As a regular reader of Michael Johnsons blog, I’m always interested to see sneak previews of upcoming Johnson Banks work. Recently he unveiled their latest project for The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage and once again I was pleasantly suprised. Whilst I can’t deny liking the restrained cool of an identity consisting of a nicely kerned Helvetica or Avant Garde logotype and little else, sometimes the less is more approach can leave me a bit cold.

Obviously any identity (or any design) is dependant on the brief and in many instances doing what’s right for the job is far more important than designers showing how clever and forward thinking they can be. However, media attention towards graphic design is growing and in some cases, questioning the value of our profession – a trend arguably started by the animosity towards the newly unveiled Wolff Ollins 2012 Olympics logo. On one hand this is can be a positive thing, allowing the design community a dialogue with both their critics and the audience with whom they’re trying to communicate – the public, but this attention is clearly something designers should be wary of.

As most of us know, we’re in a very lucky position doing this job. It’s not a profession people tend to fall into and a large portion of the job involves doing things that many if us would be doing in our spare time anyway – i.e. being creative. With this in mind it’s a position we need to work for. At the risk of sounding pompous, the creative freedom of a designer should be earnt. With increasing scrutiny from the media and everyone keeping an eye on their pennies (public spending in particular), we’ve never needed to work harder for our money.

The PCAH identity is a relatively small example and admittedly isn’t radical design thinking, it’s a well thought out solution to a fiddly communication problem. It may not be to everyones tastes but it’s considered, memorable and most importantly it works (although time will tell how it fares in the long-term). Design that ticks each of these boxes and strikes the balance between something we haven’t seen before and something that doesn’t send the client running is by no means uncommon, but it’s certainly not everywhere I look, and the more I see of it, the better.

Mat