Modern People Live Through Modern Ideals

Polite Notice: We’ve just added some ace tshirts designs to boicoshop [shop.boico.net/apparel] as modelled by our luverly Zazzle model above (we’ll take some better pics soon, I promise) well as a couple of fabric designs that you can purchase now through the Bon Bon Kakku website, here [shop.boico.net/BBK001] and here [shop.boico.net/BBK002]. Let us know what you think or post slogan suggestions here and we may do another batch in a different style if you get enough good ones. Email Michael if you’re shy. boicoshop out.

Fashopolitico

Fashion and Politics, they don’t sit amazingly well together and yet there seems to be a recent trend towards mashing them up to create new angles on the age-old subjects. The most talked about at the moment has to be Esquire magazine’s (U.K. edition – website coming soon) recent 75th anniversary event where they revisited a number of classic covers from the 50s, 60s and 70s, replacing existing imagery with photographs of various fashion designers [via magculture]. All the chosen covers were originally art directed by George Lois [georgelois.com] who took a distinctly concept driven (almost ‘advertising-y’) approach to each cover. They were often overtly political too. Something that would be considered death at the newsstand by many men’s magazines today. The end result of Esquire’s new cover versions is that you begin to question the political relevence of modern fashion designers. Vivienne Westwood and Christopher Bailey’s images seem to be a snug fit although Donatella Versace & John Galliano’s logic seems fundamentally flawed when posed next to Muhammad Ali & Roy Cohn’s worthy illustrations (As a sidenote, Wired seems to have picked by the ‘topical’ baton with their ‘Screw the spotted owl’ cover for their June issue [wired.com/16-06]. It’s nice to see a revival in controversy being used to sell a ‘mainstream’ magazine, and I’m not talking about some selleb’s ‘amazing’ weight gain/loss story). SHOWstudio have also been giving Fashion & Politics a shove with a ongoing series of ‘Political Fashion’ pieces that are worth having a rummage through [showstudio.com/politicalfashion].

Home Sweet Borough

Why do London’s Borough Councils need their own unique graphic identities? Is there a better, more efficient way for the various councils to communicate with their inhabitants? A number of factors have recently lead me to ponder this question. I think it started after having a look at the Legible London [legiblelondon.info] website put together by NLA [newlondonarchitecture.org] and the Mayor of London’s office. Seems folks have trouble finding their way around Olde London Town. Could be something to do with the wide variety of signage that changes from borough to borough. Something design agency Bibliothéque [bibliothequedesign.com] tackled after a recent request from This is Real Art [thisisrealart.com] to help promote Creative Review…

The other thing that seems pretty evident from the assemblage of logos above is that many councils seem to find it hard to justify investing in keep their identities fresh and engaging. I mean, look at poor old ‘Southwark’. You get the impression that many of these marks and symbols are hang overs from the 80s and Britain’s ‘golden’ age of privitisation when it was expected that councils would be in some wierd sort of competition with one another. This idea of constituents as ‘customers’ has proved hollow with the steady rise of Council Tax which is too expensive to provide any sort actual ‘best value’ comparison. Councils as commercial bodies only work when Tourism is heavily involved, as is evident in the identity work for an aggressively marketed ‘destination’ like the City of Melbourne [thatsmelbourne.com.au].

So here’s the idea. The Olympics are coming up, London needs a lot of work. Let’s start with an umbrella identity for the various London Boroughs [wikipedia.org/london_boroughs] that can be easily applied to the various signage around town, so that means one standard set of typefaces for all the boroughs. Then each council could be allocated a colour palette (of no more than 2 or 3 colours) and a graphic element to go next to their name. This could be derived from the coat of arms that each council already has available to use. Then, to make the operation as cost effective as possible, all design work could be done from a central bureau, like a sort of design laboratory. Whaddya reckon?