“War/Photography” Book Designed by Pentagram Austin Wins Kraszna-Krausz Photo Book Award
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New Work: ‘PUNK: Chaos to Couture’
Punk’s iconoclastic aesthetic was originally rooted in street culture, but its subversive style has had an enduring influence on high fashion. This impact is explored in PUNK: Chaos to Couture, the spring 2013 exhibition at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The show juxtaposes original punk garments from the mid-1970s with more recent fashion to illustrate how haute couture and ready-to-wear have borrowed punk’s visual symbols, and how designers continue to extend the visual language of punk by merging social realism with artistic expression. Pentagram’s Abbott Miller has designed a catalogue for the exhibition that captures the immediacy of the subject in a format inspired by the 12” LP cover.
The exhibition, one of the most highly anticipated of the season, will be celebrated at next Monday’s 2013 Costume Institute Gala Benefit, the Met’s biggest event of the year. (Joining Vogue’s Anna Wintour as co-chairs this year are Beyoncé, Givenchy “New Goth” designer Riccardo Tisci, and “Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” and recent Pentagram actor Rooney Mara.) The show opens to the public on May 9 and will be on view through August 14, 2013.
New Work: ‘Sketches of Spain’
Justus Oehler and his team have designed the cover for the new edition of “Sketches of Spain” by esteemed Spanish poet and dramatist Federico Garcia Lorca.
Written in 1918, the book features a series of meditations on Spanish art, landscapes and history. This latest publication by Serif publishers is the first time that the highly acclaimed book has ever been published in the UK.
‘Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins…’
In Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov (born today in 1899) tells the story of his character Humbert Humbert’s all-consuming obsession with the girlish Lolita—a romance that is strange, inappropriate and incredibly sexual, not to mention highly illegal. Pentagram’s Paula Scher is one of 60 designers invited to create conceptual covers for Nabokov’s classic for Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl, an upcoming collection of graphic representations of Lolita since its publication in 1955. Scher’s new cover captures the novel’s peculiar eroticism in custom letterforms that are ripe, fleshy and almost anatomical.
Edited by John Bertram and Yuri Leving, Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl was inspired by Dieter E. Zimmer’s exhaustive online archive of Lolita covers, as well as a 2009 cover contest held by Bertram’s blog, Venus Febriculosa. Pentagram’s Michael Bierut has also contributed a Lolita design for the book, and several of the other designer submissions can be seen in a recent feature on Print’s Imprint blog. Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl will be published this August by Print Books.
New Work: ‘Geothermal Heat Pump Manual’
Spring is finally here, and New Yorkers are happily turning down their thermostats after an especially long, cold winter that saw an increase in energy bills. An alternative to costly, conventional energy sources, geothermal heat pumps (GHP) offer a cheaper, cleaner and more efficient way to heat and cool buildings. GHP systems take advantage of the relatively constant temperature of the earth’s interior, using it as a source or sink for heat. For cooling, heat is extracted from the building and dissipated into the ground; for warmth, heat is extracted from the earth and pumped into the building.
The New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC) has identified GHP as an important strategy for developing sustainable energy in the city, especially for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. Working with the DDC, Pentagram’s Eddie Opara and team have designed Geothermal Heat Pump Manual: A Design and Installation Guide for New York City. The book is the companion volume to the DDC’s Water Matters: A Design Manual for Water Conservation in Buildings, designed by Opara by 2011. GHP systems are part of PlaNYC 2030, the city’s official plan for sustainability, and the manual’s guidelines will be the subject of a special roundtable presented by the Urban Green Council on April 10.
New Work: ‘SPD 47th Publication Design Annual’
Every year the Society of Publication Designers (SPD) celebrates the best in editorial design in print and digital media in its annual design competition, the SPD Awards. The winning designers, photographers, illustrators and journalists are feted at the SPD Awards Gala and have their work published in the SPD Annual. Pentagram’s Luke Hayman and Regan Johnson have designed the latest Annual, SPD 47
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New Work: British Fashion Designers
Angus Hyland and his team have designed the book cover for a new mini edition of British Fashion Designers, a book that looks at the UK’s creative influence on the international fashion industry. Hyland has been the consultant Creative Director for Laurence King Publishing for the past eight years, where he manages a large portfolio of book design, and in this instance he has designed the cover himself.
Published this month, the book is an informative and inspirational resource, focusing on British designers who have made their mark in the industry since 2000. The cover features an illustration of Kate Moss by Cedric Rivrain with gold foil typography and pastel edging, which echoes the interior book design by byBOTH.
New Work: Penguin Phrasebooks
Smelly cheese, croissants, and the Eiffel Tower for the French version; salami, Vespas and leaning towers for the Italian. Angus Hyland and his team turned to cultural cliches for the covers of Penguin’s republished 1968 edition Phrasebooks.
‘I knew that I had fallen in love with Lolita forever…’
“It was love at first sight, at last sight, at ever and ever sight.” So writes Vladimir Nabokov in Lolita, his classic tale of obsessive, all-consuming, and—let’s just say it—extremely inappropriate and highly illegal love. Pentagram’s Michael Bierut is one of 60 designers invited to create conceptual covers for the book for an upcoming collection, Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl. Edited by John Bertram and Yuri Leving, the book looks at the many graphic representations for Lolita since its publication in 1955, and was inspired by Dieter E. Zimmer’s exhaustive online archive of Lolita covers, as well as a 2009 cover contest held by Bertram’s blog, Venus Febriculosa.
Bierut’s cover cuts the book’s title from a copy of the Mann Act, or White Slave Traffic Act, the 1910 law prohibiting the interstate transportation of women and girls for “immoral purposes.” The law is mentioned in the book when Humbert Humbert takes 13-year-old Lolita on a multi-state road trip. Bierut hand-lettered and cut the cover himself, the jaunty lettering emerging from the darker implications of Nabokov’s story.
Pentagram’s Paula Scher has also contributed a Lolita design for the book, to be revealed in the coming months, and several of the other designer submissions can be seen in a recent feature on Print’s Imprint blog. Lolita: Story of a Cover Girl will be published this August by Print Books.
Project Team: Michael Bierut, partner-in-charge and designer; Aron Fay, designer; Julia Lindpaintner, researcher.
New Work: The Barnes Foundation
The Barnes Foundation is one of the most important collections of Post-Impressionist and early Modernist art in the world, home to masterworks by Cezanne, Renoir, Matisse, Picasso, Van Gogh, and others. Established in 1922 by Dr. Albert C. Barnes, a scientist and entrepreneur who amassed paintings, decorative art, and African sculpture (before it was widely collected), the Foundation was conceived with a mission to educate the public about art and, more importantly, how artists see and interpret the world. Barnes was deeply influenced by the theories of his friend John Dewey, whose emphasis on the role of art in everyday life led Dr. Barnes to develop his collection as a resource for teaching. Barnes commissioned architect Paul Cret to design a gallery in Merion, Pennsylvania, to display his collection and hold classes in art theory.
Last year the Barnes moved to a spectacular new home designed by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects in downtown Philadelphia. The building has just received the 2013 AIA Institute Honor Award for Architecture. The Foundation was conceived by Dr. Barnes as a wholly integrated environment in which the objects on display are presented in highly coordinated settings, which he called “ensembles” that create a visual dialogue among works. Pentagramʼs Abbott Miller has worked with the Foundation and the architects to capture the distinctive sensibility of the Barnes Foundation in its new identity, as well as in environmental graphics, publications and the museum’s website.