Microsoft’s new Windows 8 operating system launches today with a brand identity designed by Pentagram’s Paula Scher. The identity re-imagines the familiar Windows flag as a modern geometric shape guided by the principles of perspective. This idea is the basis for all Windows 8 branding and promotion.
Scher and her team created a complete system based on the idea of perspective. The analogy is apt because Windows is a tool for users to achieve their goals from their own perspective. The name Windows was originally introduced by Microsoft as a metaphor for seeing into screens and systems and a new view on technology. The identity reintroduces this idea with the actual visual principles of perspective.
Windows is a neutral tool for a user to achieve whatever they can, based on their own initiative, and the logo design is deliberately neutral so that it can function effectively in a myriad of uses, especially motion, as seen in television and online advertisements for Windows 8. The old Windows logo was flat and drawn in motion; the new logo is a neutral container that can convey actual motion, becoming a more active and effective brand.
Continue reading “Windows 8 Launches”
Pentagram’s Paula Scher has designed a new identity for Republic Records, the label of top-selling artists including Nicki Minaj, Drake, Gotye, Florence + The Machine, Amy Winehouse and the Avett Brothers. The identity, launching this week, coincides with a renaming of the label––formerly known as Universal Republic Records––and the arrival of the legendary producer Rick Rubin, who brings his American Recordings label to the company.
Scher worked with Rubin and Republic president/CEO Monte Lipman on the project. The Republic identity consists of a bold, modern emblem of three stripes in black, white or gray, accompanied by the name set in custom type based on Bau Bold. The name was shortened to help build a stronger individual brand for the label—to allow it to be called “Republic” and stand on its own. (Republic remains part of the Universal Music Group.) The name also complements the American moniker, and the flag of American’s logo is literal, while Republic’s logo is more abstract. The highly recognizable pattern can be used as a graphic motif in print promotions and digital banners as well as applied to merchandise like CDs and apparel.
Continue reading “New Work: Republic Records”
Quick Link: Paula Scher: Do What You’ve Never Done Before (Video)
At Pentagram, we just love books: reading them, collecting them, writing them, talking about them, and most of all designing them.
The inaugural Designers & Books Fair, set to launch on the last weekend of October at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, promises to be a historic event. Pentagram is proud to participate in the Fair with a three-hour symposium co-sponsored by Design Observer Group on the morning of Saturday, October 27, featuring six of our partners. Michael Bierut, Abbott Miller, Emily Oberman, Eddie Opara, Paula Scher, and DJ Stout will each talk about the joys and challenges of designing books on science, fashion, information overload, photography, murder, and water conservation. The morning will include detailed case histories and special guests, including Academy Award-winning filmmaker Errol Morris, who will talk about working with Pentagram on the creation of his new book, A Wilderness of Error.
Set at the intersection where design, architecture, and books meet, the Designers & Books Fair will include 35 U.S. and European design book publishers and booksellers displaying and selling the newest titles for the Fall and upcoming holiday season as well as important backlist titles. Special Fair discounts up to 40% will be available on many books. There will also be rare and out-of-print book dealers; demonstrations of book arts, including calligraphy, letterpress printing, and bookbinding; book signings; and programming in two auditoriums adjacent to the Exhibition Hall that will include presentations, interviews, and panel discussions with a high-profile roster of designers, curators and writers.
Advance tickets are still available for the Pentagram symposium. Register now!
Quick Link: Paula Scher’s Maps on View at Pacific Design Center
On Saturday morning, October 27 at FIT’s Katie Murphy Auditorium, Michael Bierut, Abbott Miller, Eddie Opara, Emily Oberman, Paula Scher and DJ Stout will take the stage at the first Designers and Books Fair to talk about the challenges and pleasures of designing books. Between them, the six partners have designed everything from large-scale corporate identities to exhibitions to motion graphics to interactive displays. But they all concede there is something special about designing that classic design object, the book.
At FIT on October 27, each of the designers will present a case history and discuss his or her unique approach to book design. In anticipation of that special event, Bierut, Miller, Opara, Oberman, Scher and Stout were asked to talk about what makes books special, why they like designing them, and why books are likely to be around forever. You can register for the Designers and Books Fair event here, and read more about book design at Pentagram after the jump.
Continue reading “Roundtable: Book Design at Pentagram”
Quick Link: Paula Scher’s Favorite Designed Spaces in NYC
This fall the Public Theater opens a major revitalization of its New York home that will transform the institution’s lobby into a public piazza and gathering space. For the Public, the update marks not just a time to renovate the space, but an opportunity to reinvigorate its messaging. Pentagram’s Paula Scher has designed a bold institutional campaign for the Public that celebrates its status as a theater for the “public.” The campaign launched with a full-page print advertisement in this Sunday’s New York Times.
A diverse cultural institution, the Public is the only theater that produces Shakespeare and the classics, musicals, contemporary and experimental pieces—works with social relevance, dealing with real topics, that also provide uplifting entertainment. In the words of Oskar Eustis, the Public’s artistic director, “The Public Theater is, and always has been, for the people.” Themed “Public Open,” the fall campaign celebrates the institution as a whole and reaffirms the Public’s tradition of merging art and popular taste. The campaign promotes the various components of programming at the Public, including Shakespeare in the Park, Public Lab, Joe’s Pub, the annual Under the Radar Festival, the Public Forum, the Emerging Writers Group and the Mobile Unit.
Continue reading “New Work: The Public Theater 2012-13 Season Campaign”
Quick Link: Paula Scher to Speak at AIGA Los Angeles
Quick Link: Pentagram’s Book Design to Be Featured at Designers & Books Fair
