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APA Identity
Font Used: Helvetica Neue

APA’s (Angus Pond Architects) aim is to be ‘independent, optimistic and free’. The practice has a unique approach, defined by the use of interesting materials and led by an ambition to ‘provide buildings, objects and spaces with a strong sense of purpose, meaning and emotion’. APA felt strongly that they did not want their practice represented by a traditional logo or wordmark, but instead, they were interested in the development of an ‘anti-logo’ which is dynamic and free to evolve and reflect their reactive working method.

Our solution was to develop a graphic pattern, based around geometrical interpretations of the lowercase letters ‘apa’. This pattern can be reconfigured in numerous different ways to create a flexible identity system. The challenge was to produce an ever-changing pattern while retaining a clear and recognisable identity. On letterheads and business cards the pattern is reproduced using a combination of blind embossing and delicate printed line. On the website the pattern comes alive as an animation. There are three variations of the animation which are linked to APA’s three key areas of work: buildings, objects and spaces.

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MoreySmith: Fifteen Newspaper
Fonts Used: Logotype – Bespoke, Body copy – Helvetica Neue

‘Fifteen’ is a newspaper designed for interior designers and architects MoreySmith in celebration of fifteen years of business. The newspaper consists of project highlights from the practice’s portfolio with client quotes. The cover contains a fold-out project timeline. The newspaper and its visual language is an important part of our identity for MoreySmith.

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Ellis Miller Architects Identity
Font Used: Helvetica Neue

Ellis Miller architects’ ethos is rooted in the modernist British architectural tradition. They design sustainable, humane buildings which are sensitive to their context. In our early discussions with the practice, key phrases used to describe their work emerged such as ‘brutal simplicity’ and ‘making the everyday beautiful’. These became drivers in our conceptual approach to the identity. We created a bold, typographic logotype based on vertical, structural connections between the letter forms.

We applied the logotype to various media in a number of ways. It is screen-printed onto raw cardboard CD covers, stencilled directly onto the weathered yard office doors and animated for digital use such as the website and screensavers. A bold colour palette and rigorous typography form the visual language which is applied across all office communication material. We also developed the website which forms an integral part of the identity.

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Stanton Williams: Volume
Font: Logotype: Bespoke, Body copy: Avant Garde

Volume is a book documenting the first 25 years of internationally renowned architects, Stanton Williams. The book was conceived to be forward-looking rather than retrospective and represents a shift in the work and working methods of the practice with the emergence, over recent years, of large-scale buildings and public realm projects. As well as presenting the practice to an external audience the book was also conceived as a ‘spiritual guide’ and manual for the Stanton Williams studio. Working closely with the directors throughout the entire process, we designed the book in parallel with the practice identity. This provided a unique opportunity to extend and develop the visual language beyond the basic communication requirements. The stencil font, that we created for the logotype, was extended into a full alphabet and is used for the front cover and chapter divider pages.

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Crafts Council: Japanese Jewellery exhibition
Font Used: Helvetica Neue

We designed the marketing identity, exhibition graphics and gallery guide for Contemporary Japanese Jewellery, an exhibition at the Crafts Council, London. The exhibition revealed the depth and development of contemporary jewellery-making in Japan. Working closely with Stickland Coombe architects, we produced a labelling system for the display cases that played on the sushi-style conveyor belt concept, this worked in conjunction with the printed gallery guide.

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Design Museum: Brit Insurance Designs of the Year Awards 2010
Font Used: Helvetica Neue

Designs of the Year is the Design Museum’s annual awards event. An exhibition showcases approximately one hundred of the most innovative and forward looking designs from around the world and the winners are announced at an event held at the Design Museum, London.

We were commissioned to design the exhibition and related graphic material for the 2010 awards which we applied to all communication materials including invitations, event graphics and the awards catalogue.

