Design

LogoArchive#5

2 October 2019 in Design Comment

LogoArchive returns with Issue 5 – Technique. The technical limitations of the mid-century—the need for a steady hand and a precise mind for mechanical reproduction—demanded that an exceptional level of care and creativity be given over to shape and space, association and perception. These considerations created a rich corporate and consumer form language and range of graphic techniques. These have been partly marginalised, usurped by modern print and display technologies. They do remain as useful reference points in which to help create a symbol today, one that is enduring, works well in a black or white, can be used with vibrant inks, seductive materials and eye-catching finishes, as well as being displayed in motion on ever more diverse screens types.

LogoArchive Issue 5 focuses on eleven simple techniques, naming them, exemplifying them and offering short commentaries. It serves as an archival and pedagogical document, offering an alternative take on the ubiquitous logo tips article. In this way it looks at things another way around. This alternate viewpoint manifests itself materially in the dual modes of reading the zine, either portrait and symbol first or landscape and text first. By using both a portrait and landscape format, the zine encourages its readers to embrace the full materiality of what began as a digital Instagram project, to view the symbols documented in different ways and to see how the form language of the symbol is diminished or enhanced.

Issue 5 will be printed by WithPrint on G.F Smith Colorplan Ebony 135gsm with multiple passes of white ink on an HP Indigo press. It features 3x 4pp Colorplan Vellum White inserts printed with black and threaded between the pages of the booklet. These are bound with black staples.

Design: Richard Baird / LogoArchive
Publisher: BP&O
Size: 148x210mm

Booklet:
Pages: 10pp + Cover
Paper: Colorplan Ebony 135gsm
Finish: HP Indigo White x5

Insert:
Pages: 12pp
Colour: Colorplan Vellum White 135gsm
Finish: Black

Binding: Black Staples

Buy LogoArchive#5

A-Z of The Designers Republic™

22 September 2019 in Design Comment

A—Z of The Designers Republic™ — AZTDR™

Author: Ian Anderson
Editor: Mark Sinclair
Design: Spin

Limited Edition of 2500

Led by founder and born rebel, Ian Anderson, The Designers Republic™ has shaped graphic communication over the past 30 years through rule-defying music work, provocative self-initiated projects and a fierce commitment to conceptual thinking over style. Now, for the first time in book form, Anderson explores the studio’s output, and its influence on a generation of graphic designers.

AZTDR™ spans over three decades of work – from the studio’s earliest designs for the FON label in the mid-1980s and sleeves for Age of Chance, Chakk and Cabaret Voltaire, right up to its recent projects for The Cinematic Orchestra, Led Bib and the Gulbenkian Foundation. Alongside classic self-initiated TDR™ projects, the 512-page book features an A to Z of everything from campaigns for Evolution Print, Coca-Cola and Nike, through to the studio’s celebrated designs for video games such as Wipeout and Formula Fusion.

TDR™’s special relationship with print is explored through its celebrated contributions to IDEA and Emigre magazines and its 3D>2D book, alongside its work for Manchester School of Art, Gatecrasher, NY Sushi and the studio’s array of music clients. Here, TDR™’s work with Autechre is examined via ten key releases – covering some 34 pages – while the studio’s involvement with Pop Will Eat Itself focuses on some 28 different singles and albums.

There are also expansive sections devoted to TDR™’s designs for Aphex Twin, Moloko, Sun Electric and The Orb, alongside sleeve designs for R&S Records, New Atlantis, a range of Berlin-based labels and, of course, Warp Records.

AZTDR™ includes 250 different album and single covers; 140 prints, posters and flyers; over 130 images of TDR™ print-based and editorial projects; 23 DR Angryman variants; five Coke bottles; four badges; one Swatch watch; a T-shirt, a mug and much, much more.

