New at Pentagram
Decipher: Fourteen Cryptograms
Each year Pentagram issues a small holiday book as a greeting to its friends and colleagues. The partners take turns researching and designing these books, which usually contain some kind of game or activity. The most recent edition is Decipher, designed by Harry Pearce, who chose as its subject cryptography, the science of writing, or encrypting—and breaking, or decrypting—secret code.
The book features 14 cryptograms of varying methodologies and difficulty that conceal short phrases; through symbols, numbers, patterns and simple letterspacing, the cyptograms challenge the reader to decipher their meaning. “It’s astonishing how much you can hide in type,” says Pearce.
Now we have adapted the book’s content online and are pleased to present the 14 cryptograms in a minisite here. Can you break the code?
New Work: ‘Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy’
Summer equals superheroes, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art has its own summer blockbuster this year in “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy”, presented by The Costume Institute. The exhibition explores the symbolic and metaphysical associations between fictional comic book characters and fashion and features popular icons such as Superman, Spider-Man, Hulk, Wonder Woman, Alexander McQueen, John Galliano and Jean-Paul Gaultier. The show will be celebrated tonight at the Institute’s spring gala—co-chaired by George Clooney, of Batman & Robin nippled Batsuit infamy—before opening to the public on Wednesday, 7 May. It remains on view through 1 September.
Abbott Miller’s design for the exhibition catalogue affirms the alliance between fantasy and fashion through the juxtaposition of fashion imagery, comic book details and film and TV stills of superheroes in a comic book frame format. These images have been closely cropped and break the frames to heighten the sense of interconnection. “Comics pioneered the fragmentation of time and space with multiple-frame compositions,” says Miller. “Our design uses this comics strategy to show multiple details and perspectives of a single garment.” The catalogue also features a pressed tin front and back cover that adds a tactile, three-dimensional element to the design, and of course doubles as a kind of armor or chest plate (think Iron Man).
Although nostalgic—the tin cover is reminiscent of a superheroes lunch box—the catalogue avoids a profusion of obvious comic book mimicry. There are no speech bubbles, allowing the images to speak for themselves, and instead of newsprint, the pages have a high-gloss acrylic coating that make the colors pop from the page. In an effort to differentiate the introductory essay by Michael Chabon (Secret Skin: An Essay in Unitard Theory) from the rest of the catalogue, the commentary has been designed as a book within a book and printed with a silver border as opposed to white.
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy is published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and distributed by Yale University Press.
A look inside the book after the jump.
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New Work: Grant Thornton
Angus Hyland and his team have designed the new identity system for Grant Thornton international, a major global organisation of accounting and consulting firms with member and correspondent firms in over 100 countries worldwide.
The identity creates a unified international brand for the organisation’s network of independently owned and managed firms. Hyland has created a completely new logo, along with comprehensive print and website systems based around a bold illustration-led graphic approach.
New Work: ‘My Wall Street Journal’
Wall Street had a new tabloid this week as My Wall Street Journal appeared—and quickly disappeared—from newsstands all over the country. Paula Scher consulted on the design of the new satire from Tony Hendra, the former editor of National Lampoon. Timed to tax day and the new recession, the single-issue parody of the News Corp-owned Journal has incurred the wrath of Rupert Murdoch (or at least his lookalike) and comes complete with a WSJ-style stippled illustration of a topless Ann Coulter (NSFW). Get your copy here.
New Work: European Solidarity Center
As part of an international architecture competition sponsored by the city of Gdansk, Poland, Pentagram Architects has proposed a design for a European Solidarity Center (ESC) that would act as an international center of culture, housing a museum, temporary exhibition space and an academic research center. The project seeks to memorialize the organization Solidarity (Solidarno), the first non-communist trade union in a communist country founded in Gdansk in 1980. Solidarity was organized by workers from the Gdansk shipyard, the proposed site for the ESC, and was integral in helping establish the grassroots anti-communist social movement in Poland and subsequently, the rest of Europe.
James Biber’s team design, called the Interrex, celebrates the time between the end of one regime and the beginning of the next, a position Solidarity held in Poland in the late 90s as the government transitioned from communism to democracy. The proposal creates a literal space in the form of a massive covered gathering place below the building.
