new books in the BFI Classics series:
Snow White by Eric Smoodin; cover by Su Blackwell; photography by Jochen Braun
La Règle du jeu by Victor Perkins; cover by Andy Bridge
The Conformist by Christopher Wagstaf; cover by Eda Akaltun

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.

Anyone going along to Pentagram partner Angus Hyland’s Typographic Circle talk tonight can look forward to an added bonus: Hyland will be giving away some rather beautiful posters designed for the occasion

Hyland’s talk is in two parts, bringing together two major projects. One is Symbol, the book on trademarks that he produced with writer Steven Bateman (see our piece here).

Symbol features an asterisk on the cover

which Hyland has worked into the design of the posters for his talk. The posters also feature different abstract marks – a reference to the other topic he will discuss, his long-running relationship with Cass Art for whom he acts as brand consultant.

Cass recently brought out a range of own-brand products, designed by Hyland and his team at Pentagram (we discussed the work Hyland has done for Cass in our July 11 issue). The packaging of the products feature abstract marks made using the kind of materials related to the product – watercolours for the watercolour pad, charcoal for cartridge paper etc

The marks on the posters for Hyland’s talk reference these designs.

The four posters will be given away at Hyland’s talk. Unfortunately it’s now sold out. Details of future Typographic Circle talks 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.

Two self initiated, Olympics-inspired projects arrived at CR towers this week. First up is hat-trick‘s tiny Olympic Non-Events book which sees Otl Aicher-style icons created to illustrate various well known metaphorical phrases…

Thus there is a sporty icon for such non-events as Jumping To Conclusions, Punching Above Your Weight ,and Swimming With Sharks…

As well as the book, hat-trick has set up a tumblr blog (screengrab, above) showing the icons included in the book and also inviting all and sundry to submit their own non-events to be potentially iconised and added to the site at olympic-non-events.tumblr.com. And just in case any of you were thinking of submitting it, Hat-Trick has already (rightly or wrongly) created an icon for Breast Stroking.

We also received a package from artist Lydia Leith, whose Royal Wedding Sick Bag project featured here on the CR blog almost a year ago. Leith has created eight packs of Temporary Tattoos which all look to celebrate a number of Olympic Games events from track cycling to badminton, tennis, soccer, boxing, volley ball and ping pong. Sorry, I meant table tennis.

You could just place one tattoo of your favourite event on your forearm or bicep. Or you could go totally nuts and use all the tattoos at once, as Lydia did herself to demonstrate the “all-of them-at once” look:

lydialeith.com

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.