In Anderson’s words: “September 2019 — 33.3 years after The Designers Republic was declared in SoYo (North of Nowhere), 25 years after a TDR™ book was first discussed and ten years after the fall and rise of The Designers Republic Phase One. As good a time as any for Unit Editions’ AZTDR™. It’s not everything but it’s everything you need to know (for now). You could call it Volume One if it helps. It’s not a monograph, it’s our idea of what ideas look like — a mix(ed) up of what you want to see, and what we want you to see, refereed by Tony, Adrian and Mark at Unit. Hopefully it’s a book about why we do what we do featuring the usual suspects and a few suspect devices. Critics might call it an overview — we call it a mission statement.”

The book also features an extensive and candid in-conversation between Anderson and Unit Editions’ Mark Sinclair. Here, TDR’s founder discusses his pre-design background in the music industry, the genesis of the TDR™ studio and its meteoric rise – encompassing its approach, provocations and relationships with clients – through to its collapse in 2009 and subsequent rebirth.

AZTDR™ is the book they said would never happen. But thanks to 1324 Kickstarter backers, it’s here at last.

Size: 280 x 240mm
Pages: 512 pages
Format: Hardback
Printing: Fluorescent yellow cover with foiled type, three special colour wrap, CMYK + one special colour throughout
Binding: Otabound
Typeface: Suisse Int’l
Printer: Verona Libri

Unit Editions

Where Design is Found Posters

6 September 2019 in Design Comment

Where Design is Found
Exhibition of Tokyo National Museum of Modern Art
2019

Alfa Romeo 33/2 Coupe Speciale, Leonardo Fioravanti

27 August 2019 in Design Comment

Alfa Romeo 33/2 Coupe Speciale
Leonardo Fioravanti
Pininfarina, 1969

Wedged Wonders: Italian Concept Cars, 1968-79

Love triangles? Wedged Wonders unites a collection of era-defining concept cars from the famous carrozzeria, the Italian car body design houses synonymous with avant-garde vehicle styling.

In the late 1960s, these carrozzeria, such as Bertone, Pinfarina and Italdesign, would go head to head during a period of outlandish one-upmanship that would see a trend for straight lines conquering the curve.

The concept car or prototype is the definition of automotive artistry, a symbol of the direction and reputation of its creator. These show cars display new experiments in design, thinking and manufacturing, though they are often never mass produced, remaining as one-offs, ultimately defined by their rarity.

In a nation famed for its celebration of the aesthetic, the outlandish designs from the carrozzeria at the end of the 1960s and throughout the ‘70s would define what became known as the Wedge era, where trapezoids and triangles were king, and cars would look like spaceships.

From the legendary Lancia Stratos Zero (1970) to the lesser-known Jaguar Ascot (1977), Wedged Wonders documents many highlights from the period. Presented in chronological order, the aesthetic principles of the era can be seen to transform, from the stylishly slanted and groundbreaking Alfa Romeo Carabo (1968), through the purposely science-fiction Alfa Romeo Navajo (1976), to the angular, almost boxy, Volvo Tundra (1979), the shapes evolve with the decades. The curves of the ‘60s were in the past, the triangles of the ‘70s would have their day, and the square of the ‘80s was coming.

Docubyte

Alfa Romeo Carabo, Marcello Gandini

24 August 2019 in Design Comment

Alfa Romeo Carabo
Marcello Gandini
Bertone, 1968

Wedged Wonders: Italian Concept Cars, 1968-79

Love triangles? Wedged Wonders unites a collection of era-defining concept cars from the famous carrozzeria, the Italian car body design houses synonymous with avant-garde vehicle styling.

Docubyte

Territoria Identity

19 August 2019 in Design Comment

Territoria Identity

Arquitectura. Experiencia.

Based in Chile, Territoria shapes the built environment with an expansive vision: creating large scale real estate developments focused on bettering the quality of life of those who encounter them. Celebrating their grounded values and philosophy, the redesign of the firm’s brand identity flows witha subtle nuance of tonalities and clarity of vision.

Blok Design