Creative Review articles from March 2008

Creative Review archives from March 2008

We've had a redesign.(Editorial)
March 3, 2008... You did notice didn't you? It's been three years since the last one. Not long, but then it's always better to make changes because you've found a way to improve something rather than waiting for things to go wrong. There are structural...

WHAT'S ON: London redefined Gregor Graf.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Strip a city street of all its commercial clutter and is it still identifiable? The Austrian artist Gregor Graf has based a series of photographs on this concept, currently showing as part of the Visual Arts Platform at the Austrian Cultural...

WHAT'S ON: Gondry at Deitch.(Movie review)(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... To accompany the release of his new film, Be Kind Rewind, director Michel Gondry holds an exhibition in New York Michel Gondry's latest feature release, Be Kind Rewind, sees its two protagonists create "sweded" versions of movies (ie...

WHAT'S ON: Designs of the Year 2007.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... We at cr were excited to discover that our very own December Monograph, on Daniel Mason's print archive, and Peter Saville's sticker, commissioned for our February 07 issue, have both been chosen to appear as part of the Design Museum's...

WHAT'S ON: Exhibitions.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Barry McGee exhibition at Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Gateshead. New installations by the one-time graffiti artist. Until April 17. balticmill.com China Design Now, Victoria & Albert Museum, London. Exhibition exploring the...

WHAT'S ON: Events Etc.(Web Design conference)(Short & Sweet will be screening the nominations for this year's Orange BAFTA short film awards )(Conference news)(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... D&AD President's Lectures. This year's speakers include Nick Bell, Nick Bell Design (March 13), Pecha Kucha (April 17), Bob Greenberg, R/GA (April 30), Sir Christopher Frayling (May 22) and Experimental Jetset (June 5). dandad.co.uk ...

BOOKS: The Shell Guides MoDA, Middlesex University.
March 3, 2008... The Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture is showing an exhibition of classic Shell County Guides next month. Far from being fusty 1930s tourist fodder, the books were famed for their surrealist photography and illustration. From...

BOOKS: The Somnambulists Dewi Lewis.(Brief article)(Book review)
March 3, 2008... Edinburgh-based photographer Joanna Kane's latest book is a series of rather unconventional portraits. While the images appear to be intimate studies of various sleeping figures they are, in fact, recent photographs of life and death masks...

WEBSITES: Collection point.
March 3, 2008... From typewriter ribbon tins to vintage luggage, the Poppytalk site hosts a wondrous array of collections Poppytalk.blogspot.com was set up by husband and wife team, Jan (graphic designer) and Earl (a web designer/instructor) in order to...

WEBSITES: Visual Dictionary of Special Plane Curves.
March 3, 2008... Did you know that a cycloid curve is defined as "the trace of a point on the circumference of a circle rolling on a line without slipping? We thought so. There are, it seems, still a lot of things we must learn when it comes to curves and...

WEBSITES: Information architecture.
March 3, 2008... If the internet was actually the train system of greater Tokyo, where, we hear you ask, would Google be situated? Thanks to Tokyo-based design agency iA, you can now find out by checking out its recently produced Web Trend Map 2008:...

TYPOGRAPHY: Black Slabbath.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... "What do you give a world that has everything? An extremely black slab serif typeface." Stefan Kjartansson Black Slabbath is described as "the heaviest typeface in the world" on the site from which it's available, youworkforthem.com. The...

TYPOGRAPHY: Tephra.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Tephra, now available from Dalton Maag, was originally created by 8vo in 1994 for Interact, a special issue of the American Center for Design Journal - and later used for the 1997 Flux New Music Festival poster series. "Hamish Muir (of 8vo)...

TYPOGRAPHY: Rtf Albertan.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Albertan Roman was designed and cut in metal at 16 point size by Jim Rimmer in 1982 for use in his private press and foundry, Pie Tree Press & Type Foundry: he intended it for the hand-setting and printing of limited edition books. An italic...

TYPOGRAPHY: Archer.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Archer is a new slab serif designed and released by Hoefler & Frere- Jones. Developed specifically for Living magazine, it comes in a versatile 40 styles - which include Romans and italics in each of eight weights: Hairline, Extra Light,...

TYPOGRAPHY: Dada Grotesk.(duo deValence )(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... Originally designed in 2005 by Paris-based design duo deValence for use in the book and signage of the Dada exhibition at the Centre Pompidou, Dada Grotesk is based on a typeface found in early editions of Dada magazine from 1918. The Dada...

ONE TO WATCH: Joss McKinley.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... I am comfortable with death in a way that isn't very common in contemporary times," declares photographer Joss McKinley. Indeed, there's something of the Victorian age about his work. He would seem to be happiest either in the pitch dark, or...

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Established & Sons MadeThought.
March 3, 2008... MadeThought has been working with Established & Sons, the furniture design and manufacturing company that specialises in contemporary British design, since creating the company's identity in 2005. The new catalogue, No.2, showcases 29...

