Pentagram continues its creative collaboration as global brand guardians for AkzoNobel, the largest global paints and coatings company and a major producer of speciality chemicals, with the design of their latest annual report. AkzoNobel owns brands such as Dulux, Hammerite and International; their products have been used on iconic projects such as London’s Millennium Wheel, the Bird’s Nest Olympic Stadium in Beijing and Sydney Harbour Bridge in Australia. Reflecting AkzoNobel’s position as the colour authority, the annual report is decorated with blended stripes of colour brought to life by a high gloss varnish. The report also features case studies illustrated with images coated in a high gloss finish, and the colourful theme runs throughout the publication to aid navigation in a manner appropriate to a company that is all about colour and coatings and their infinite variety.
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On the evening of Tuesday, March 8, The Architectural League gave its President’s Medal to Lella and Massimo Vignelli. The award (past recipients of which include John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Hugh Ferriss, Joseph Urban, Richard Meier, Robert A.M. Stern, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown) was given to the Vignellis “in recognition of a body of work so influential in its breadth that it has shaped the very way we see the world.” The setting was a gala evening in midtown Manhattan attended by nearly 300 colleagues, friends and admirers of the guests of honor. Pentagram’s Michael Bierut, an Architectural League vice president who began his career over 30 years ago as a junior designer at Vignelli Associates, designed the evening’s program. With five different covers featuring five different classic Vignelli quotes (in Helvetica, of course) printed in PMS Super Warm Red (the couple’s favorite color), the programs were the perfect table settings for a memorable evening.
Closer views of the five Vignelli-isms and a portrait of one of the guests of honor after the jump.
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Thanks to the television show “Glee,” school glee clubs are experiencing unprecedented popularity. One of the oldest—and best—is the Yale Glee Club, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this weekend with a gala reunion in New Haven, CT. Seventy-five years of alumni will attend, with members ranging from the class of 1939 through the class of 2014.
Founded in 1861, the Yale Glee Club is the third oldest collegiate chorus in the country. The group sets standards for choral repertory—it helped introduce spirituals, folk songs and classical music to the glee canon—and has toured all over the world. Noted alumni include Vincent Price, William Sloane Coffin, Prescott Bush, Charles Ives and Cole Porter, whose “Bull Dog” remains one of Yale’s favorite fight songs.
Pentagram’s Michael Bierut and Yve Ludwig have designed “Louder Yet the Chorus Raise!,” an illustrated history published to commemorate the landmark anniversary. Written and researched by Glee Club alumnus Timothy J. DeWerff (Yale ’92), the book is lavishly produced, and the designers faced the challenge of weaving together over 200 images of Glee Club ephemera, 32 personal recollections, and sheet music for 16 favorite Yale songs, from “Gaudeamus igitur,” the first entry in the first Yale songbook (1853), to “Raise Your Voices Here,” a new song composed for the anniversary by current Yale Glee Club director Jeffrey Douma. A four-part appendix lists the club’s discography, tours, songbook and members from 1861 to 2011, and the book includes 2 CDs of performances from throughout the group’s history.
The book will be available to Glee Club alums at this weekend’s reunion and to the public this spring. The Yale Glee Club will perform a 150th Anniversary Concert at Carnegie Hall in April.
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Harry Pearce was commissioned by Royal Mail to design the 2010 Yearpack containing first day covers for each of the sets of stamps issued during the year. The Yearpack reveals a miscellany of memorable events from British and world history, including famous births and deaths, unique achievements and philatelic anniversaries, all of which took place on each of the issue dates.
The front and back covers feature a typographic, abstract collage of dates and headlines. Inside the spreads take each issue date and create a typographic grid of stories and headlines of other events taking place on that day throughout history.
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Following the success of the inclusion of Conundrums in the 2008 and 2009 Saks holiday catalogs, the team at Saks Fifth Avenue asked Pentagram’s Harry Pearce to come up with another idea to add a bit of fun to this year’s publication.
