Saul Bass: A Life in Film and Design
On a page well in to this generously proportioned and beautifully designed book, Saul Bass, a Life in Film and Design, is a photograph of Bass, taken in 1980, the protean designer sitting on an elegant Thonet bentwood chair, the visual fruits of his creative life mounted on a wall behind him: logos, pack designs, [...]
Best of the Student Shows 2011
This year the Blueprint team and a panel of 14 critics travelled to student degree shows across Great Britain and Europe. After viewing hundreds of presentations from a diverse range of disciplines, here we have compiled their findings, bringing you some of this year’s best work from the designers and architects of the future.
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Wim Crouwel – A Graphic Odyssey
The work of Wim Crouwel has had a profound influence on contemporary graphic design. During the post-war Dutch design scene, dominated by an expressive painterly approach, Crouwel was influenced by modernism and the International Typographic Style, or the Swiss Style. The current exhibition at the Design Museum. Wim Crouwel: A Graphic Odyssey (until 3 July), [...]
Nintendo’s Game Changer
‘Real 3D Graphics. No Glasses Needed’ is the tagline for the much vaunted – well, much advertised – launch of the Nintendo 3DS hand-held games console. Blueprint handed over this piece of cutting-edge technology to Cinemod Studio, a London-based architecture and interactive design company, to offer an insight into the potential of this increasingly prominent [...]
Media Lab’s 40,000 New Logos
Last year Media Lab, the Boston-based experimental faction of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), celebrated its 25th birthday. The occasion was marked by the launch of its new graphic identity. Following the opening of the Lab’s new home, E14, this February, the new logo also heralded a period of transition for the institution. In the run-up [...]
Gerd Arntz: Graphic Designer
During his long career, Gerd Arntz (1900-1988) designed more than 4,000 cogent, bold and instantly legible symbols and figures. The politically engaged graphic artist and designer portrayed the world in wood and linoleum cuts. It is still possible to discern his influence today in our everyday lives – in information graphics, on our computer screens [...]
The Way of the Ninja
The original Ninja Tune releases were given a generic ‘house bag,’ a bright yellow sleeve with a hole cut in the middle. The label, 20 years old this year, was mainly releasing singles and the design was simple: a Ninja stamp and the name of the label in Frankfurt Gothic Condensed down the side. This [...]
Ghostvillage
In the January issue of Blueprint, we included graffiti artist collective Agents of Change in our list of 25 who will change architecture and design in 2010. For its Ghostvillage project in October 2009, the group created paintings on the walls throughout the abandoned village of Polphail in south-west Scotland. The project was carried out [...]
Typeface Architecture
‘If You Could Collaborate’, an exhibition that opens tomorrow night at the A Foundation Gallery in London, features work that marries the creative talents of industries that do not normally have an opportunity to interact. As part of the show, graphic designers Praline, who have worked with clients including Coca-Cola and ICI, chose to work with the model shop of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners Architects.
David Hillman: D&AD President’s Lectures 2009
Last night saw the third in the President’s lecture 2009 series at D&AD, and this time it was the turn of David Hillman to reflect on his life in editorial design. In a remarkable career that has spanned 50 years, he has worked for The Sunday Times, art directed at Nova, became a partner at [...]
TCHO: Graphics and Chocolate
Only in San Francisco could a former NASA space-shuttle technologist hook-up with a confectionary industry veteran and the founder of Wired magazine to launch an organic, anti-slavery chocolate. ‘Silicon Valley start-up meets San Francisco foodie culture’, as its website tells us self-consciously. TCHO (Technology CHOcolate) which launched its first variety to ‘beta testers’ (in the tradition [...]
Secret Wars: 100 Minutes of Havana
This year’s 100 Minutes of Havana event saw the Monorex (the guys behind Secret Wars) and Intercity crews take on the Havana Club’s freestyle drawing challenge. No sketches, no plans, just Edding pens, coloured acrylics and 100 minutes to fill a 16ft high by 40ft wide white wall. This was the first Secret Wars to [...]
Bibliothèque at the Barbican
For reasons not immediately obvious, 2009 is shaping up to be the British Year of Le Corbusier. RIBA has launched a season of exhibitions, talks, debates and workshops, including the 1:1 scale reconstruction of Le Corbusier’s seaside retreat, the Cabanon. The lynchpin of all this activity is Le Corbusier: The Art of Architecture at [...]
Noma Bar at BAFTA
One of our favourite illustrators, and a past-contributor to Blueprint, Noma Bar will be celebrated in a new exhibition that opens at BAFTA in central London this week. From Thursday on, visitors will be able to see examples of Bar’s funny, intelligent and consistently elegant work, focusing particularly on his portraits of celebrities (including Charlie [...]
Interview: Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica and Objectified
When Helvetica, a documentary about the ubiquitous and famously functional typeface, was released in 2007, it gained more mainstream success than anyone expected. While it was never going to challenge Spiderman III for box office receipts, the film has been shown at film festivals around the world, won rave reviews – particularly from graphic designers [...]
Wim Crouwel: A few thoughts
Last night Wim Crouwel, a true giant of graphic design, gave a talk at the London College of Communications. Along with showing some of his great poster designs and experiments with typography, he inspired the audience of design students with nuggets of wisdom from a six-decade career in graphic design. Here are a few choice [...]