New Work: ‘100 Baseball Icons’
Just in time for opening day, Kit Hinrichs has designed 100 Baseball Icons, published by Ten Speed Press. The book, a collaborative effort between Hinrichs, photographer Terry Heffernan and writer Delphine Hirasuna, tells the story of America’s favorite pastime through memorabilia from the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum in Cooperstown, New York. Heffernan, a lifelong baseball aficionado and award-winning still life photographer, chose the 100 icons from the Hall of Fame’s immense archive and then meticulously photographed them. Included in the book are images of Shoeless Joe Jackson’s shoes, Cy Young’s mitt and a coveted Honus Wagner baseball card. This is the third book collaboration by Hinrichs, Heffernan and Hirasuna, after Long May She Wave and The Art of Gaman.
Several spreads after the jump.
New Work: A Texas Designer's Map of the World
To illustrate his theory that a Texan’s favorite pastime is bragging, Austin resident DJ Stout has created a “Texas Designer’s Map of the World” as a part of a promotion for Sappi Fine Paper. Based on the concept of a Texas Brag Map, the poster elucidates the worldview that everything is bigger and better in the Lone Star State. “It’s part of our Texas heritage and our collective sense of humor,” explains Stout. “My apologies to the other smaller, less interesting states on the map.”
The idea for the promotion, conceived of by Dana Arnett of VSA Partners, was to divide a map of the U.S. into six parts and assign each section to a graphic designer who resides within the region. When all six posters are put together, they form a giant map of the United States. “Of course I was given the Southwest,” says Stout “which includes the great state of Texas and a few other insignificant surrounding states.” Other participants include Art Chantry, Rick Valicenti, Paul Sahre, Clive Piercy and Tim Hussey. Sappi is sending the promotion to designers all over the country.
Download the map here. A few points of interest after the jump.
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New Work: Laurence King
Angus Hyland has designed the spring 2008 catalogue for Laurence King Publishing. The catalogue demonstrates Hyland’s ongoing work as the company’s consultant creative director and features two forthcoming books designed by Hyland and his team at Pentagram.
New Work: Serif Books
Justus Oehler has designed a website for Serif Books, a London-based independent publishing house. The website is the latest outcome of Pentagram’s six-year relationship with the client; Justus and his team in Berlin have designed every Serif book since 2002.
New Work: 'Sex in Design/Design in Sex'
Designed for your pleasure: The exhibition Sex in Design/Design in Sex opens tonight at the Museum of Sex with exhibition design by James Biber and graphics by Michael Bierut. The show sets out to examine the subconscious, as well as the intended, sexual imagery in design as it is found in the objects we wear, live with and use for erotic pleasure. Design work such as Karim Rashid’s multipurpose lounger the Kairotic Karimsutra, Shiri Zinn’s quartz crystal dildo Minx and calibrated dilators by Rhett Butler of Kiki de Montparnasse are on view.
The intentionally austere exhibition design of Sex in Design/Design in Sex puts the objects in a context that more closely resembles the Museum of Modern Art’s Architecture and Design galleries than the Museum of Sex’s previous exhibitions. “This is the first truly uninflected look at these beautiful and occasionally quite strange objects,” says Biber. “And they are at their best in the rather deadpan environment we created. They didn’t need any help from us to look sexy.”
New Work: ‘Dairy Today’
DJ Stout has redesigned the magazine Dairy Today that is launching this month. In addition to a bold new logotype, the magazine will feature a stylized “portrait” of a dairy cow on the cover of each issue in an effort to differentiate it from its competitors. This is the second dairy magazine and the sixth agricultural trade publication Pentagram’s Austin office has redesigned. Stout and his team previously reworked three magazines for the American Quarter Horse Association, Dairy Herd Management magazine and Drovers magazine (about the beef industry).
How does one art direct a cow? Video after the jump.
Update: Message on the Bottle
Justus Oehler’s wine label design for Message on the Bottle, organised by OnDesign Studio for this year’s Hamburg Design Festival, has been featured in Marie Claire (Italy), Creativ Verpacken and will feature in the February edition of Novum.
The Message on the Bottle exhibition will go on a tour of European design festivals in 2008.