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Derwent London: The River & the Railway
Fonts Used: Le Corbusier, Helvetica Neue

The River and the Railway tells the story of property investment company Derwent London. The book outlines the 25 year history of Derwent Valley Holdings and its merger with London Merchant Securities in 2007 which has its origins in the nineteenth century. The book reveals Derwent’s philosophy and approach and how it works closely with leading architects, artists and designers to produce inspiring office spaces in London. The book consists of 160 pages with a case bound cloth cover and slipcase. Screen printed card dividers are inserted at the beginning of each chapter. A six page fold-out features a photo-montage of a fictitious street composed entirely of Derwent London buildings. We were involved in all stages of the process from planning and story-boarding to design. We worked closely with Derwent London and writer Hugh Pearman. The book was produced in an edition of 2,000 copies with a limited run of 100 slipcases.

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V&A Ceramics Galleries
Fonts Used: Helvetica Neue

The V&A’s ceramics collections are one of its greatest glories and unrivalled in the world. The galleries were purpose-built in 1909 and were refurbished and reconfigured by architects Stanton Williams in 2009. The display presents over 3,000 objects which tell the story of ceramics, from the earliest Chinese pottery to contemporary ceramic art. We designed the gallery identity and interpretation graphics, working closely with architects Stanton Williams and the V&A curatorial team. There is a sequence of seven connected galleries, each with an individual theme. At the heart of the display is a rigorous label information system which can be easily updated by the V&A. The labels are printed onto magnetic substrate which carefully integrates with the display cases. Large scale graphics, such as dates, are painted directly onto wall surfaces to provide narrative and aid navigation. Relief letters are inlaid into the ceiling cornicing listing the rich vocabulary of the ceramic process.

In the gallery devoted to materials and techniques, a unique piece of low-tech interactive furniture, ‘Basic Making’, explains the process of making ceramics. The display is designed to appeal to a family audience – engaging and educational without becoming over-simplistic.

From the Editor

It was only a matter of time before I featured the newly updated Cartlidge Levene website—because events like this only occur once every five or so years ;) They’ve gone out with the old flash site and in with html, oh and did I forget to mention that they have a plethora of new work as well? ;)

If you’re not familiar with Cartlidge Levene, let me break it down for you: Established in 1987, legends of British typographic design, a studio where some of the best got their start still going strong today. For more of their work head on over to the archives.

Thank you once again to Melissa and the rest of the Cartlidge Levene crew for making this feature possible and as always for the support :)

www.cartlidgelevene.co.uk

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Biennale di Venezia
The Venice Biennale is the worlds most exciting visual arts event that takes place once every two years in Venice, Italy. The 53rd International Art Exhibition, curated by Daniel Birnbaum, comprised works by over 90 artists from all over the world.

The assignment was to create a new strong visual identity that would communicate the theme‚ Making Worlds. The visual identity should both reflect the atmosphere of the Art Exhibition, keep all activities together and create an extraordinary interest.

The design concept for‚ Making Worlds‚ is a graphic language with a visible connection to the world, that stands strong and clear in its own communication. We combined elements from something truly universal‚ all the flags of the world‚ and created something new. The making of worlds with abstract forms.

Font used: Caslon 540

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Ohmine
A contemporary take on Sake.

Takeshi Akiyama is a exclusive sake manufacturer based in southern Japan. For generations, his family has produced sake in three qualities; Junmai, Junmai Ginjo, Junmai Daiginjo. The quality of the sake is determined by the percentage of the original rice grain that is used in the brewing process. The lesser the better. And that is also the core idea of our design. The label on the bottle of the best quality sake, Daiginjo, only shows one single grain. The Unique White bottle has à traditional cap and screenprinted text. In addition to the bottles, we have created the corporate identity.

Fonts use: Berthold Imago BQ

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Stadium
Norrköping-based Stadium AB, the largest sporting goods retailer in Scandinavia, is an authentic full-line sporting goods retailer offering a broad assortment of brand name sporting goods equipment, apparel, and footwear in a specialty store environment.

Stockholm Design Lab, together with TEArk, got the assignment during fall 2005 to further develop Stadium’s corporate identity, including the next level of Stadium stores concept.

