What’s Up #34: Ludovic Balland
Ludovic Balland’s foliosite [ludovic-balland.ch] is almost, completely monochrome which highlights how bold his studio’s typographic vision is. To achieve this they’re not only manipulating existing typefaces in new and exciting ways but also creating new typefaces from old (or from scratch). If you are looking for a sample of his studio’s more exciting work, seek out the compendium they produced for the 5th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art [bb5.berlinbiennial.de] entitled ‘When Things Cast No Shadow’ [jrp-ringier.com], where a crazy cast of typefaces that should be jostling for attention are roped into order with surprising results.
As a sidenote jrp | ringer are also the publishing house behind Ezra Petronio and Suzanne Koller’s forthcoming (and rather expensive) monograph [jrp-ringier.com]. You may know them better as Work In Progress [petronioassociatesblog.com].
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What’s Up #33: Claire McManus
Claire McManus [ampersand8.co.uk] is super busy. Currently installed as part of the talented team at the AA (Architectural Association) Print Studio [aaschool.ac.uk], working with Mr Zak Kyes [www.zak.to] and Mr Wayne Daly [waynedaly.com], she’s been producing all manner of sparkling typographic treatments for various AA events and activities (including their end of year show, the AA Projects Review [aaschool.ac.uk/publications]). She’s also pointed Boicozine in the direction of a couple of bits and bytes that may be of interest to you, dear reader, such as this rad ‘documents folder’ [25togo.com] and, more importantly, in case (like me) you didn’t realise it was under threat, a petition to save the Type Museum from closure [petitions.pm.gov.uk/typemuseum].
in Architecture / Graphic Design / Shopping / Typography / What's Up
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What’s Up #32: CatalogTree
CatalogTree [catalogtree.net] are graphic designers forging a specialisation in information graphics, and in doing so, blurring the line between traditional graphic design and illustration. It’s Graphic Illustration… er, no it’s Information Design… whatever, it sure is cool to look at… and teaches you about stuff at the same time! Go CatalogTree! For a closer look, there’s some pretty sizeable graphics over at Good magazine [goodmagazine.com] and more stuff over at Seed magazine [revminds.seedmagazine.com] (that’s the American, worthy, four-letter magazine title market sewn up then).
in Graphic Design / Ideas / Illustration / What's Up
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What’s Up #31: Fanette Mellier
Fanette Mellier [fanettemellier.com] has just completed her residency in Chaumont as part of the annual Festival International de l’Affiche et du Graphisme de Chaumont 2008 (they could think of a snappier title huh). She has also been putting the finishing touches on an ace new identity for the Parc Saint Leger Contemporary Art Centre [parcsaintleger.fr]. It’s modular and multi-faceted, comes in a variety of colours or in basic black and has a rather nifty set of punctuation that ties in with the geometric shapes that make up the custom display typeface which you can see above. Further proof that France is kicking serious graphic butt with this latest generation of creative types.
What’s Up #30: peter&wendy
Peter&Wendy are a Parisian design agency [peter-wendy.com] actually run by Xavier and Cécilia. They have just completed the design and direction of the inaugural issue of UK-based high-minded culture mag, Bedeutung [bedeutung.co.uk]. The cover does away with any sort of formal masthead, replacing it with a big red square. Pretty daring. You might be interested in the Grotesque poster that they have for sale at the moment too. Mmm…metallics.
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].
What’s Up #29: Christoph Senn
Christoph Senn [dersenn.ch] is a recent grad from Zurich University of the Arts and has just completed an internship at ace Helsinki-based graphics house Kokoro & Moi (formerly Syrup Helsinki) [kokoromoi.com]. He is also part of the first round of specially elected designs to go into production via the BonBonKakku website [bonbonkakku.com]. His ‘broken mirror’ design is shown above. Other super graphic designs you might like to hang in yer window include this one [bonbonkakku.com] by a mysterious group going by the nom de plume ‘Speed of Light’ and this one [bonbonkakku.com] by the equally obtuse Nada Go-Go [nadagogo.com].
What’s Up #28: Gillian Blease
Gillian Blease [gillianblease.co.uk] has been creating graphic illustrations for a number of years now, often gracing the food section of The Guardian Weekend magazine. Ahead of her time in that, it’s only now there’s a shift away from the hand-drawn to more hard-edged informational illustration, that her crisp graphic renderings are coming into their own. She currently has prints for sale through her website too that are as tasty as her subject matter.
What’s Up #27: Annie Collinge
Annie Collinge [anniecollinge.com] is ace… and unusual. Unusual in that it is rare to find a photographer as comfortable swapping between snapping still lifes and portraiture. Having cut her teeth as an assistant working in world of über slick product shots for luxury brands, she then set up on here own building an intelligent and witty portfolio of images for magazines like Sleaze, Good for Nothing [supermundane.com] and Amelia’s magazine [ameliasmagazine.com]. She is now a regular contributor to The Independent and seemingly always on the look out for crazy stuff to shoot (which is why she was the perfect choice to contribute to recent YCN publications, Ideas Illustrated and YCN Book 0708 [ycnonline.com/shop]).
What’s Up #26: Simon Sparkes
Welsh designer Simon Sparkes aka Studio Ken [studioken.co.uk] has just been announced as the winner of Japanese design website stalwart, Shift’s logo competition [shift.jp.org], initiated as part of their 10th anniversary celebrations (see logo below). Well done you and well done Shift on 10 years of crazy cover pages and oodles of inspiring online editorial. Here’s to the next 10.
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