Maja S.K. Ratkje “Cyborgic” front cover

The Last Record Company is a new project from Norwegian record label Rune Grammofon. As if Rune Kristofferson wasn’t uncompromising enough with the high standards he set with Rune Grammofon, TLRC definitely takes it a step further. Each TLRC release is vinyl only limited to 500 hand-numbered copies housed in a thick gatefold sleeve with a 16-page art booklet. Like Rune Grammofon’s relationship with Kim Hiorthøy TLRC only works with one designer, former Grandpeople member Magnus Voll Mathiassen new studio MVM*. The design guidelines for TLRC are even more strict—there is no information anywhere on the sleeve or vinyl and the art has no direct correlation to the music. Ultimately it is about a sound object co-habitating with an art object. The first three releases have all come from the RG family and though it is a record label “designed to die” so far its future looks bright.

Ultralyd “Rendition” front cover

Stian Westerhus “Galore” interior spread

*Yes, I agree that an MVM/MVA collaboration should probably happen. Possible titles: AMMMVV; MMVVMA; MVMMVA.

This is a draft from my upcoming book on the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies.

All images courtesy Matthew Rezac

Superlight (designed with Andrew Blauvelt)

The work of Matthew Rezac is marked by a work-horse typography that is supported by a visually rich approach to printing and photographic art direction. His publication designs especially take advantage of print effects to build upon a core concept. The exhibition catalog for the 01SJ digital biennial Superlight (designed in collaboration with Andrew Blauvelt) avoids the clichés that might be associated with digital art and instead concerns itself with “all things light”. The main typeface is a soft chunky serif that aligns the book with a more universal feel than purely digital art. From there, the book becomes an exploration of light—overprinting on black, tinted varnishes and translucent sheets are all used to explore this idea. Furthermore, the entire book uses the visible spectrum of light as an organizing principle.

Spread from Superlight

Rezac spent two years as a Design Fellow at the Walker Art Center and that influence shows up in Superlight and other publication projects through the use of simple but distinctive typography and material concepts that relate to the content on an elemental level. WARM: A Feminist Art Collective in Minnesota is both a catalog for a 2006 exhibition and a history of the group. WARM originally began as a slide registry of women artists in Minnesota and Rezac shows a selection of those slides on the inside of the dust jacket, but through a clever use of folding the dust jacket also reveals one slide each by the twelve artists in the exhibit. The typography tends toward a mix of loosely connotative typefaces, none screaming too loudly as to its exact intentions. Its this use of typefaces that helps to keep Rezac’s work free of “genre” associations; its not some simple equation of “this typeface=this idea”. Instead its simply a mix of typefaces that organize the book hierarchically. Like Superlight, Rezac use the book’s materiality to support the content, in this instance leaving the binding exposed to show its three color-coded sections.

WARM: A Feminist Art Collective in Minnesota

Spread from WARM

Spread from WARM

In a number of works for the Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD), Rezac explores typography as a physical presence. Become the MCAD 2007 viewbook transforms the studios, classrooms and galleries of the school into temporary typographic installations through the use of simple laser-printed letters. These were then photographed and used as full-bleed spreads. In an interesting twist, the realism of the photography was contrasted with flat illustrations referencing art-making that acted as holders for more detailed typography.

MCAD Viewbook: Become (designed with Alex DeArmond)

Spread from Become

Throughout his work, Matthew Rezac connects content to form in tangible ways whether using the physicality of print to express concepts or turning a location into a piece of typography. In an already impressive but brief body of work we see these two directions of print and photography investigated and I suspect that future holds more investigation and a greater overlap.

Donal Moffett: Easy Clean exhibition announcement

Image ©2009 Cody Hudson

Cody Hudson is a Chicago-based painter/drawer/assembler who also works as Struggle Inc.—a designer/illustrator/assembler. His signature “soft modernist” style might have been the thing to kick off those giant geometric hand-drawn letterforms we all love so much. After years of a website with a “new site coming soon” sign hanging in the window, he’s finally opened the doors on it. Cody’s been at it awhile so clear out some time in your calendar to soak it in.

All images from struggleinc.com

View more images after the jump

Print for Obama campaign 2008. ©2008 Cody Hudson

T-shirt for Sixpack. ©2007 Cody Hudson

Installation view of “There Ain't No Bottomless Pit Here, This is Fucking Magic, Man, and We're All A Part of it Together” at MCA, Chicago. 2007

Barry McGee for Bodega

Its about time somebody did the wall vinyl thing with more “proprietary” works than the standard ornaments and Victorian silhouettes. Bodega is a new project selling artist designed wall vinyl to beautify your crib. With pieces from long-time faves Barry McGee, Cody Hudson, Mike Leon (including his “Dicks of the World” graphic for Skate Mental!), Hisham Bharoocha, Harsh Patel, Steven Harrington, Darcel and more it looks pretty tempting even when you’re broke with a 9-week old baby.