Font used: Stadium Sans

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IKEA
IKEA is a Swedish home furnishings company with 28 distribution centres and a global network of 200 stores attracting a total of 410 million visitors.

The assignment was to create, in close cooperation with the client, a new packaging programme for more than 8000 non-furniture IKEA products.

Stockholm Design Lab created an innovative packaging programme that is simple, cost efficient and environmentally defendable. The programme supports logistics and simplifies the buying process for millions of customers worldwide. The open package wraps in and reveals the product. Stockholm Design Lab created a unique graphic design program for IKEA with includes pictograms, symbols, a unique typography that clarifies the content.

Fonts used: IKEA Sans

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Sav
A Sparkling Elixir Reminiscent of Spring. From the Virginal Wine-making Region of Jämtland. Original recipe from 1785. Made of birch sap.

Stockholm Design Lab has created the total identity inspired by the birch and the northern Scandinavian pureness. Scope of work; brand name, graphic identity, photography language, packaging and web.

Font used: Univers

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Royal College of Music
KMH is one of the oldest and most prestigious music colleges in Sweden. We are very proud of the new visual identity which has been developed by Stockholm Design Lab and was launched on May 5 at their current premises. The new visual identity will be matched in a couple of years with a complete re-make of the college, including a new main building. This surely makes out a clear and exciting take-off for KMH’s journey ahead.

Font used: Graphik & Mercury Text G1

Ladies and gentlemen: Stockholm Design Lab, SI Special, need I say more? ;)

Stockholm Design Lab on the name:
Stockholm Design Lab

STOCKHOLM is our geographic lynchpin, but we work internationally. Nevertheless, our Scandinavian origins help to create relevant, functional solutions that reflect and influence the society.

DESIGN is assumed to be our starting-point, but in Scandinavia, we are alone in defying all attempts at disciplinary restrictions. Thanks to this cross-border philosophy, we created a brand for ourselves.

THE LABORATORY is the ideal starting-point, but sometimes the desire to experiment takes over scientific reasoning, and vice-versa. Just in case, we keep our suits hidden under the white coats. After all, identity is the ultimate combination of playfulness, disrespectful assault, attention to detail, well-planned strategy and uncompromising business professionalism.

www.stockholmdesignlab.se

Hope you enjoy this feature folks and a big thank you goes out to Mr. Björn Kusoffsky (SDL co-founder) and Mr. Daniel Söderstedt (SDL designer) for making this rather inspiring feature possible. ;)

If you’re new here, don’t forget to Subscribe, FFFFOUND! & follow SI on Twitter for your weekly dose of visual crack. ;)

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MadeThought: Ten Years Yesterday
— An Exhibition of Curiosity Cabinets Presenting our Thoughts, Work and Craft at Woodbridge & Rees

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A 30 minute film showing 23 pieces of work for the exhibition ‘Ten Years Yesterday’

This is contemporary graphic design at its very finest. Period.

All I’ll say before I leave with you with a link to much larger versions of the images above – is appreciate this while you can because it will probably be another 10 years before we see anything like this again… FYI: For SI’s international readers and those of you who won’t be able to make it, this is the exhibition photographed in its entirety with video footage to come shortly ;)

www.madethought.com

Big thank you once again to Ben @ MadeThought for making this feature possible. If you (dear reader) are still reading this, expect another exclusive feature from MT soon…

If you’re new here, don’t forget to Subscribe, FFFFOUND! & follow SI on Twitter for your weekly dose of visual crack. ;)

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Barbican
Various printed items

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Barbican Curve Exhibition Graphics & Communications
Gallery guides, invitations, exhibition graphics and flyers for an artgallery which hosts a series of new commissions created for the space by contemporary artists. The identity acts as a visual analogy; the grid representing the permanance of the space in which the artists info and /images are flowed into.

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Barbican Identity Guidelines
Digital version available to view here

So I was casually browsing through my image archives the other day (like you do) and I stumbled across a very large set of North related images that readers of this site haven’t seen online before. I spent about 5 minutes considering whether to feature them or not, but in the end I decided to save them for another day – Sorry about that!

