It’s Christmas yet again! How did that happen so quickly?
We’ve had an amazing 2012 and although we seem to say this every year, it’s been quicker, busier and better than we could’ve imagined. We’ve worked with some amazing people and been involved in some projects we feel truly lucky to have been a part of. With this in mind we would like to say a huge, heartfelt thank you to all our clients, suppliers, supporters, followers, haters, friends and family. Merry Christmas to all of you!
Recently, the University Of California unveiled a new logo. The general reaction in the studio was relatively muted. Clearly they’ve attempted to update their previous mark – pictured below – with a more contemporary look. The result, whilst certainly not horrendous, is also not amazing. It’s pretty inoffensive and basically ok. It would seem that others had stronger, more negative opinions about the rebrand, and weren’t afraid to let their feelings be known.
Designers work with clients. Clients work with designers. It’s a symbiotic relationship which can be productive, surprising, infuriating, satisfying, testing… but always interesting. If we’re honest, life without clients would be a lot easier – there would be no need for compromise, no need to adhere to deadlines and the clichéd request to ‘make the logo bigger’ wouldn’t exist. These constraints and parameters are, however, the things that differentiate what we do from other creative disciplines and should be embraced. Michael Bierut knows this only too well and sums it up neatly with an all too easily forgotten point.
Weight Watchers recently unveiled a new identity, designed by Pentagram’s Paula Scher. There are a few things we wanted to mention about the identity, which lead on to a slightly bigger, more complex point.
Don’t ask us how or why but recently, we stumbled upon this (obviously NSFW) online archive of Playboy back issues. The collection spans from the first ever issue all the way back in December 1953 to the present day. The early days of the magazine show some great examples of inventive and well considered editorial design. Creative, elegant and much better than most of the tat that fills newsagent’s shelves these days — Top shelf or not. We love them. So we thought we’d share some of the best we came across. Fnar.