More images from Cody Hudson, Michael Leon and Harsh Patel after the jump.

Cody Hudson wall vinyl for Bodega

Harsh Patel for Bodega

Michael Leon for Bodega

This is a draft from my upcoming book on the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies.

All images courtesy Studio Temp

“A/B” publication

“A/B” spread

“A/B” detail

One can trace the development of the new typography in looking at the work of Studio Temp. The Italian graphic designers’ early works were classic examples of the new modernist information tech best exemplified by Build. The publication A/B (2007) explores the role of music in the designers’ lives by contrasting Top 40 pop hits with their “B-Side”, the music they were listening to. The real point of the project though, is to use the songs as a jumping off point for their Helvetica Neue-driven information design. Every bit of information that can be extrapolated is used from the year the song was released to the era (Anno Domini, in case you forgot). 12/13 (2007) documents a period of workshop activity over the course of a year, but hinges largely on an “animation” of the main content—a block of type consisting of dates, locations and credits. This block reveals more and more of itself through-out the book and becomes a metaphor for the work completed. These works, with their hyper-detailed level of information helped Temp to hone the level of craft and restraint that would define their later works.

Spread from “12/13”

“CTRL” Magazine

Spread from “CTRL” Magazine

The designers explored a more pluralist aesthetic while gradually shedding the “information ornamentation” over the course of a couple years. CTRL Magazine (2009) retains their attention to detail and typographic hierarchy but is marked by a more eccentric use of typefaces and lay-outs that tend to fill the pages from edge to edge. The newspaper-sized publications Peep-Hole Sheet (2009) are even more stripped-down but might be their boldest work. Each issue consists of writing by a single artist and the sheer scale seems to be something of a homage to that artist. White and neon-colored papers alternate the design making just as dramatic a shift as the color. The simple text-heavy center sheet is framed by two all but blank pages with the artists’ name. The effect is both dramatic and tasteful.

“Peep-Hole Sheet” #1

Spread from “Peep-Hole Sheet” #1

Spread from “Peep-Hole Sheet” #1

“Peep-Hole Sheet” #2

Spread from “Peep-Hole Sheet” #2

Their work for the group exhibition The Fear Society mines some of the same territory as CTRL—the use of centered type, idiosyncratic fonts and a bold brutalism, but there is also the interesting handling of photography which is informally cast about the pages. In some ways it feels as though the previous informational-detailing of A/B or 12/13 has given way to using photography in a similar fashion. This is not to say that those gestures are completely gone, but what was once an almost ornamental use of typography is now more obvious. The Fear Society catalog has a running indicia indicating the section that you’re reading which in earlier works would have likely been set at 8 point.

“The Fear Society” exhibition catalog

Bag for “The Fear Society”

I could be way off-base but I feel that as Studio Temp have shed the more recognizably “Modernist” gestures their work has become more “Italian” (in the same way that the work of YES or Hudson-Powell seem undeniably “British”, as if there were something in the water or DNA.). Both the their typefaces and lay-outs look like a stripped-down, tightened up Art Deco typography. Perhaps similiar to Jan Tschichold’s work when he returned to classical typography after making his name as a pioneer of the New Typography—all those years spent investigating new forms and more complex structures meant that he could never “return” to classical typography only invent a new one.

Note: I am currently hustling to wrap up work on a book about the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies. I have a few entries on designers left to write and since I find blogging less initimdating than Microsoft Word I will be writing these last entries on jnamdevhardisty.com. This particular post is on the early work of Experimental Jetset and may or may not be here in the future. So, read it while the reading’s, um, good. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks, Namdev

All images courtesy Experimental Jetset

The Dutch design studio Experimental Jetset officially formed in 1998 when collaborators Marieke Stolk and Danny van den Dungen asked Erwin Brinkers to help them re-design the lifestyle magazine Blvd. Since then the group has developed a body of work and a trail of texts and interviews that have established them as one of most influential design studios of the last 10 years. Projects like “Kelly 1:1”, the “John&Paul&Ringo&George” t-shirt, SMCS identity and a slew of posters for various themed exhibitions showcased the group’s talent for creating profound graphic works from simple concepts while also propogating their bold almost “Pop” take on Modernism (I think many people believe Experimental Jetset’s work to be a wholesale appropriation of 60’s International Style design and I would argue that they couldn’t be more wrong. There’s a bold expressive-ness to Experimental Jetset’s work that is the result of high-contrast elements: black on white, Bold versus Light, big versus small. What makes their work the opposite of minimalism is that the elements that are present are so high-impact there’s no need for anything else. Compare this to 1960’s Swiss design which tended to be much more even-keeled.). While there is variance in their work, in general, they have developed an aesthetic that is recognizable as the Experimental Jetset.

