René Gruau
Posted on 06/04/11.
Filed under Art / Illustration / Print
Renowned illustrator René Gruau (1909-2004), created some of the most iconic fashion images of the 20th century and influenced the graphic style of a whole generation of fashion illustrators. Gruau’s illustrations for his friend and long-time patron Christian Dior chart one of the most successful creative relationships of 20th century fashion. His bold lines and fluid style were perfectly in tune with the spirit of Dior, capturing the energy, elegance and audacity of the brand. Of his continuing dedication to silhouette and outline Gruau said that ‘with a single line we can express grandeur, nobility, sensuality, the line synthesises sensations and concentrates knowledge.’
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Creative Choices
Posted on 04/04/11.
Filed under //Our work/ / Web Design
After several months of planning, designing, user-testing and building, our largest web-project to date went live on Friday! Several hundred articles and 20,000 members have now been re-homed in a totally new site, running on a publishing system that makes it easy for the editorial team to keep the site up to date.
We worked with the brilliant team at Creative & Cultural Skills to totally re-think, redesign and and rebuild the Creative Choices website, which is aimed at helping anyone in the creative industries to further their career or develop their business. It’s been a fantastic project and we’ll be enhancing the site as time goes on.
Link: http://www.creative-choices.co.uk
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Tom Purvis
Posted on 01/04/11.
Filed under Colour / Graphics / Print
Tom Purvis (1888-1959) was a British painter and commercial poster artist. He studied at Camberwell School of Art and worked for six years at the advertising firm of Mather and Crowther before becoming a freelance designer. Purvis is best known for his bold, graphic, two-dimensional style. He used large blocks of vivid flat colour and eliminated detail. From 1923 to 1945 Purvis worked for the LNER under the direction of Advertising Manager William Teasdale and then his successor Charles Dandridge, who both allowed him considerable freedom in his designs. During his time at the LNER Purvis produced over 100 posters which avoided depictions of the trains themselves, instead portraying the resorts that were the holiday destinations of travellers and the leisure pursuits that could be enjoyed there. As well as his work for the LNER, Purvis also designed posters for the Gentlemans’ outfitters Austin Reed and for the 1932 British Industries Fair. We look forward to the Wolfsonian’s new exhibition Art for All: British Posters for Transport which will explore the evolution of transport posters in twentieth-century Britain, showcasing some of the world’s most recognizable images produced by the London Underground and the British Railways. On view through April 14 to August 14, 2011.
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Xavier Antin
Posted on 17/03/11.
Filed under Art / Colour / Print
London based Frenchman Xavier Antin’s Just in Time, or a Short History of Production is an installation that was used to produce a book with a print chain made of four desktop printers from different eras. Each of the four printers is set to print one of the four process colours, bringing small and large scale production together. The stencil duplicator from 1880 prints Magenta, the spirit duplicator from 1923 prints Cyan, the laser printer from 1969 prints Key, and the inkjet from 1976 prints Yellow. The images in the resulting book are stunning.
Link: http://www.xavierantin.fr/
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New MIT logo has 40,000 permutations
Posted on 11/03/11.
Filed under Branding / Graphics
The idea of this new dynamic identity is that the logo has three intersecting spotlights that can be organized in any of 40,000 logo shapes and 12 color combinations using a custom algorithm. That’s enough to supply each and every staff member at the Labs with their very own logo for the next 25 years. This concept combines personal branding with organizational branding and despite the unique nature of each logo, they are all clearly related. Logo design is being taken to a new level, and these dynamic identities are becoming more commonplace as we have also seen recently with the logos for the City of Melbourne and Ukrainian fashion store Eskimo.
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Right first time, the CBS eye
Posted on 07/03/11.
Filed under Branding
Starbuck’s new face is one of a host of logos that have been simplified and made more graphic over time. NBC altered the appearance of their iconic peacock numerous times since its launch in 1956, and the AT&T bell was gradually simplified over a period of 80 years before it was dropped by the network in 1984. But some companies get it right first time, as is the case with the CBS eye which remains virtually unchanged since its debut 60 years ago. The icon was designed by William Golden (1911-1959) who is considered to be one of the pioneers of American graphic design. He gained a reputation of excellence by always striving for a perfect, simple solution to the problem at hand, producing an original and distinguished design to convey the message.
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No text on new Starbucks logo
Posted on 07/03/11.
Filed under Branding
An interesting article in this week’s Time Magazine reveals the real reason there is no text on the new Starbucks logo. “The company says removing its angular text from the logo allows for more flexibility overall… [and] it will have an added benefit as Starbucks begins to expand in Asia. Starbucks looks to triple the number of its stores in China by 2015.” Since 1971 the logo has changed 4 times and has now reached the point that most companies aspire to, it is recognisable without text.
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