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Unit Editions

Karlssonwilker On America

21 September 2018 in Books Comment

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Karlssonwilker On America
Authors/designers: Karlssonwilker
Editor: Mark Sinclair

Edition of 1000

New York-based design studio Karlssonwilker take on ‘America’ in the debut issue of ON, Unit’s new print platform where designers examine a single subject.

For ON #1, Karlssonwilker examine their adopted home of America in their own inimitable style. As outsiders who have been working in the US for 18 years, Jan Wilker and Hjalti Karlsson – German and Icelandic, respectively – offer up “a compilation of our thoughts and observations on our surroundings and encounters throughout our years in New York”.

The result is a heady mixture of graphics, illustration and photography; charts, diagrams, (definitely not fake) facts and wry observations, centred around an extensive Q&A between Wilker and Unit’s Adrian Shaughnessy.

From thoughts on “design as entertainment” to discussing the challenges of running a design studio in the city that never sleeps, the interview sees Wilker recount his first, eventful 24-hours in New York City in 1999 and frames the studio’s recent move to Ridgewood, Queens after 16 years in Manhattan.

“Over time, we have been slowly digested, and the edges of our hesitation and European arrogance softened away, to be replaced by something American that we now treat as if it had always been part of us.” Karlssonwilker

The ON series

A new range of Unit titles that gives designers the chance to explore unusual and unexpected subjects. Intended as a lo-fi, carte blanche platform, ON will see a wide range of designers and art directors investigating topics that excite and inspire them.

Specifications

Conceived, written and designed by Karlssonwilker
Size: A4
Pages: 52
Colour: Mono Binding: Staple Bound
ISBN: 978-1-9164573-2-4

Unit Editions

Tags Karlssonwilker, Unit Editions

VNIITE: Discovering Utopia: Lost Archives of Soviet Design

31 August 2018 in Books Comment

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VNIITE: Discovering Utopia: Lost Archives of Soviet Design

Authors: Alexandra Sankova and Olga Druzhinina
Editor: Mark Sinclair
Design: Spin

Edition of 2000

We are delighted to announce that VNIITE – Discovering Utopia: Lost Archives of Soviet Design is now available to pre-order. Written by the Moscow Design Museum’s Alexandra Sankova and Olga Druzhinina, the book tells the previously untold story of the VNIITE – the All-Union Scientific Research Institute of Technical Aesthetics.

Formed in Soviet Russia in 1962, by the design visionary Yuri Soloviev, this vast network contained Moscow’s most progressive designers. The ‘Vniitians’, as they were called, designed for the future and developed new theories and approaches to design in the USSR.

But more than fifty years later, the organisation is all but forgotten. It’s hard to fathom how such an institution, dedicated to the promotion of utopian design, in theory and in practice, and the improvement of design standards within the Soviet Union, could have faded so far from view. After the disintegration of the USSR, the VNIITE and its library of images and prototypes were presumed lost.

Until now, that is. Thanks to the efforts of the Moscow Design Museum – and the discovery of the personal archives of some of the VNIITE designers – the story of this remarkable organisation is being pieced back together.

Alongside images of sketches, models and prototypes, the book also includes a selection of covers of one of the USSR’s hidden gems of graphic design – the VNIITE’s monthly journal, Technical Aesthetics. Showcased together for the first time, these covers chart Soviet graphic trends from the 1960s to the early 1990s.

In the pages of this book you can see some of the more compelling examples of utopian Soviet design. As the designer Paula Scher notes, the work offers a balance between ‘the communist desire for a perfectly-designed world against the real world of human competitiveness and inequality’.

Size: 240mm×170mm
Pages: 224
Print: Four colour litho
Cover: Foiled
ISBN: 978-1-9164573-0-0

Unit Editions

Tags design, Soviet Design, Unit Editions, VNIITE

Vaughan Oliver: Archive

24 August 2018 in Books Comment

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Vaughan Oliver: Archive – now available to pre-order
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin

Edition of 900

Book

Thanks to the generosity of the nearly 1000 people who backed our Kickstarter campaign to publish the two-volume set ‘Vaughan Oliver: Archive’, we are able to print a few hundred additional copies of this important publication.