Instead, I’ve featured a nice selection of North’s timeless work for the Barbican. These images were previously seen in OK-RM’s portfolio (they designed these pieces at North prior to setting up OK-RM), but they were taken down a few years back to make way for new work and now, their new site (a proper feature will come soon).

Nevertheless, many of you who know North well will see these images a think to yourself: “legendary work, brings back good memories,” but many of you who are either new to SI and/or North will not be familiar with this work at all, and that is one of the reasons why I decided to go ahead with this new series in the first place – design this good needs to be appreciated by all, it shouldn’t stay locked away in a computer folder and admired by a select few.

Enjoy and I hope you all have a great long weekend. If you have any suggestions for future “SI Classics” features, feel free to comment, tweet or send an email.

www.northdesign.co.uk

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OR Books identity and website
Identity, print, book, and website design for a new publisher that seeks to create an alternative to traditional models through on-demand and multi-platform production and distribution. The blunt, bold identity system incorporates subtly irregular typography to contrast with the digital focus of the company.

Fonts: Amalia

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Museo Tamayo graphic identity
Located in Mexico City, the Museo Tamayo is a contemporary art museum that also houses at its core a collection of works by Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo. Under its new director Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy, the Museo Tamayo has refocused its program to present a wider range of activities including programming, events, and commissioned projects. Project Projects designed an identity for the museum and a publication system for its in-house magazine, “Rufino.” In the identity, “Museo” is signified by an angled “M” that floats within each design at different positions. The resulting identity exists in a perpetually shifting state, subverting the assumed authority of the singular, monolithic institutional identity by offering one that is responsive, dynamic, and hybrid in its place.

Rufino is a biannual journal published by Museo Tamayo in Mexico City. Taking its title from the first name of the the museum’s founder, Mexican artist Rufino Tamayo, the journal presents a range of essays and artworks connected to the museum’s new contemporary art program. Inspired by popular small-format publications such as Selecciones, Reader’s Digest, and TV Guide, the magazine emphasizes portability, readability, and accessibility.

Fonts: Fedra Sans Mono

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Re-Shuffle: Notions of an Itinerant Museum
Project Projects worked with twelve graduate students from Bard College’s Center for Curatorial Studies to conceptualize and produce this catalog and exhibition. Forty-seven artists and writers responded to the curators’ prompt regarding the relevance of cultural institutions. Visitors to the exhibition, located at Art in General in New York, assembled their own portable exhibition from the provided screenprinted boxes, stacks of cards, and mailing labels.

Fonts: Franklin Gothic

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Five Houses, Ten Details
Edward R. Ford’s Five Houses, Ten Details relates the author’s deep exploration of architectural detail though the six-year design and construction of his own house.

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Dieu Donné
Identity system, publications, and printed ephemera for Dieu Donné, an organization dedicated to experimental collaborations in paper with artists.

Fonts: Akzidenz Grotesk, DTL Fleischmann

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Stan VanDerBeek
Publication presenting collages, writings, and documentation of works by artist and experimental filmmaker Stan VanDerBeek (1927-1984), published in a small edition by Guild & Greyshkul gallery.

Fonts: Bureau

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Rachel Uffner Gallery
Identity, print, and website design for a newly-opened gallery on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. The identity system uses a customized version of the 1970s typeface Trooper Roman.

Fonts: Trooper Roman, FF Bau

http://www.racheluffnergallery.com/

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Design and its Publics
Poster/mailer for a conference organized by the Design Institute at the University of Minnesota. The conference featured a group of curators, critics, and historians discussing new public architecture in the Twin Cities, as well as the exhibition strategies of a range of international design institutions. The poster design juxtaposes amateur photographs of these buildings as found on flickr.com, overprinting the event and speaker information in fluorescent orange ink.

