Prior to our weekly Things review going up this afternoon, I thought a special mention should go out to a very special package that reached us early this week. A re-issue of Cormac McCarthy’s entire back catalogue is news-worthy enough, but even more so if book cover genius David Pearson has been asked to tackle the entire set. A beautiful collection, and any recognition publishers Pan Macmillan receive is just desserts.
Exciting new student alert! Meet Pauline, currently working on her advanced degree in type design at École Estienne in Paris – how glamorous does that sound? It’s rare to find a student with as much consistently fantastic work on their site, and for a while I didn’t actually twig that Pauline was still studying. She’s designed typefaces, had a bash at letter pressing for her business cards, and made some publications that, if I’m honest, I’d actually buy. The way she represented a bunch of Stéphane Monnot short stories is well-designed without overshadowing the writing, and that publication about the concept of an ornament just looks fantastic. Remember this name: Pauline Le Pape, she’s got big things ahead of her.
In the two years since we first featured nomadic designer Gabriela Maskrey she’s taken on a lot of new projects and pushed her skills in all sorts of new directions. Originally she was all about editorial design – which it has to be said, she was great at – but she’s recently branched out into branding for Peruvian luxury food company La Pulperia. Her bold serif rendering of the company name coupled with historic imagery referencing Peru’s gastronomic culture combines to satisfying effect, and the addition of hand-drawn icons is a great touch too. All in all a great first foray away from the world of books and magazines.
Often the most interesting branding work hinges on a simple twist, and such is the case in this work by Freytag Anderson for Fraher architects. The Scottish studio’s concept revolves around the neat idea of the “F” in the logo doubling up as an architectural floorpan.
“The intersecting compartments or rooms create a simple graphic device for containing text, images and texture,” the designers say. “A vibrant red accent colour supports the minimal yet functional aesthetic.” Rolled out across stationery, a soon-to-be-launched website and internal presentation documents, it’s a really impressive idea executed to perfection.
Designing for a design fair must be as much of a dream brief as a terrifying one. But one agency more than up to the task is Hamburg-based Karl Anders, which is behind this brilliant campaign for Vitra’s presence at the Maison et Objet fair in Paris. We can’t get enough of the bright colours, playful art direction and unusual way of presenting the Swiss furniture brand’s products. The concept behind the campaign, Home Complements, is based around the idea of “unexpected outcomes,” hence the gloriously haphazard feel to the display of the products in the photographs, which are shot by Nicolas Haeni and Thomas Rousset. It looks brilliant, and marks a nice departure from the more serious look interiors brands often go for.
Amsterdam-based designer Bart de Baets has been making great work for ages, and 2014 was no exception. There are conference posters for the Goethe Institute, brochures for architecture pavilions and a really nice record sleeve for Melbourne-based band Total Control. Bart manages to combine minimal line work and graphic humour with a vast frame of reference and really great colour-ways. There are also slugs kissing.
Michael Bierut is a designer, Pentagram partner, writer, lecturer and self-confessed nerd. Taking the stage at the Design Indaba festival in Cape Town yesterday, he announced his new book, pithily titled How to: Use graphic design to sell things, explain things, make things look better, and (every once in a while) change the world. Published by Thames & Hudson it won’t come out until later in the year, but we felt it was a good excuse to look at some of Michael’s most interesting work from across the years.
You’re 25 years old and Richard Turley calls you up out of the blue and says; “Hey, I’ve just got this sweet job at MTV and I’d like you to come on board as my senior designer, are you interested?” Of course you’re interested! You’d be a fool not to be interested, even if it means leaving your current (also awesome) job as an art director at The New York Times. Sounds nice right? Well this isn’t some fictional story I’ve just concocted in my head, this is the soon-to-be legendary tale of Erik Carter, a Virginia native turned New York City creative powerhouse who’s filling our (music) televisions with choice tidbits of witty animation and humorous asides from the world of the web.
Eindhoven-based graphic design and photography studio Raw Color has created a great multi-platform identity for interior textiles brand Febrik, using horizontal, laser-cut lines as a reference to archiving methods in textile sample books. They are utilised both for this purpose and as decorative details on business cards, stationary items and online.
We often discuss the importance of a decent-looking site in presenting creative work, but until we received Francesco Zorzi’s latest missive, we didn’t realise just how much we were into well-presented emails. A lovely GIF and an irresistible typeface led us to the Italy-born, Amsterdam-based designer’s site, No Rocket, which further cemented his reputation as a man with a very discerning eye indeed. The project we admired the most is this logo for Genoan publisher Asinello Press, taking an illustration of a hoof as its motif.
They say that one good turn deserves another. And one good project leads to another, as Untitled Paris has shown us. Last year, the agency was commissioned to create a new identity for interior design company Laplace, creating a slick monochrome look that uses the name as the logo mark. Untitled says: “The entire identity rests on a simple type system and contemporary but sober look, as the work of Laplace is full of colour and feeling.”
Earlier this week Sonya Dyakova revealed that she “like[s] to wear a uniform that [she] can just hide in and work.” And while her clothes may want to slink into the background, the work of her agency Atelier Dyakova begs to be in the spotlight.
Hot Chip are one of those bands that have always had a fantastic visual sensibility. Illustrator Wallzo has been at the helm of it, bringing us glorious Michael Craig Martin-esque block colours and shapes to decapitated statues. Now, the band is moving into the world of bespoke printing, with the artwork for new album Why Make Sense by Nick Relph using an algorithm that means each copy’s design will be unique.
It’s not often I get to write about my two great loves in a single article, but sometimes the stars align and I’m covering smoked fish and graphic design all in the space of 300 words. Today I feel blessed! This strange combination of subjects has come together thanks to Swedish agency Kurppa Hosk undertaking a wholesale rebrand for Falkenbergs Lax, a small, family-owned smoked salmon specialist. Charged with turning the small-scale brand into an international major player in the fish industry, Kurrppa Hosk renamed it Korshags, and have came up with a sleek new visual identity to accompany the new name.