German language readers can find comment on Justus Oehler’s recent talk for MCAD, Design with humour, humanity and passion on the organisation’s website. To navigate to the page, simply click on the ‘Open House Lectures’ icon and follow the links to Justus’ talk.
New Work: ‘Las Vegas Life’
DJ Stout and Julie Savasky have redesigned Las Vegas Life magazine. Launching this month, Las Vegas Life is a city magazine concerned with the issues of the entire city, the suburbs and the whole surrounding area. “Even though it is more of a traditional city magazine my feeling was that Las Vegas Life is about a very glamorous high-rolling city that is unlike any other place in the world,” says Stout. “I felt that it should be a city magazine on par with cities like Los Angeles or New York, but true to itself. Our objective was to keep the design simple and intelligent and the photography and illustration contemporary, up-scale, sexy and glamorous, regardless of the subject matter.”
New Work: New York City Ballet
Paula Scher has designed a new identity and promotional campaign for the New York City Ballet, one of the largest and most prominent dance companies in the world. The campaign, developed with Pentagram’s Lisa Kitschenberg and Luis Bravo of the NYCB, launches this week with the opening of the company’s winter season.
New Work: ‘Reflection of a Man’
DJ Stout has designed a new book of photographs by Stanley Marcus, the Neiman Marcus heir and the creative force behind the retailer’s success. Stanley, who passed away in 2002, was well-known as a man of refined taste and culture, but nobody really knew that he was also a photographer. What he photographed over the years, during his many trips around the world, were the things that a successful merchant and a man interested in fashion, style, architecture and design would document. “The challenge in designing the book,” says Stout, “was taking fairly ordinary snap-shots and presenting them in a design that was interesting and dynamic, but that also showed the world through the eyes of Stanley Marcus.”
Part of Neiman Marcus’s 100th anniversary celebration, the book is being sold exclusively at Neiman Marcus stores and through their online and holiday catalogs until January, when it will be available in bookstores nationwide. Reflection of a Man: The Photographs of Stanley Marcus is being distributed by the University of Texas Press.
Several spreads from the book after the jump.
Give One XO Laptop, Get One
Through 31 December, One Laptop Per Child is offering a Give One Get One program in the United States and Canada. Donate a XO laptop to a child in a developing country and receive one for the child in your life. Originally a two-week campaign that began in mid-November, the extended Give One Get One offer is the first time the laptop has been made available to the general public.
Lisa Strausfeld and her team have designed a temporary website for the promotion that educates donors about the organization’s mission, while it takes cues from consumer websites through the use of detailed product shots and overviews of the software. The site also provides a walk through of Sugar, the user interface developed by Pentagram with Red Hat and OLPC.
Website design by Lisa Strausfeld, Christian Marc Schmidt and Asad Pervaiz in collaboration with OLPC and Eleven. Identity design by Michael Gericke. Site development by Nurun.
New United Cabin Designs Now Flying
Daniel Weil interviewed for the launch of United Airlines new first and business class cabins. Video courtesy of United.
Daniel Weil’s new cabin designs for United Airlines have begun flying on routes between Washington D.C. and Frankfurt or Zurich in a rollout across 97 international aircraft expected to be finished in the autumn of 2009.
Weil designed the seats in partnership with the in-house design team at B/E Aerospace, the world’s leading aircraft cabin manufacturer. Full details of the new cabins can be found on United’s Suite Dreams minisite.
Previously: United Reveals New Cabin Design
Justus Oehler at Design Festival Hamburg
Justus Oehler has designed a wine label for Message on the Bottle, a wine bottle and label design exhibition held as part of Design Festival Hamburg 2007, one of the highlights of Germany’s design calendar which is now in its 50th Year. In total there were 70 contributions to the exhibition from designers in 16 countries. Message on the bottle ran from the 5th to 20th of October 2007.
New Work: ‘The Advocate’
Luke Hayman and his team have redesigned The Advocate, the landmark gay and lesbian biweekly newsmagazine. The redesign coincides with the magazine’s 40th anniversary and the arrival of a new editor in chief, Anne Stockwell. It also reflects the broader changes in the LGBT community that the magazine serves.
New Work: Circular Fifteen
Domenic Lippa has designed issue fifteen of Circular, the magazine of the Typographic Circle, a not-for-profit organisation run entirely by volunteers which formed in 1976 to bring together anyone with an active interest in type and typography.