Fonts: Galaxie Polaris, Arnhem

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Timelapse
This catalogue for a traveling Chinese / Swiss exhibition focuses on 12 artists who approach the idea of time as a malleable phenomena. By distributing the curator’s bilingual essay over the entire length of the catalogue, a discrete text is significantly extended in duration as oversized folios count higher and higher. Plate pages, on glossy stock and cut narrower than the book’s full trim size, provide an opportunity for readers to experience the book at a faster pace by jumping directly from one plate section to the next.

Fonts: ITC Bernase, Balance

Another week, yet another studio from New York featured on SeptemberIndustry (It’s starting to become a habit now!) On to be business: Project Projects is a studio whom many of you may already be familiar with – they’re a small, versatile team of 5 designers from New York that produce beautifully crafted work with a strong emphasis on typography and communication, for clients in art and architecture to name a few.

They were indeed featured on SI in the past, but to be honest with you, that post pretty “anti-climatic” as it contains only 1 image! So to give them the feature that they truly deserve, I handpicked a selection of some of their best work (the new stuff and some classics) for your viewing pleasure. Unfortunately a few of the images above weren’t available in high-res, but at least they’re bigger than 500px ;)

Have a great weekend folks and thank you once again to Prem, Marina and Chris for making this feature possible.

projectprojects.com

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East
We created a new brand identity and website for East in 2007, which was very successful for them. They needed a bit of an overhaul last year, mainly to get their site fully functional on iPads and suchlike.

Fonts: We used a customised version of an unreleased typeface by Geoffroy Tobe for the logotype and Akzidenz Grotesk for everything else

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Timberland
This was the second Press Kit we created for Timberland, all printed by Team Impression with a lovely custom-made envelope. We’re currently working on a special hand-customised invite for their new collection.

Fonts: Rockwell

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Future Poll
Identity design for Future Poll, a global consumer and market research company operating alongside trend forecasters at The Future Laboratory. ‘Sexy Data’ was the brief in two words. The identity and stationery seen here are actually only a very small part of the job – reports, presentations, infographics and guidelines for the whole operation are also underway.

Fonts: We used a specially modified version of Aveny, created for the project by the wonderful people at A2-Type, as well as Replica and Pica.

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Factories’ by John Spinks for Albam
We’ve known John for years, and so were very happy when he asked us to design this beautiful book of images for British clothing label Albam. They, almost uniquely in the 21st century, make all of their clothes in the UK, and the book documents that manufacturing process. This is hopefully the first in a series of books by Albam.

Fonts: AG Old Face

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Pick Me Up 2011
Exhibition graphics, invitation and brochure for the annual contemporary graphic art fair at Somerset House.
Graphic design by No Days Off and Anthony Burrill.

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Pure Groove
This publishing company/record shop/performance space in West Smithfields needed a brand overhaul. We gave them a flexible identity that could be updated as the years went on. The inspiration for this job came from a quote by John Peel about The Fall: ‘always the same, always different’.

Fonts: Courier, Akzidenz Grotesk

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Touch
We created a series of promotional mailers for this digital retouching/processing company, all printed on a very tactile paper from Fenner. You just can’t help Touching ‘em …

Fonts: Avant Garde

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The W Project
Concept, identity design, curation and exhibition graphics for The W Project initiative.

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Moritz Junge
Moritz is a German costume designer living and working in London. We met while working on Paloma Faith’s first album campaign, which Moritz created all the amazing outfits for. He needed an identity and simple holding page/blog design. We all liked the idea of ‘dressing up’ lots of Ms in costume, so spent a few happy days researching display typefaces and millions of hours editing them all down to the final selection.

Fonts: P22 Underground Demi, plus lots of odd display fonts

Today, it gives me great pleasure to share with you a tasty selection of old and new projects by environmentally friendly, London based graphic design consultancy No Days Off.

Founded in 2006 by Patrick Duffy and later joined by co-director Teo Connor, No Days Off are specialists in brand identity, design for print & publishing, exhibition graphics and web design. They achieve a high level of diversity by working from a foundation of thorough research, in-depth knowledge of print and production issues, and passion for their craft; every client receives a solution that is specially tailored to their unique criteria.

