September Industry » London

SI Special – Construct: Part 1

admin — Fri, 05 Nov 2010 05:41:56 +0000

Editorial
What better way to end the week than with another 2 part special? ;)
In the spotlight today is none other than Construct who describe themselves as being “not your typical design studio” but instead a design boutique, which reflects its size, its clientele and its dedication to the authentic, the specialist and the sophisticated. It also reflects a commitment to carefully considered, beautifully crafted and ethical solutions for identities, packaging and print. But Construct often breaks out of the traditional parameters of design to help clients achieve more ambitious goals, taking it into the realms of brand positioning, customer experiences, editorial content and innovation. Luxury hotels, chic fashion houses, elegant cultural spaces and unique ateliers feature on their client list. For more information you can check out their website below. I hope you enjoy the fine selection of work below and a big thank you once again to Georgia and Peter for making this feature possible.

www.constructlondon.com

Athenaeum – Hotel Identity and Brand Positioning
The five star Athenaeum is a stone’s throw from open expanses of Green Park and is fronted by an exciting ‘living wall’ garden by Patrick Blanc. Typically, Construct’s involvement went beyond the usual parameters of design, involving the studio in a full blown programme to redefine and communicate the ‘family friendly’ hotel’s offer. It included picnic menus and running maps for the park, a Housekeeper’s Cupboard menu of essential travel items, gifts and treats, bicycles, kites and buggies for outdoor pursuits, and ipods – sourced bright red to link with the new ‘London’ colour palette of black, white, gold and red. The little red bird of the identity is perched on the ‘h’ of a Bodoni Classic logotype.

Maybourne’s Food and Beverages Guide – Concept and Editorial Design
Construct’s no nonsense insiders’ guide, ‘You are where you eat’, celebrates food and drink at Claridge’s, The Connaught and The Berkeley. The pocket moleskin-esque volume has sophisticated drinking and eating in the Capital covered seven days a week, from power breakfasts and scintillating cocktails at The Berkeley, leisurely lunches and traditional high teas at Claridge’s, to gourmet dining and fine wines at The Connaught.

Chris Craymer, Romance – Book Design and Promotional Campaign
The book Romance is the culmination of an eight-year personal project by the New York based British fashion photographer Chris Craymer. In her role as brand director of Mulberry, Construct’s Georgia Fendley helped to forge a link between the photographer and fashion house. The collaboration inspired a series of store promotions and windows on the romance theme, and private view exhibitions in London, New York and Hong Kong.

Claridges – Brand Identity
Construct’s extensive and ongoing design programme for this luxury Mayfair hotel expresses the hotel’s main distinguishing features: an Art Deco heritage, timeless glamour, and uniquely attentive form of traditional English service.

The hotel’s crest has been redrawn and a refined version of the typeface SangBleu (Blue Blood) for the logotype has been introduced to express the hotel’s heritage with elegance and restraint. It sits comfortably with the bold elements of Construct’s art deco-influenced palette, with its confident colours of jade, gold, white and black, architecturally inspired chevrons, ‘20s-resonent typefaces and an attitude to imagery inspired by the extensive Claridge’s archive.

Maybourne Papers – Editorial Design and Content
This is another example of Construct pushing the boundaries of a design studio’s involvement in client projects. With design and editorial content by Construct, each of the three newspapers for Claridge’s, The Connaught and The Berkeley has a distinct tone of voice but shared design elements that quietly reinforce their mutual Maybourne Hotel Group ownership. The quarterly newspapers are for guests and enjoy a print run 30,000.

Espelette Menus
Designed for the all day dining concept at the Connaught, Espelette is under the direction of chef Hélène Darroze. Serving breakfast, coffee, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner. Our brief was to provide a reflection of the changing pace of the day. Inspired by Sol Lewitt we created a rich, bold graphic palette using 6 special colours for each menu. A colour palette was created for each occassion and menus are rotated through the day. We applied the graphic to all menu surfaces and enjoyed the change in direction of stripes created by the construction of the menus creating verticals meeting horizontals. Construct also created the logotype inspired by French period typography and hand drawn with an energy and freshness appropriate for the venue.

