Originally guest posted by Karl Grandin
Stockholm-based Peter Ström and Mattias Jakobsson run the graphic design studio Konst & Teknik. They keep themselves busy with activities such as coming up with long domain names, fooling Google, copy/pasting characters, ligaturing Futura and designing gems such as the Jonathan Puckey collabo Trace a Face.
If Pentagram’s Micheal Bierut reckons a book can “make better designers of all of us,” its likely to be a pretty useful tome. The designer was heaping praise on Logo: The Reference Guide to Symbols and Logotypes by Michael Evamy, which is just about to launch its new mini edition with publisher Laurence King.
A couple of weeks back we had Fons Hickmann, founder of the eponymous design studio Fons Hickmann m23 in Berlin, talk us through his favourite publications, so that we could get a bit of an insight into his taste, influences and inspirations. In the process, we found out that the studio has recently begin working on Germany’s Greenpeace Media. “For Greenpeace Media we design magazines, posters and even packing tape,” the studio’s website explains. “Working with political and social topics has always been important and close to the heart of m23.”
Scrolling through Frankfurt-based design agency Arndt Benedikt’s website, I get the impression that somebody in the studio is sneaking off every half an hour to immortalise some of the fantastic design work they’re creating in poster form. Or maybe managing partners Felix Gross and Falko Ohlmer are just really into posters – in which case, hurrah! Alongside remarkably advanced work like this campaign for Greenpeace, and some mature corporate design work they make these: bright, dynamic and joyous posters, for everything from a spell teaching at the University of Applied Sciences Mainz to an open air party in Hamburg. They’re informative and really nice to look at, which is all we need from our large-scale printed matter.
Swedish design studio Bedow isn’t new to branding musical enterprises. Back in 2013 it produced a clean, minimal identity for Canadian record label More Than Human. That work was nice, but its latest offering for Stockholm’s internationally renowned store Record Mania might be even better.
When it comes to Tarot cards we’ve pretty much seen it all. Since the arrival of the Rider Waite deck in the early 20th Century nobody in the western world has really changed the game and made The Fool, The Ace of Wands or The Hierophant look all that different from Pamela Colman Smith’s incredible drawings. But recently designer Isabel Lucena has had a crack at it, and the results are surprisingly refreshing.
For a young boy who grew up in the suburban Midlands, the west coast of the USA is really the America of my imagination, far more so than the refined cities of the Eastern seaboard, the vast expanses of the rural states or any of the other myriad landscapes to be found between sea and shining sea.
It’s always refreshing to see a creative being really honest about the challenges of a particular brief before showing us their solution. So it is with Barcelona-based graphic designer and art director Jorge León, who sets up his work for the Amigos skate shop by referring to the “many problems” it had encountered with its brand.
International design agency IS Creative Studio has done some elegant branding work for both rotisserie AND grilled chicken restaurants. And both identities look refreshingly tasteful. The studio’s work spans print, product and retail design, and its practice is based on extensive research and a desire to always go beyond the product at hand. Or indeed the chicken. Founded in 2010 by Richard Meza, the agency produces great work that shifts aesthetics seamlessly. From visuals that wouldn’t be out of place on a summer’s day in Capri in 1965, to fast food stereotypes and what is described as “type [broken up] to simulate chunks of fruit swimming happily in cream,” it’s a bunch of consistently impressive design work.
It’s little surprise that Mike Lemanski’s graphic design work has been something of an It’s Nice That favourite, and since we last posted about him in 2013 he’s not let his style slip. Mike’s site boasts some beautiful, mature designs for Feuilleton magazine, which takes articles from various international publications such as The New York Times, translates them into French and publishes issues every quarter.
When Hanover-based designers Bureau Hardy Seiler and web design agency Created by Monkeys decided to pitch to design the identity for the Freies Theater Hannover, they found themselves faced with a dilemma. The theatre hosts every flavour of live performance going, from puppetry and musical shows to experimental dance, and all in one flexible and family-friendly space. How could they create a graphic language to match that?
Illustrator and art director Charlotte Delarue’s varied work shows her to be an uncommonly talented illustrator, conjuring incredibly realistic portraits out of paper and pencil safe in the knowledge that she doesn’t need to do anything more to make them impressive. Her art direction is of another ilk entirely, however – she works with the likes of electro acts Chromeo, Justice and Kavinsky to draw up impactful logotypes and album artwork concepts that can be spotted from miles away, from the golden legs which reappear on almost every Chromeo album cover to Kavinsky’s mysterious blue-tinged scenes.
When you’ve got a load of Christmas stock to flog at the start of the new year there’s only one way to go; have a big sale. But everyone else has had that exact same idea, and it’s a pain in the arse to make a sale look good right? Wrong! If you’re smart you’ll hire Bordeaux’s Bureau Parade to come up with a bespoke solution to communicate your low, low prices. Geometric shapes, bold colours and a playful use of typography meant that everyone knew about the sweet deals at Bordeaux’s most high-end shoe retailer, Michard Ardillier, without the store having to Xerox a bunch of giant red signs à la Tie Rack. Nice solution to an often overlooked problem if you ask us.
We’re big fans of Comet Substance, graphic designer Ronny Hunger’s poster-producing alter-ego. Since we last featured him back at the tail end of 2013 Ronny has shifted from the Xerox collage aesthetic to slicker lines and high production values, without losing any of the depth or attention to idiosyncratic details of his earlier work.