Paradisco flyers (Paradiso 1996)

Paradisco flyers, backside (Paradiso, 1996)

In 2008, they re-launched their website and with it documentation of their earliest work—flyers and posters for the rock club Paradiso. Marieke Stolk and Danny van den Dungen began collaborating on promotional material for Paradiso in 1996 and the studio continued to work for them through 1999. The Paradiso work, which has not been seen widely outside of the Netherlands, not only shows a side to Experimental Jetset’s work that hasn’t been seen but it also provides a glimpse into the developement of the Experimental Jetset aesthetic in both its formal and conceptual elements.

The earliest series of flyers resemble little of the Experimental Jetset of today. These pocket-sized flyers for the club night Paradisco are image-heavy using appropriated imagery from the 70’s and 80’s to support the disco theme (and there’s no bold Helvetica or Futura in sight). But, traces of their thinking are present here. The flyers were conceived of as two-sided “frames or slides”* and while there is an aura of kitsch (especially in the intial series) they are an attempt at creating “visual poetry” and each has a core integrity even if the subject matter is silly. This is even more apparent in the second series as they move away from the disco associations and begin to explore visual/verbal puns, sampling of modernist forms, leaving white space exposed and even the self-referentiality that has come to mark their work.

Program poster (Paradiso, 1996)

Over the course of a few years (roughly 1996 to 1998) more of the ideas and gestures that have defined their work come to the fore. The program posters begun in 1996 explore more of the idea of graphic design as an object. A kind of check-box sits next to each event except its die-cut from the paper; when these posters are hung the layers of posters and flyers underneath show through. If these weren’t die-cut the “pill” would be purely ornamental but by making it a physical mark in the paper it now becomes a reference to its surroundings and context. These posters also mark the introduction of Helvetica into their work and as much as it seems that Experimental Jetset are synomous with Helvetica, they are actually synomous with Helvetica Neue 75 Bold and a particularly brutalist use of it. The Program posters use the extended weight and coupled with the all-lowercase typesetting and muted color palettes, these pieces have the feel of “vintage” Modernism. In addition, its used in a very traditional manner—a great deal of typographic detailing in terms of hierarchy, scale changes and color usage—which gives it a feeling of “fussiness” when compared to the visual brashness that their work has increasingly dealt in.

Bassline series 1 (Paradiso, 1997)

Bassline series 1, back (Paradiso, 1997)

The flyers for the hip-hop night Bassline are where their aesthetic—the combination of form and langauge they are known for—really begins to emerge. The Bassline flyers originally began as a riff on Filofax sheets and a “cold” corporate identity was devised so that that they would read as the intended object. The backsides would contain a play on Filofax function—ruled paper, lined paper or other types of information holders. It seems that these pieces are the first instances of the group working with Modernist forms in a significant way. After all, both the stripped-down information design and the highly recognizable corporate identity used here were both key developments of the International Style design of the 1960’s and 70’s. The frontsides of the flyers are pitch-perfect replicas of 70’s corporate identity with an ambiguous logo  that could be interpreted as nearly anything and its flexible yet monolithic approach. It references the desire to inject “humanity” into corporate design by pretending that a continuous re-interpretation of the identity (within an extremely rigid framework) would create a more “friendly” appearance. Its exactly the kind of graphic design that Experimental Jetset do not practice.

Bassline series 3 (Paradiso, 1998)

Bassline series 3 (Paradiso, 1998)

Around 1998, the Bassline flyers changed dramatically. Through the introduction of Helvetica Neue, color overlays and found images that evoke the 60’s—they became softer, brighter and simpler. Its at this point that they began to find an alternative Modernist form. While many regarded the reductive visuals and simplified typography of high-Modernism as cold and impersonal, Experimental Jetset, (like Mike Mills at roughly the same time in the United States) found within it something friendly and bright; a so-called “soft modernism” that was certainly more “human” than the post-modern ideology of the time. This work is where we see the Experimental Jetset of today come into frame. The late Bassline flyers explore the language play of earlier Paradiso projects to a fuller extent. Now rather than support the theme explicitly the headlines are free associations—“BassLine. Lemon and Lime.” or “BassLife/LazyWife/BuckKnife/HighFive—layered on top of evocative photography with tenuous connections. They also begin to explore the use of color in ways that draw attention to the printed object primarily through over-printing one color on another and using the white of the paper as a third color (white always existed in their design but up to this point it had not been used to this degree of impact).

Drum & Bassline postcards (Paradiso, 1997–99)

By the time the studio stopped working on Paradiso in 1999, they had laid the framework for the iconic work that would come over the next 10 years, defined by a bold elemental typography, an emphasis on the materiality of graphic design and an open-ended play of language and visual form.