William Hall

admin — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:44:19 +0000

Darwin’s Dogs Book Design
Design William Hall

Emma Townshend explains the world-changing theory of evolution by natural selection for a non-science audience, interspersing an enthralling biography of Charles Darwin and his pet dogs. The final chapter brings the story up-to-date, filling in the details that Darwin would be fascinated to learn if he were alive today.

Our first popular science book, the design had to appeal to a mass market while communicating that the book is accessible but serious.

The geometric cover image gives the book a strong and memorable presence from afar, both in-store and online. A closer view reveals a play on the classic chimp-to-man evolutionary sketch. The book is set formally in Caslon and uses the bottom right hand corner of every right hand page to animate a running dog.

Highly recommended as a Christmas present for dog lovers, or for anyone who feels they haven’t quite got to grips with the detail of the theory of evolution.

What an excellent way to start December with two brand new projects from William Hall. Again I’ve taken advantage of the multipage capabilities of SI, so you can see the other project by visiting page 2 below ;) .

Page 1 2

Greenspace

admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 01:31:36 +0000

Euro 2008 football tournament Poster
Design Greenspace

“Greenspace were asked to design a poster for the Euro 2008 football tournament for inclusion within Grafik magazine’s June 2008 edition. As had been the tradition for previous football tournaments, the brief was to build awareness for the tournament while functioning as an appealing ‘wall chart’ for the football following members of the magazine’s readership. The ‘Party That Never Happened’ ironically celebrates the failure of the UK to qualify for Euro 2008 in a distinct, humorous way. The photograph of 100′s of uneaten cheese sticks in black on black creates a funereal ambience. By ‘celebrating’ the absence of a domestic team, the poster maintained relevance for UK fans within the graphic design community and served its purpose as a football wall chart.”

It took me some long, hard digging to find this link, but I think we can all agree that it was worth it in the end. Greenspace is an independent brand consultancy that offers creative thinking and inspiring ideas to deliver effective brand solutions built on the pillars of advertising, experiential marketing and brand identity. With this particular piece they once again prove that: ‘black is still the new black.’
(PS. I’ll see if I can get hold of some larger /images).

Guy Sargent

admin — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 02:55:22 +0000

Images taken from the ‘What lies beneath the surface‘ series.
Photography Guy Sargent

“‘What lies beneath the surface’ is an ongoing long-term project begun in 2006, which examines both landscape & architecture and is constantly evolving.”

For those of you that aren’t familiar with Guy Sargent’s: ‘What lies beneath the surface’ series, I suggest you get acquainted now. Beautiful work.

Zip Design

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:05:54 +0000

Punk Films Identity & Collateral
Design Zip Design

I know Dave spotted this earlier on in the week, but just look at this slick Identity for Punk Films. How could I ignore that?!

SampsonMay

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:46:32 +0000

It’s been a while, but SampsonMay have finally got round to updating their site: new work, some layout changes, the whole shebang (well sort of) you see Ricky and co. have yet to add the “finishing touches” as it were, but rest assured, their website should be completed later this year.
Thanks again to Ricky for the heads up and the kind words regarding SI.

Them

admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 08:31:13 +0000

Some really nice work by Them. You know where you saw it first ;)
Pictured are various pieces of print and brand development work designed for photographer Annabel Williams.

Fold7

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:46:00 +0000

Brand new website and work from Fold7 London.
Pictured is the first catalogue they developed for the UK branch of Muji, using the simplest background imagery in keeping with the brand’s purist values.

Navyblue

admin — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 10:05:23 +0000

New projects and a brand new website (which resizes your browser you have been warned) from Edinburgh, London, Budapest and Johannesburg based agency Navyblue.
Pictured are some of the various catalogues they have designed for The Corn Exchange Gallery, a private gallery dedicated to the development of young emerging artists.

KentLyons

admin — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:33:33 +0000

SI fanboys KentLyons (in particular Ric) were kind enough to send me some large /images of the sleeve artwork they designed for Square One on the Freerange imprint. They have also updated their website with some new projects, so feel free to have a gander.
More /images of the sleeve to come soon so watch this space.