PHOTOGRAPHY: In Control Book Anton Corbijn/Warren Jackson.
March 3, 2008... In a nice postmodern twist, a new book of photographs by Anton Corbijn sees the photographer/director taking behind-the-scenes pictures on the set of his own film, of actors pretending to be in a band he first took shots of back in 1979. The...

ADVERTISING: Onitsuka Tiger Made of Japan campaign.
March 3, 2008... A metre-long, trainer-shaped mini-city will form the centrepiece of Onitsuka Tiger's marketing over the coming year. The model, which was made using rapid prototyping technology, features "highways filled with cars, high-rise buildings,...

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Stephanie Simon Brochure and identity.
March 3, 2008... The starting point on the identity and brochure by Farrow for luxury jeweller Stephanie Simon was a monogram created from the double 's' of her initials. This in turn was worked into a repeat pattern which is used on the back of all elements...

GRAPHIC DESIGN: De Doelen Concert Hall Identity and posters.
March 3, 2008... Amsterdam-based design studio Koweiden Postma was asked by Rotterdam concert hall, De Doelen, to renew its identity and "make its communication more appealing for a larger and more diverse audience". To this end, the studio decided to...

ADVERTISING: Samaritans Dots press and poster ad.(Lunar BBDO )(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... This is the latest Samaritans ad from Lunar BBDO and This is Real Art in a campaign designed to recruit volunteers for the charity. Each of the ads uses a different graphic representation of sound to create images of people in distress: Dots...

ADVERTISING: First Choice Press advertising.
March 3, 2008... "We wanted to prove that First Choice understand what it's really like to be a parent, and how different holidays are when you have kids," say Beattie McGuinness Bungay creative team Matt Doman and Ian Heartfield of their new press campaign...

ADVERTISING: Sci Fi channel campaign BETC Euro RSCG.
March 3, 2008... Paris-based agency BETC Euro RSCG took an unusual approach in its new campaign to raise awareness of the Sci Fi channel in France with this integrated campaign incorporating ambient, radio, press, film and online. Ten alien 'children'...

ADVERTISING: KitKat JWT Paris.
March 3, 2008... JWT Paris is behind this charming viral animation for KitKat, which despite running at almost three minutes is thoroughly entertaining throughout. The spot sees a hapless office worker struggling to concentrate at work while being relentlessly...

GRAPHIC DESIGN: Things I Have Learned... Stefan Sagmeister.
March 3, 2008... Stefan Sagmeister's new book, Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, is a collection of projects made by the designer since his "experimental year" in 2000, when he took time out from creating commercial projects. During that year,...

Dexia tower, Brussels.
March 3, 2008... 38 floors 150,000 leds & one hell of a light show... The Dexia Tower, located in Place Rogier at the end of Brussels' main thoroughfare, redefines the term 'landmark building'. Each day and night the 144 metre-high building plays host to...

The Dexia Tower light show.(Brief article)
March 3, 2008... How it works Behind the glass, along the bottom of 4,200 of the Dexia Tower's 6000 windows (on three out of four facades) there is a rail that houses around 12 light bulbs, each with three LEDs - a green, a red and a blue that can be...

We are not an advertising agency.
March 3, 2008... When we were sent a series of four new artworks for inclusion on the cr blog in late December, we didn't anticipate quite the level of interest the project would provoke. Yet the images, which present clever re- imaginings of key scenes from...

One of design's fundamental tasks.
March 3, 2008... Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, explorers would return from their voyages describing new places and new wonders they had seen. Each time, cartographers would publish what was routinely termed 'a new map of the world'. We tend to...

Can design help to convict a criminal?
March 3, 2008... Convince a jury? The SFO's graphics unit thinks it can If you recognise the name Joyti De-Laurey, it's probably because of her infamous fall from grace in 2004. De-Laurey was the secretary at investment bank Goldman Sachs who was...

Getting magazine-y.
March 3, 2008... It seemed ironic that the day-long conference, Magazines are Dead! Long Live the Magazine, should take place on the last day of the last week of the month; commonly known to all involved in the production of a monthly magazine as Press Week....

COMMERCIALS & IDENTITY: Strictly x-rated.
March 3, 2008... Armin Vit applauds the new Xerox wordmark, but why did did they have to go and spoil it all with that marble? Whatever you do, whether it's today or 1994, please do not call Xerox 'the copier company'. Actually, don't call it 'The...

COMMERCIALS & IDENTITY: Toshiba Light, Lighter.
March 3, 2008... Nice ad, says Patrick Burgoyne, but doesn't it overclaim? There's something rather wonderfully old-fashioned about Johnny Hardstaff's new Toshiba brand commercial for Grey. The visual style recalls the research lab - think Tomorrow's...

COMMERCIALS & IDENTITY: BBC Three logo.
March 3, 2008... Weak and poorly crafted, says Bruno Maag I applaud the BBC for being experimental with its third television channel and embracing the potential of multiplatform media. Many new and successful TV shows have started off on Three, before...