Thank you once again to Patrick for providing the high-res imagery in today’s feature and for being the true Gentleman that he is. He also insists you check out their blog (see below) :)

www.nodaysoff.com
www.nodaysoff.com/blog/

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The Gwangju Biennale — Identity
The Gwangju Biennale, Asia’s first biennial of contemporary art, was launched in 1995 in Gwangju, South Korea. Base was brought on board to design the identity of the 2008 biennial, titled Titled Annual Report: A Year in Exhbitions. Based on the focus of this biennial—artwork from exhibitions staged between January 2007 and September 2008—we created a graphic “07” and “08” as bookends that can bring together of content of any type or size. In this way, the content of the expo becomes part of the identity itself.

Font: Galaxie Polaris

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De Bijloke (Ghent) — Identity
De Bijloke is a music center in Ghent, Belgium hosting a variety of concerts, from ancient music to symphonic, from classical Western and Eastern music to jazz. Base created an identity for this music center, with the goal of reaching a new public and bringing classical music to life. A vibrant yellow dot enlivens the medieval building and the visuals expected of classical
music. This graphic element was applied to signage, and translated to typography.

Font: Bijloke Bold

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Pantone Plus — Campaign Identity & Packaging
Approached by Pantone, the international standard for color, Base built and identity, packaging, and launch campaign for Pantone Plus, the successor to the Pantone Matching System. Using Helvetica, we designed a logo lockup with the new name and framed it in the context of the iconic Pantone chip. Photography and props by Maurice Scheltens & Liesbeth Abbens.

Font: Helvetica

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XXL — Identity
XXL is a global communications company specializing in fashion and accessories, beauty, and lifestyle. Identity for this Spanish communication agency. It had to be as bold as the name. Starting with the idea of geometric pieces talking with each other, we constructed a logo with a stencil typeface, in extra, extra-large characters. The tagline “brands in action” clarifies XXL’s area of expertise.

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La Force de l’Art, Grand Palais — Communications
The French government asked Base to develop a Communications package for La Force de l’Art, an exhaustive exhibition about French contemporary art, in 2006. The event took place in Paris’s Grand Palais, which was undergoing renovations at the time. We took advantage of the building renovations to create a youthful approach to the event. A dripping version of the stencil typeface by Milton Glaser was redesigned by BaseLab to give us the basis for a larger visual communications system.

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Delvaux — Identity Development
Founded in 1829 in Brussels, Delvaux is the oldest fine leather luxury goods company in the world. Base was asked to develop and identity update on the occasion of Delvaux’s 175th anniversary presenting the brand as classic yet contemporary. Starting with the Delvaux logo elements (crown, typeface, date), we created a system of patterns and sublogos. We rejuvenated the look and feel of the campaigns’ art direction and incorporated the tagline “Today.”

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Piu — Identity
The Milan based architecture firm asked Base to develop an unique identity for the firm. We based this identity on a modular typography that originally consisted of plus signs (“piu” means “more”), but ultimately could include any character. Applied to stationery, this typographic system had the peculiarity of prolonging the texts from the face of the folder, cards…

For those of you that don’t know, cosmopolitan design studio Base “specializes in not specializing in graphic design, art direction, audiovisuals and typeface design,” put simply, they produce beautifully executed work no matter what discipline they are working in and it gives me great pleasure to finally share with you (dear reader) a generous selection of their work in high-res.

With 5 offices in 4 different countries, getting this feature together proved to be quite a logistical challenge because, not only was I unsure who to get in touch with, all the images you see above didn’t just come from one studio, they came from three! Nevertheless, this feature wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for Mr. Geoff Cook (Base NY Partner) – Thank you sir – and of course, it wouldn’t be right if I didn’t give a big shout out to Alex (Barcelona), Laure-Anne (Brussels) and Aaron (NY) for sending the high-res images. Thank you guys and a girl ;)

www.basedesign.com

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