Lippa has a long-standing relationship with the Typographic Circle, previously acting as its chairperson for two years. Circular Fifteen is the eighth issue of the magazine Lippa has designed in as many years.
New Work: Ruby Tuesday
DJ Stout and his Austin design team have collaborated with Ruby Tuesday to create an entirely new visual identity for the international chain of over 900 bar and grill restaurants. The new logotype and identity system is part of the chain’s effort to upgrade its brand by creating a healthier and higher quality casual dining experience and has been applied across the board to menus, take-out bags, cups, napkins, uniforms, signage, architecture, advertising, website and even a race car.
New Work: Gallup
Lisa Strausfeld, Christian Marc Schmidt and Takaaki Okada have redesigned the website of Gallup, the organization that studies human nature and behavior. In addition to producing the high-profile Gallup Polls that track public opinion about social issues and cultural trends, the group does consulting for corporations and institutions on issues like employee productivity and constituent feedback.
Pentagram worked in collaboration with Gallup on the conceptual and visual design of the site, as well as the navigation, that highlights Gallup’s two most public divisions, the Poll and its consultancy group. On the homepage, the website redesign restructures the various divisions of Gallup into dual columns. In the left column is the Gallup Poll, and its content related to politics and government; in the right, Gallup Consulting, with divisions related to economics and management.
“The site design reflects the macro- and micro-economic model of the organization,” says Strausfeld. “The world poll focuses on citizen engagement and speaks to public leaders; the consulting side speaks to customer or staff engagement. For both segments, the site emphasizes Gallup as a tool for the greater well being of their constituents.”
The two segments—represented with the colors of green and orange—are carried throughout the site as persistent navigation.
Strausfeld says, “The organization has 70 years of public opinion surveys; the content has always been there, and it is constantly updated. The redesign helps quantify all of that qualitative information.” The new site also makes use of video reports.
The redesign was completed as focus intensifies on the 2008 US presidential election. (Gallup famously has a history of calling election results.)
Strausfeld is a Senior Scientist at the Gallup Organization.
New Work: ‘Naked Ambition’
DJ Stout and his team in the Austin office have designed Naked Ambition: An R-rated Look at an X-rated Industry, just published by Rock Out Books. The book, intended as a social documentary exploration into the American porn industry, is composed of photographs culled from photographer Michael Grecco’s portraits and still lifes taken at the Adult Video News Awards and features introductions by David Navarro and Larry Flint along with titillating interviews with porn industry professionals.
When asked about designing a book about porn, DJ responded: “I’ve designed books on Mexican prostitutes, the Klu Klux Klan, women in prison, skin heads, violent gangs and now the world of pornography. I’ve also designed books and magazine features on pigs, dairy cows, computers, guitar players, lawyers, realtors and the entire history of Saudi Arabia…I preferred the porn book.”
Naked Ambition is being launched in conjunction with an exhibition at the Stephen Cohen Gallery that opens in Los Angeles on 25 October and at Photo Miami/Art Basel on 5 December.
Spreads after the jump. (SFW!)
New Work: 100% Design
Angus Hyland, with design assistant Fabian Herrmann, has designed the identity and brand structure for 100% Design, Reed Exhibitions’ international series of shows for the professional architecture and design audience. Hyland also produced the print and campaign for one of the component shows, 100% Design London, the UK’s largest trade show of its kind. Held between 20 and 23 September, 100% Design London filled the Earl’s Court Exhibition Centre with a showcase of the best contemporary design based around five component shows: 100% Design, 100% Detail, 100% Light, 100% Futures and 100% Materials.
Marian Bantjes Wanted for Saks ‘Want It!’ Campaign
For Saks Fifth Avenue’s fall campaign, Pentagram asked the designer and typographer Marian Bantjes to create a special promotional treatment of the store’s “Want It!” theme, and to extend that treatment to 19 unlikely illustrations of fashion trends that Saks has identified for fall.
Marian was in town the week before last to help celebrate the campaign’s launch and to check out the campaign’s over-the-top installations at Saks’s flagship store. Her entertainingly exhaustive visual diary appears on her blog.