Both volumes (they come in a slipcase) offer a celebration of the Vaughan Oliver archive, a treasure house of graphic delights. Oliver is the designer who kept the stuff other designers threw away: proofs, running sheets, paper labels for vinyl records, original artwork for classic album covers, videotapes, books and the weird ephemera that was the source of inspiration for many of his most famous works.

‘Vaughan Oliver: Archive’ is in fact two books. The first (‘Materials and fragments’) is arranged around a set of themes – colour, typography, the body, mystery, etc. It also features a selection of his exquisitely designed press ads – most of them unseen since the day they were published in the music press.

The second book (‘Remnants and desires’) features a selection of the PMTs (Photo-Mechanical Transfer prints) that Oliver used as the basis for many of his most famous designs. Some can be recognised as forming parts of famous album covers – others (like his test lettering for an aborted Led Zeppelin project) have never been seen outside of the v23 studio.

The book(s), designed by Spin and written by Adrian Shaughnessy, feature many previously unseen works, including extensive interviews with Oliver, and with contributions from Chris Bigg, his long-standing creative accomplice.

Specifications

Book One
Printed: Litho

Title: Vaughan Oliver: Archive
Materials and fragments
Size: 210mm × 280mm

Pages: 432

Colours: CMYK Toyo inks (with higher colour values achieved)
Binding: Perfect bound. PUR glued
Cover stock: 300 gsm Munken Pure
Book stock: 80 gsm Munken Pure
Sticker: 150 gsm Fasson White Manilla Perm

Book Two
Printed: Litho
Title: Vaughan Oliver: Archive
Remnants and desires

Size: 210mm × 280mm

Pages: 164
Colour: Black Toyo ink throughout
Cover: 300 gsm Munken Pure
Pages: 80 gsm Munken Pure

Binding: Perfect bound. PUR glued.
Sticker: 150 gsm Fasson White Manilla Perm

Slip Case

Printed: Silkscreen
Colours: 
Black with bespoke-mix flouro

Further details
Printed on Komori Lithrone press
Hybrid Print Technology (a Göteborgstryckeriets special technique)
Cold UV drying
Stochastic screen / FM screen
ISO standard 9001

Printer – Göteborgstryckeriets. Sweden

ISBN: 978-0-9956664-8-1

Unit Editions

Tags Spin, Unit Editions, Vaughan Oliver

Paula Scher – Works

24 March 2018 in Books Comment

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Paula Scher: Works (concise edition) [Unit 37]
Editors: Tony Brook & Adrian Shaughnessy
Design: Spin

Edition of 2000

‘Paula Scher is the most influential woman graphic designer on the planet’
Ellen Lupton
Abstract: The Art of Design, Netflix

This monograph covers Paula’s early days in the music industry as an art director with CBS and Atlantic records; the launch of her first studio, Koppel & Scher; and her 25-year engagement with Pentagram.

It also provides an up-to-date look at Paula’s idiosyncratic hand-painted maps, part of her prolific artistic practice that complements her still-growing graphic legacy.

The book also a visual record of contemporary New York’s urban fabric, indelibly transformed by the designer’s innovative approach to environmental graphics and identity design: from MoMA to Charter Schools; from the High Line to Shake Shack.

Her logos for global corporations and cultural institutions have cemented her reputation as a giant of identity design.

A large section of the book is devoted to the designer’s socially and politically motivated posters, New York Times Op-Ed illustrations and campaign work.

In a long interview, Paula’s frank and open words lay bare the reality of design culture in the USA. The 326-page book is designed by Spin, under the creative direction of Tony Brook.

Paula Scher, the ‘accidental postmodernist,’ has come to be seen as an emblem of American design: a ‘master conjurer of the instantly familiar.’ (ted.com)

Size: 203mm×258mm
Pages: 326
Print: Four colour litho
Cover: Foiled with inside flaps
ISBN: 978-0-9956664-7-4

Unit Editions

Tags design, graphic design, Paula Scher, Unit Editions

Herb Lubalin: Typographer – Unit Editions

23 February 2018 in Books Comment

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Herb Lubalin: Typographer [Unit 25]
Editors: Adrian Shaughnessy & Tony Brook
Consultant Editor: Alexander Tochilovsky
Design: Spin

Edition of 2000

“This book, published by the London-based design publisher Unit Editions, focuses solely on [Lubalin’s] style of typography design, which Lubalin described both as “graphic expressionism” and “conceptual typography.” It also features lots of lovely spreads from the radical Ginzburg magazines, all of which have gone down in graphic design history.”

