New at Pentagram
AkzoNobel’s ‘A’ magazine wins again
‘A’ The AkzoNobel Magazine has won the ‘External Publications’ category in the European Excellence Awards. The Awards were announced at the Hofburg in Vienna on the 10th of December and honour outstanding achievement in communication on an international scale. This recognition follows a Bronze at the ADC 88th Annual Awards earlier this year. Angus Hyland and his team designed issue one and collaborated with AkzoNobel designer Pepe Vargas on the subsequent issues.
New Work: Grey Group
A creative company needs an innovative workspace. For Grey Group, one of the largest marketing communications companies in the world, a move to a new, state-of-the-art headquarters in the Flatiron District, a New York design center, symbolized a renewed commitment to creativity. Paula Scher has developed an inventive program of environmental graphics for the offices, which were designed by Studios Architecture.
Grey moved from a sedate midtown location to 200 Fifth Avenue, the former International Toy Center, a century-old landmark building that once housed several toy companies. (Grey is our new neighbor; the building is a short two blocks away from Pentagram’s offices at 204 Fifth.) Grey Group is part of industry giant WPP and counts among its clients blue-chip companies like Pfizer, Procter & Gamble, Canon, 3M and Eli Lilly. The Grey divisions at the new headquarters include: Grey New York, its flagship advertising agency; G2, its activation marketing agency; and Cohn & Wolfe, its sister company and PR partner. In the new headquarters these divisions are located from the second to sixth floors, with an entrance lobby on the first floor.
Scher and Studios previously collaborated on the interiors of the Bloomberg L.P. headquarters, where Scher developed an environment of numbers that was a three-dimensional manifestation of the Bloomberg brand. For Grey, Scher has designed graphically playful signage that captures and promotes the creativity of the company’s various divisions. The program utilizes materials used in the interior design to create a series of optical illusions that brand the agency in the space. “It’s a house of visual games,” says Scher.
I.D. R.I.P.
Like the rest of the design community, we are saddened to hear of the closing of I.D. The magazine was required reading in our offices and served as the starting point of countless conversations and more than a few arguments about design. I.D. felt like part of our family: our partners occasionally contributed articles and essays, and we were always thrilled when our work made the cut in the I.D. Annual Design Review, the most critically daunting of the U.S. design competitions. (The Review will reportedly continue online.)
We also have a more personal connection to I.D.’s history: Luke Hayman was associate art director under Tony Arefin from 1993 to 1995 and later returned as design director from 1997 to 1999, during which the magazine received one of its five National Magazine Awards (General Excellence, 1999).
So long, I.D. You will be missed.
Why Didn’t We Think of That?
For The New York Times Magazine’s annual “Year in Ideas” issue, published this Sunday, Paula Scher illustrated a chart of selected 2009 patents, classified on a spectrum from “When Real Life Isn’t Exciting Enough” to “There Must Be an Easier Way.” Note striped socks were not patented until this year; “At Last,” indeed. The chart was compiled by Alexandra Horowitz and Ammon Shea.
New Work: ‘Conundrums’
“Sometimes the more cornered you are the more fun you have.”
Designed by Harry Pearce, Conundrums is a new collection of elegant typographic puzzles constrained by three simple rules: one box, two colours, a single typeface.
In the introduction to the book Pearce writes:
“I grew up in an age and a home where the words of Spike Milligan, Edward Lear, Peter Cook and Monty Python, among many others, filled the air. Nonsense that made sense; irreverence that became pure pleasure. Words became images, images words, and where was the line between the two? It didn’t matter as long as they gave you a smile of recognition.
So, visual games with words have stayed with me. And, strangely, these little games seem to have a life of their own. I started them years ago, a love affair between typography and phrase, and they’ve been one step ahead of me ever since.”
Published on 8 December by It Books, an imprint of HarperCollins, Pearce’s first book Conundrums is the perfect gift for anyone with a love of language or a playful sense of humour.
New Work: Urban Green Council
Since its founding in 1993, the U.S. Green Building Council has established itself as the nation’s leading advocate for sustainability in the built environment, most prominently as the developer of the now-ubiquitous LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standards. As the group’s largest chapter, the U.S. Green Building Council New York Chapter has enjoyed considerable influence not only in metropolitan New York, but as a model for sustainability in cities around the world. But despite its considerable success, the chapter suffered an identity crisis, being frequently confused with the national organization and saddled with a ponderous, unpronounceable eight-letter acronym.
Designer Munnies Raise Cash for Charity
For its holiday benefit, DAHRA (Designers Against Human Rights Abuses) asked 20 of the world’s top graphic and product designers and 10 students to customize do-it-yourself Munny dolls. The signed Munnies will be auctioned at Play.Create, a party presented by DAHRA and Glug London to aid Barnardo’s, the UK-based children’s charity.
Paula Scher gave her Munny a stylish ‘do of almost 1,000 red map pins. “I took out my frustration by sticking the doll with pins,” she says.
Other designers who decorated dolls for the event include Andy Altmann of Why Not Associates, Joe Shouldice of Sagmeister Inc. and Michael C. Place of Build.
The auction and party takes place on Tuesday, 15 December at the Book Club in London. Tickets are on sale now; details here.
New Work: Vertical Zoo
The word “zoo” was first coined in the 19th century, but the concept of a man-made landscape of fauna is as old as human domination of the earth. The ancient Greeks had menageries, as did the Chinese and Roman empires, but the first historical reference to a “vertical zoo” might have been the medieval one in the Tower of London. Today 80 percent of the world’s zoos are located in cities, and a vertical zoo seems as inevitable as a vertical farm. A new competition in Buenos Aires, Argentina asked architects to design a vertical zoo for a location in a natural reserve on the city’s riverfront. Organized by Arquitectum and TodoObras magazine, the brief was to design a structure that would become a new urban landmark, one that would accentuate a growing area of the city and at the same time complement the natural character of the reserve. James Biber has designed a vertical zoo that is an urban take on Charles Darwin’s evolutionary tree of life, a phylogenic arrangement of species in vertical formation.
New Work: ‘The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox’
Angus Hyland was commissioned by Jacob Lehman at Rizzoli to design the book to accompany “Fantastic Mr Fox,” the latest film by Wes Anderson. The film is based on Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel, originally illustrated by Donald Chaffin. The book chronicles the making of the film adaptation, which uses stop-motion animation and features the voices of George Clooney as Mr. Fox, Meryl Streep as Mrs. Fox and Bill Murray as Badger.
Continue reading "New Work: ‘The Making of Fantastic Mr. Fox’"
New Work: ‘Geoffrey Beene: Trapeze’
In his 40-year career, the pioneering fashion designer Geoffrey Beene developed a stunning body of work that combined structural and formal innovation with a uniquely American sense of play. Designed by Abbott Miller, Geoffrey Beene: Trapeze is a new exhibition at the Phoenix Museum of Art that presents the designer’s groundbreaking work in a display of over 30 garments from the private collection of Patsy Tarr, who was one of his most avid collectors and champions. Tarr is also Miller’s longtime collaborator on the performing arts journal 2wice, which she publishes. Completing the circle, Miller himself worked closely with Beene over the course of a twelve-year friendship.
Their collaborations included a major retrospective, a monograph of his work and a tribute published by 2wice after his death. For several years Miller also designed publications, graphics and environments for Mr. Beene’s seasonal presentations, which were part exhibition and part theater. The Phoenix exhibition remains on view through March 7, 2010.
A look at Trapeze after the jump.
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