Pentagram’s art direction of the Want It! campaign extends the work that began with the launch of the new Saks identity at the beginning of this year.
New Work: The London Design Festival
One of Domenic Lippa’s typographic opening sequences for The London Design Festival website. Click on the links to see all the animations in a new window: one, two, three. Flash design by Andrew Heaps.
Domenic Lippa, with senior designer Paul Skerm and design assistant Ali Esen, has designed the identity for The London Design Festival, the umbrella organisation that promotes the annual season of design-related events that take over the city each September. Lippa and his team also designed every element of the festival’s city-wide graphic presence including brochures, signage, guidebooks, promotional material, environmental graphics and the look and feel of the website as well as the first London Design Medal, which was awarded to Zaha Hadid for her outstanding contribution to design.
Designing London Design Week
Monday night saw the opening of The London Design Festival at the Royal Festival Hall. The ceremony marked the beginning of one of the world’s great design events which, between the 17th and the 23rd of September, fills London with exhibitions, workshops, talks and private views. With branding and identity designed by Domenic Lippa, The London Design Festival’s organising committee is just one of the places you can see work by Pentagram partners during London’s celebration of design.
Angus Hyland has designed the identity and brand architecture for 100% Design London, the UK’s largest trade fair for the design and architecture profession and one of the longest running events in the festival calendar.
Harry Pearce has designed a poster with John Simmons as of part of 26 Posters, an installation for the festival organised by the writer’s advocacy organisation 26, which aims to demonstrate the power of language in design. The posters will be displayed at London’s Old Street and Elephant and Castle roundabouts, as well as on billboard sites in Birmingham, Glasgow and Manchester.
Pentagram will be holding an exhibition of posters from throughout the firm’s 35-year history on Thursday, 20 September at our London office in Notting Hill. Contact Leah Speakman for further enquiries.
‘2wice’ Featured in ‘The New York Times’
The latest issue of 2wice designed by Abbott Miller was featured in The New York Times on Saturday. Titled Green World: Merce Cunningham, the issue is devoted to the work of the famed choreographer as it captures, through the stunning photography of Katherine Wolkoff, Cunningham’s troupe as they perform in the gardens of the Italian Renaissance-inspired Vizcaya mansion in Miami.
Street Fashion by Pentagram
New York Fashion Week tent graphics designed by Pentagram.
Wrapping up in New York’s Bryant Park: Pentagram’s graphics for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. Using a classic axonometric map of Manhattan, Michael Bierut and Jennifer Kinon created invitations, t-shirts, banners and, of course, graphics for the event’s signature tents.
Brandspanking Gets Moving
Andy Foulds’ animations of Angus Hyland’s Brandspanking logo. Click here to see them in a new window.
Interactive designer Andy Foulds’ studio has produced a series of Flash animations based on Angus Hyland’s logo design for Brandspanking, a London-based media production company that specialises in branded content. The animations play during the introduction to their website, also designed by Foulds.
Angus Hyland designed the Brandspanking identity in 2007 with design assistant Zara Moore.
New Work: Roy Harper, ‘The BBC Tapes’
Harry Pearce has designed the sleeve art for the re-issue of The BBC Tapes, a set of CDs by cult singer/songwriter Roy Harper, released by Harper’s Science Friction Records.
Pearce’s design for the series emulates Harper’s subtle poetry in its central motif; portraits of Harper, taken during the period the recordings were made, have been cropped so that the singer’s eyes are the same size within each image; evoking the intensity and intimacy of the recordings. The simple, vertical typography, set in Akzidenz Grotesk, and monochromatic treatment of the photographs means that the most direct way of differentiating between CDs at a glance is through Harpers’ facial expressions.
New Work: ‘On the Road: The Original Scroll’
Angus Hyland, with design assistant Masumi Briozzo, has designed the UK edition of On the Road: The Original Scroll, a sumptuous edition of Jack Kerouac’s seminal ‘Beat’ novel which is being released to mark the 50th anniversary of the book’s original publication on 5 September 1957.