Fast Co Design

Herb Lubalin claimed not to be a great typographer. ‘In fact,’ he said, ‘I’m terrible, because I don’t follow the rules.’ This new book proves the opposite. On every page it features Lubalin’s typographic genius (logos, layouts, lettering and typefaces), and places him at the forefront of 20th century typographic innovation.

He even had names for what he did: he described it as ‘graphic expressionism’ or ‘conceptual typography’. Using his ability to adapt, merge and create new typographic forms, he was able to enhance and amplify meaning in ways that hadn’t been seen before.

Having published two books celebrating the genius of Herb Lubalin as a graphic designer working in many spheres, this new volume concentrates solely on Lubalin’s typography.

It comes with new texts, new design, new photography, and lots of previously unpublished material – and with a price tag that makes it accessible to a wide audience.

Size: 245mm×165mm
Pages: 208
Binding: Lay-flat bound
Special Features: Two paper stocks
ISBN 978-0-9932316-5-0

Unit Editions

Tags design, Herb Lubalin, typography, Unit Editions

Octavo Redux – Unit Editions

1 February 2018 in Books Comment

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Octavo Redux 1:1 
A record of Octavo, journal of typography 1986–1992
Editors: Hamish Muir and Mark Holt
Designers: Hamish Muir and Mark Holt
Edition: 740

The eight issues of Octavo, journal of typography, published in the 1980s and 90s, have acquired cult status. Copies sell for exorbitant prices and only rarely become available. If you want to find back issues, be prepared to pay big money. But it’s now possible to ‘own’ all eight issues and to enjoy them at actual size in a brand-new Kickstarter-funded 384pp book – Octavo Redux.

The book has been designed and edited by two of Octavo’s original designers and editors – Hamish Muir and Mark Holt. And, as with the journals themselves, the book uses high-end production techniques to faithfully reproduce the original publications. To quote the editors: ‘Octavo Redux is as close as you can get to the originals without holding them in your hands.’

The book also documents covers and spreads from the full-scale working prototypes made by 8vo during the design process for each issue of Octavo. Subscription cards and subscription card mock-ups are shown at full-scale. The notorious eighth issue of Octavo (the ‘interactive’ CD-ROM) is also documented, including its packaging, as well as the content itself through a selection of actual-size screenshots (640×480 pixels).

The pre-desktop computer production processes employed in the early issues of Octavo, are documented by showing selected type specifications and proof mark-ups for in-position page-make-up typesetting systems. These often resulted in long ‘discussions’ with the typesetters, conducted via bike messengers, red pen, highlight markers and Tipp-Ex. Through extensive captions and annotations, the book shines a light on this now lost practice of visual engineering – where maths mattered.

Spreads of the printed issues are created from high resolution RGB photography – one image capture per page – made from the original untrimmed press sheets. This allows perfectly flat, squared-up montages of left and right pages to be brought together as spreads in the lay-flat binding used in the production of Octavo Redux.

In the spirit of Octavo, there are many production surprises in store for the reader of Octavo Redux. In addition to the wide gamut repro, which better represents the true colours of the original issues than everyday CMYK, two special inks are used in the book – metallic gold, and in the uncoated sections of the book, a soft neon yellow.

Other material considerations include foil blocking on reflective mirror paper, for the hard cover and end papers, and the books come wrapped in a translucent self-coloured trace jacket, in keeping with the original issues of Octavo.

As Caroline Roberts, in her book Graphic Design Visionaries, has noted: ‘Named after an abbreviation of the book-production term ‘octavo’, 8vo saw themselves as outsiders; they were intense, outspoken and did not identify or engage with the design community. They were pragmatists, obsessed with detail, believing that expression should be a result of the design process, not the motivation for it.’

Although 8vo disbanded in July 2001, Muir and Holt have reunited to design and edit Octavo Redux. They have applied all the ingenuity and close attention to detail that went into the journal to the design and production of this book.

Size: 315mm×240 mm
Pages: 384
Colours: 4/4 Kaleido plus 2 special colours
Binding: Hardback, thread sewn
Special features: Translucent jacket, mirror paper cover and end papers, two paper stocks

Unit Editions

Tags Octavo, Octavo Redux, Unit Editions

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