Given that the iconography of Christmas was defined by the Victorians, Pearce took the Victorian tradition of the rebus as his inspiration and created 76 puzzles to be scattered throughout the catalog. Pearce and his team created an individual image for each puzzle and then provided the images and a style guide to Saks who dropped them into the publication. The cover of the catalog features the “I’m Going to Saks” campaign and store identity designed by Michael Bierut.
Have a go and see if you can solve the puzzles. All 76 rebuses follow, along with images of the puzzles in the catalog. Solutions can be found at the end of this piece.
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Tonight the Art Directors Club will induct the 2010 class of its Hall of Fame at a gala ceremony in New York. Founded in 1971, the Hall of Fame honors innovators who have made significant contributions to art direction and visual communication. The Hall of Fame membership represents a “who’s who” of design and advertising and is meant to serve as an inspiration to the creative community.
The graphic identity for this year’s Hall of Fame gala, exhibition and “Festival of Fame” speaker series has been designed by Pentagram’s Michael Bierut, a Hall of Fame inductee in 2003, and Joe Marianek, a winner of this year’s ADC Young Guns 8. The identity, which is entirely typographic, features Carter Sans, a new typeface designed by Matthew Carter, one of this year’s Hall of Fame laureates and the recipient of a 2010 MacArthur “genius” grant. (Carter will be speaking at the ADC with fellow laureate Christoph Niemann next Tuesday, November 9.)
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Loyola Law School, with its vintage Frank Gehry-designed campus in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, and its focus on social justice and ethics, is unlike any other law school. So when Pentagram’s DJ Stout and his team in the Austin office were given the challenge to design a new admissions brochure for LLS they took the opportunity to create a unique kind of viewbook for the university.
“When we first met with Dean Victor Gold, dean of the law school, he quickly, and very convincingly, ticked off the top ten reasons why Loyola Law School is a great choice for a potential law student,” says Stout. “So in a sense he was making the case for Loyola the way that a seasoned lawyer would do it. He sold me on the place right away and that gave me the idea for the new viewbook right then and there.”
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The City of New York works to contribute to the development of a healthier metropolis by providing new public spaces, making improvements for pedestrians and bicycles, and promoting healthier buildings. The NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC), responsible for civic projects including libraries, firehouses and senior centers, is a leader and advocate for a healthier city by design.
The DDC recently created a book to share the theory and strategy behind large civic achievements with architects, designers and planners for implementation on all manner of projects regardless of scale. Designed by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman and Shigeto Akiyama, Active Design Guidelines: Promoting Physical Activity and Health in Design addresses the 21st-century health concerns of obesity and related chronic diseases and provides resources for the design community.
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This week Pentagram’s newest partner, Eddie Opara, officially joined our New York office. Eddie is a multi-faceted designer whose work encompasses brand identity, publications, environments, interactive installations, websites, user interfaces and software, with many of his projects ranging across multiple media. He has developed numerous applications including the MiG, an innovative content and asset management system for off and online applications that is currently in use by various clientele.
Eddie brings with him the team from Map, the studio he founded in 2005: Brankica Harvey, senior designer; Raed Atoui, software developer; and Frank LaRocca, designer.
Eddie’s wide-ranging practice complements Pentagram’s multi-disciplinary approach. “Bringing a diversity of design skills laced with innovation to Pentagram is paramount,” says Eddie. “I strive to conceive and build compelling work through my love of strategy, design and technology.”
Paula Scher says: “Eddie represents the new generation of graphic designers for whom all forms of media and all dimensions of design are not separated from the initial concept but are an integral part of the total thought.”
On the occasion of his joining, Eddie and his team have developed a new Pentagram app for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad that showcases his portfolio. Download it here. Look for future updates of the app featuring more work from our studio.
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Domenic Lippa and his team were commissioned by the London Design Festival and HSBC Private Bank to create a publication to celebrate the completion of a special piece by designer Max Lamb for the bank’s St James’s office.
The publication charts the journey of the piece, a plaster bench called the Vermiculated Ashlar, from concept to completion. The Vermiculated Ashlar is to be installed at 78 St James’s Street.
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