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Paula Scher Designs Templates for Download from HP
Today Hewlett-Packard launches a new website featuring Paula Scher, Jake Burton and Gwen Stefani as part of its $300 million Print 2.0 campaign designed to inspire and empower customers with free customizable, printable content. For her part, Scher designed five business templates, including letterhead, envelopes, business cards and notecards, that provide users with a complete graphics package. Named Bold, Modern, Edgy, Elegant and Friendly, the templates were designed to appeal to a diverse array of businesses and personality types. Two templates, Friendly and Modern, are available for download today, with the others being added over the next few weeks.
The site also features an interview with Scher in which she speaks about how to build a successful brand identity. “The characteristic that matters for every good brand is that you look like you made your decisions based on who you are for specific reasons, not that they were accidental,” she says. “A small business should ask itself who its customer is, who are they talking to. They should think about how to present themselves and what their tone of voice should be.” Shot in Pentagram’s New York office, the interview is accompanied by commentary about some of her most celebrated designs.
“No template is a substitute for hiring a professional designer,” warns Scher, and indeed at Scher’s suggestion the HP site includes a prominent link to the AIGA designer directory. “But at the very least, I hope we can stop a few innocent people out there from using Comic Sans.”
Rounding out the site’s content, Jake Burton offers advice on how to produce a successful marketing campaign and the importance of a strong visual brand, while Gwen Stefani offers customizable Harajuku-inspired paper dolls, party invites and CD covers.
Views of the templates in action after the jump.
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New Work: ‘Spook Country’
Angus Hyland, with design assistant Masumi Briozzo, has designed the UK hardback cover for Spook Country, a new thriller by the acclaimed novelist, and father of cyberpunk, William Gibson.
Spook Country is published in the UK by Viking Press, part of the Penguin Group.
Point of Pride
Vivantes, a Berlin based health care provider and current Pentagram client, asked Justus Oehler to design a special graphic for the city’s Christopher Street Day festivities, the annual lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender pride event. The visual depicts the Berliner Fernsehturm, a prominent feature of the city’s skyline known as TV Tower, sheathed in a giant pink condom. The campaign’s message: “diversity without fear.”
Applications after the jump.
New Work: James Kelman Cover Art
Angus Hyland, with assistant Masumi Briozzo, has designed four book covers for Polygon’s re-issue of the novels and short stories of James Kelman, the controversial Booker Prize-winning author.
New Work: Safdico
Angus Hyland has produced a new corporate website and content management system (CMS) for the South African Diamond Corporation - Safdico.
Safdico is one of the world’s premier diamond producers, priding itself on its craftsmanship and expertise while operating to the most stringent professional, ethical and social standards. Pentagram’s design for the business-to-business focussed site is elegant and controlled, without denying the inherent glamour of Safdico’s products.
Update: Global Cities
Angus Hyland’s posters for the Global Cities exhibition at Tate Modern have been appearing all over London in the city’s Tube stations. The exhibition is on display until 27 August.
More images and a selection of exhibition reviews after the jump.
United Reveals New Cabin Design
United Airlines announced a breakthrough yesterday: this fall, they will be the first US carrier to feature fully reclining lie-flat seats in their International First and Business cabins. Pentagram’s Daniel Weil worked with United and a team of specialists throughout the intricate process of designing two new cabins.
“This is the moment where the customer is put first,” said Weil. Designed to provide more space and a better sense of privacy through an innovative forward- and rear-facing design and seats that recline 180˚ to form a six-foot-long bed, the first updated planes will take to the skies later this year. The entire international fleet will be updated in phases over the next two to three years.
The new cabins were designed in conjunction with industry experts B/E Aerospace. Pentagram has been United’s design consultant for nearly ten years, with responsibilities that have ranged from developing the airline’s current livery design, to naming its low-cost carrier Ted, to designing its self-service ticket dispensers, to consulting on tableware and in-flight amenities.
Interactive Model of Lower Manhattan Wins IDSA Award
Wall Street Rising’s interactive model of Lower Manhattan.
The interactive architectural model of Lower Manhattan designed by Lisa Strausfeld and her team for Wall Street Rising’s Downtown Information Center won an Industrial Design Excellence Award, the Industrial Designers Society of America announced today. Co-sponsored by BusinessWeek magazine and the IDSA, the awards recognize the best product designs of the year.
