Panóptico de Actualidad Gráfica y Visual
It’s strange to think that the most recognizable symbol of the last 2,000 years, an object built upon a foundational myth, could be borrowed and re-appropriated so successfully in the 21st century by a banging electro house duo based in Paris. If Roland Barthes was still alive, he may well have written a semiotic discourse about his two hairy fellow...
Since opening shop in 2009, Zurich-based independent foundry Grilli Type has quietly built a reputation for expertly drawn contemporary designs. Its sharp serif GT Sectra (2013) has become a popular choice for text and display settings, while its clean, workhorse sans GT America (2016) has made its way onto everything from indie magazines to sparkling water cans. In early January,...
It used to be that if you needed a sleep aid, you went straight to the medicine aisle, but things are rarely that simple anymore. They are, however, a lot more fun: you can have a midnight snack with a Good Day Chocolate sleep supplement, or a nightcap with Kin Euphorics’ Dream Light, and still sleep with a clear conscience....
In 2014, Order Design Partner Hamish Smyth created a logo for a project that at the time was just a seed of an idea in the mind of Meg Daly. Months before, Daly, an entrepreneur in Miami as well as being the mother of Smyth’s partner had the idea for an ambitious project she was calling GreenLink—a 10 mile linear...
Reminisce with me, for a moment, about all the fun of the book fair. A meadow of tabletops unfolds across a large hall, and the scent of new books is infused with the sweat of the trendiest nerds. You’ve approached a table having judged a book by its cover and find yourself face-to-face with the book’s publisher, or perhaps its...
For the last few months, I’ve had a tab open with the type specimen for Columba—a magically warm typeface designed by Lewis McGuffie and published by Colophon Foundry at the end of 2020—and I just can’t close the tab. It’s simply impossible to take my eyes off this charming thing, but I don’t know why. So, let’s figure it out...
We love a good illustration. It’s possible that we love them even more when they’re adorning a fresh-out-the-fridge can of whatever. This month’s happy hour is a celebration of the delicate drawings we’re seeing across the beer and cocktail landscape. Read on for the best in recent booze branding....
We’re all familiar with the “Communist aesthetic”—its bold graphics, hyperrealism, and often stark color schemes. Less familiar is the tender side of this ideology. In The Gay Agenda: Homoeroticism in Communist Propaganda, a provocative online discussion last month between film historian Bader AlAwadhi, Chinese-born designer Zipeng Zhu, and Angelina Lippert, Chief Curator at the Poster House museum, an interesting question...
Parsing dense government reports that are hundreds of pages in length, set in 12pt Times New Roman, and full of legal jargon and footnotes may be the stuff of a designer’s nightmares. Yet it’s difficult to imagine a clearer example of bureaucratic thinking, or what might be termed an “administrative aesthetic”—a favorite of lawyers, policy makers, and the committees tasked...
Name: CoFo Cinema1909 Designer: Liza Rasskazova Foundry: Contrast Foundry Release Date: Autumn 2020, for exclusive use by Moscow’s Khudozhestvenny Cinema until Autumn 2022 Back Story: Design challenge: create a wordmark for the more than 20-character long name of a cherished cultural institution. In 2019, Anna Kulachek, art director of Moscow’s Strelka Institute, commissioned Contrast Foundry to do just that for the landmark Khudozhestvenny Cinema....
A deceptively simple question: How are you feeling right now? It’s simple because you’re probably sentient and awake; deceptive because the web of human emotion is always undulating, twitching and warping in response to events—real, perceived, micro, and otherwise—in real time. In 1980, to help people answer that question, the psychologist Robert Plutchik published a paper about the eight core...
If you’ve been worried about your carbon footprint, you can now rest easy—an extensive and growing list of companies, cities, states, nations, and continents have declared they have it under control. Companies like Shell, Dunkin’, United Airlines, H&M, Taco Bell, GM, Nestle, Monsanto, and plenty of other recognizable brands, have been trotting out plans to go “net zero” and neutralize...