Founded in the wake of 9/11, Wall Street Rising is a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting the historic, cultural and economic interests of Lower Manhattan. The model, developed on the concept of a communal table, creates a shared space where visitors to the center can gather to learn about the history and opportunities of the area. Using a gyro-mouse, users can highlight streets, buildings and other points of interest, receive practical information about local museums, restaurants, shops and neighborhood events, view historic and contemporary photographs or watch short documentary films. These graphics are all seamlessly projected onto the 3-D model from two digital projectors hung from the ceiling.
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Sign of the Times
Pentagram-designed New York Times sign recently installed on the paper’s new headquarters.
Last week, the Times Square district gained its latest sign as the logo of the New York Times was installed on the Eighth Avenue facade of its new Renzo Piano-designed headquarters tower.
But what looks like a simple sign—if a 110-foot-long logo set as a 10,116-point version of the newspaper’s iconic Fraktur font can be called simple—is actually an intricate assemblage of nearly a thousand separate custom-designed pieces, each a painted extruded aluminum sleeve a little more than three inches in diameter.
The story of how and why Pentagram came to design the sign after the jump.
Opening Day for ‘The Glory Days’
Exhibition poster designed by Pentagram.
Fifteen hundred people were at the Museum of the City of New York last night for the opening of The Glory Days: New York Baseball 1947-1957 exhibition designed by Michael Gericke and his team. The show celebrates the remarkable achievements, personalities and spirit of baseball in New York between 1947 and 1957 when the city was home to three major league teams: the Yankees, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Giants. For eleven seasons, these teams dominated the sport playing in ten World Series, seven of which were Subway Series, with rosters that included Jackie Robinson, Mickey Mantle and Willie Mays.
The exhibition relates the history of this heyday through archival photographs, film footage, memorabilia and ephemera from the Museum of the City of New York, the Baseball Hall of Fame and private collections. Many of the objects in the exhibition have never before been publicly displayed. The exhibition highlights this plethora of memorabilia, as well as exhibition text and interactive displays, through three different kinds of large custom-designed vitrines. Evoking the spirit of the game, the floor of the main exhibition room has been painted with a scaled drawing of a major league baseball field that creates the impression of walking on a baseball diamond and the surrounding walls have been covered in a wallpaper of fourteen-foot archival photographs. The exhibition opens today to the public and remains on view through December 31.
After the jump, a video about the show’s design. Exhibition images coming soon!
New Work: Glass House Visitors Center and Identity
The exhibition wall of the Glass House Visitors Center features 24 monitors.
The much-anticipated public opening of Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, takes place this week. James Biber and his team designed the off-site Visitors Center for this acclaimed addition to the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s family of sites. Michael Bierut and his team designed the project’s identity, promotional graphics and website .
All tours of the Glass House site, sold out until 2008, begin and end at the Visitors Center in downtown New Canaan. The center, a renovated 2,000-square-foot former truck loading dock conveniently located across from the town train station, accommodates an exhibition, on-site ticketing and a museum shop. Through the exhibition, visitors learn about Philip Johnson and the Glass House site before they take a short shuttle ride to the site where they embark on a 90-minute guided tour. After the tour, visitors return to the center where they can re-experience the exhibition with new insight.
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New Work: Global Cities
Time-lapse film of the 18 day build.
Angus Hyland and William Russell have designed Global Cities, a major free exhibition that is taking place in the spectacular Turbine Hall at the Tate Modern in London from 20 June through 27 August.
New Work: P.O.V.
Different standardized “O” patterns create flexibility within the identity.
Paula Scher and Julia Hoffmann have designed a new graphic identity for P.O.V., the award-winning documentary film series on PBS. The launch of the new identity is timed to the program’s twentieth anniversary season that begins on June 19.
New Work: Laurence King Publishing
Fall 2007 catalogue for Laurence King Publishing.
Art and design book publisher Laurence King has released its fall 2007 trade catalogue which showcases Angus Hyland’s work as the company’s creative director.
The catalogue features five new book covers designed by Angus and his team at Pentagram.
Designing ‘Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies’
Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies opens today at Vanderbilt Hall in Grand Central Station.
Lisa Strausfeld and her team, in collaboration with the author and architect James Sanders, have designed the exhibition Celluloid Skyline: New York and the Movies that opens today in Grand Central Terminal. The month-long multimedia exhibition, based on Sanders’ classic book by the same name, relates the hundred-year plus history of filmmaking in and about New York City in a display of original scenic backings, film footage, production stills, and exhibition panels complete with quotes, location shots, art department drawings and renderings.
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'Free Love' in the Park
Paula Scher and Lenny Naar spread some love in the posters for the 2007 New York Shakespeare Festival. The campaign promoting this year’s productions, “Romeo and Juliet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” to be performed alfresco in Central Park, starts going up this week.
Multiple positions after the jump.
New Work: Nigel Parry’s ‘Blunt’
Cover of Nigel Parry’s latest book designed by Justus Oehler.
Justus Oehler and his team in the Berlin office have designed Blunt, the latest monograph from celebrity photographer Nigel Parry. The book pairs iconic black and white portraits together in a thought-provoking sequence that is paced with memorable quotes from the photo shoots.
New Work: Seattle Art Museum
The new SAM identity designed by Pentagram.
Abbott Miller and his team have designed the new identity and program of environmental graphics for the Seattle Art Museum that reopens to the public this weekend after a 95,000 square foot expansion designed by Allied Works Architecture. The identity helps to integrate the expansion into the existing building designed by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates and the museum with its two sister locations in the city.
New Work: Sardegna
Identity designed for the popular Italian destination.
Just in time for summer: Justus Oehler has designed an identity for the Italian island of Sardegna (Sardinia). The identity is based on a carefully modified version of the typeface Eurostile, designed in 1962 by Aldo Novarese. The colors are derived from the richly embroidered traditional Sardinian costumes.
The modern shape of the letters, combined with the patchwork of warm colors, reflects the two sides of Sardinia: history and tradition on the one hand, modernity and openness on the other. “We wanted to create a symbol which would not depict sun and sea—like most of the other Mediterranean countries’ identities do, but which would look grown-up and confident, yet at the same time playful and warm,” says Oehler.
Lippa to Design Identity for London Design Festival
Poster for this month’s press launch for the London Design Festival.
Domenic Lippa has been appointed to design the graphic identity for this year’s London Design Festival, taking place 15-25 September. He will be responsible for the development and art direction of all graphics to promote the festival, from books, brochures and signage, to posters and the festival website. The event will take place throughout the city at over 150 venues and is expected to attract an estimated 300,000 visitors. The first designs were introduced at the press launch for the festival earlier this month.
Additional pieces from the launch after the jump. Stay tuned for more work in the coming months.
Continue reading "Lippa to Design Identity for London Design Festival"
New Work: Spruce House
Biber transformed a mid-century fixer-upper into a contemporary home.
James Biber has converted a mid-century modern house in desperate need of care into a modern suburban gem in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The finished project is featured in the April issue of Metropolitan Home.
New Work: MICA
MICA’s new identity is set in the Giza typeface, based on slab serif lettering popular around the time of the school’s founding in 1826.
Abbott Miller has designed a new identity for MICA, the Maryland Institute College of Art, that launched on 1 April at the school’s annual Admission Open House. Miller, a faculty member at MICA, worked with his senior designer Kristen Spilman, a MICA graduate, to develop the identity based on research performed by graphic design graduate students at the College.
New Work: Sonance
Sonance exhibit showcasing the company’s new identity and product line.
Lorenzo Apicella has designed a trade show exhibit for Sonance, a high-end architectural audio company that specializes in flush-mount wall and ceiling speakers. The exhibit showcases the company’s new product line and identity, both also designed by Pentagram.
New Work: COS (Collection of Style)
Interior of the new COS flagship on Regent Street in London.
William Russell has designed the stores for COS, Collection of Style, the new premium brand from fashion retailer H&M. The London flagship opened on 16 March, and stores in Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands launch this Friday.
New Work: TIME Magazine
Cover of the redesigned TIME magazine.
Today, TIME launches the first issue of a major redesign developed by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman with TIME managing editor Richard Stengel and art director Arthur Hochstein.
New Work: ‘The Namesake’
Cover of The Namesake: A Portrait of the Film
Abbott Miller and John Kudos designed the book The Namesake: A Portrait of the Film, a tie-in to the new film adapted from the acclaimed novel by Jhumpa Lahiri and directed by Mira Nair, that opens today in limited release.