*Experimental Jetset; http://www.experimentaljetset.com/archive/paradisco2.html

Note: I am currently hustling to wrap up work on a book about the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies. I have a few entries on designers left to write and since I find blogging less initimdating than Microsoft Word I will be writing these last entries on jnamdevhardisty.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks, Namdev

All images courtesy Hey Ho

Galaade Editions promotional poster

The French studio Hey Ho create some of the most stripped-down graphic design I have ever seen. The residue of the most severe Swiss typography—sans serif type, an emphasis on structure and a lack of ornamentation—lingers in their work but it is not a homage nor is it reverential. Whereas some designers practice a typographic dogmatism in which you see their influences/allegiances clearly, Hey Ho use this influence towards one end—clarity.

In a rare turn, the designers of Hey Ho, Julien Hourcade and Thomas Petitjean create exclusively (up to this point, at least) typographic works. Like the Dutch studio Experimental Jetset, they use Helvetica in almost of all of their projects but the comparison ends there. Hourcade and Petitjean avoid pun, reference or illustration. For Hey Ho, typography is the beginning and the end and they pursue it relentlessly.

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

Since 2005, they have been the designers for French publisher Galaade and their works have been a testament to what can be accomplished with only the barest essentials of typography—one typeface, traditional grids and black ink.  Mon Heurre Sur La Terre by Claude Vigée is a study in extremes. Underneath the dust-jacket, the front and back covers are adorned with a huge “V” and “C” respecitively and the chapter headings are set in all-caps type so large that it takes eight pages to display the first essay title. This kind of brutalism is a constant in their body of work but its not the full extent of their interests. They use a twelve-column grid on Mon Heurre and, in general, they design a fairly traditional book, except that there are constant deviations from the over-all style. Some sections maintain the same type style but use the grid differently; in another instance, a piece of writing is set in bold-face and takes up the full-width of the pages; and then there is the table of contents. Its the most complex visualization of their grid and uses multiple weights and sizes but is also an extremely clear and nuanced piece of information design. Oddly, its also situated on page 912, as if the whole book is growing more complex and subtle from beginning to end.

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

“Mon Heurre Sur La Terre” Claude Vigee (Galaade Editions)

Mon Heurre like much of their work for Galaade, uses extremely thin papers allowing the other side to show-through. In perhaps another comparison to Experiment Jetset, Hey Ho seem acutely aware of printed matter as an object and they work to heighten that experience. Whether it be using paper to reveal the grid and structure of a piece or flooding the backsides of posters with a single color.

The cultural journal Particules displays much of the tendencies present in their other work but, where the Galaade projects use white space to shape the pages and allow for visual ease, Particules is a text-heavy newspaper with set in condensed black type. In the rare instance that a column isn’t totally filled with text, the show-through of the newsprint makes sure its not empty. Given the visual heaviness of the pages, the over-all high-contrast typography still maintains the clarity that marks their design.

Particules No. 17

Particules No. 17

Particules No. 17

Particules No. 17

Particules No. 17

The work of Hey Ho is a rare thing—few designers work exclusively in typography and fewer still embark on such an elemental path where influences aren’t readily seen. But the outcome is a singular body of work whose purity of vision may actually prove to be timeless.

“Auteur de Vue” series (Galaade Editions)

Note: I am currently hustling to wrap up work on a book about the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies. I have a few entries on designers left to write and since I find blogging less intimidating than Microsoft Word I will be writing these last entries on jnamdevhardisty.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks, Namdev

All images courtesy Daniel Eatock except “Six Years” book cover.

Cover of “Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object: 1966-1972” by Lucy Lippard (designer unknown)

Daniel Eatock regularly refers to Lucy Lippard’s book on conceptual and minimal art Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object (Praeger, 1973) as his favorite book. I recall seeing him lecture at the Walker Art Center where he showed a slide of it’s cover and talked about discovering conceptual art in college and the huge influence it had on him. I was struck by a secondary factor—the cover of the book. Six Years has a solid red cover with white sans serif type that fills the whole surface. The cover actually reads “Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972: a cross-reference book of information on some esthetic boundaries: consisting of a bibliography into which are inserted a fragmented text, art works, documents, interviews, and symposia, arranged chronologically and focused on so-called conceptual or information or idea art with mentions of such vaguely designated areas as minimal, anti-form, systems, earth, or process art, occurring now in the Americas, Europe, England, Australia, and Asia (with occasional political overtones), edited and annotated by Lucy R. Lippard”.

I think it’s telling that Eatock’s favorite book would not just be a seminal text but be a book whose very cover embodies the ideas within. The cover of Six Years begins with an idea—to communicate explicitly what is within the book in the most direct manner possible. To say that there are parallels with Daniel Eatock’s work is an understatement.

From the series “Considered Accidents” 2000–2009

People don’t usually talk about Daniel Eatock’s typography because typography is not the point. The ideas that form Eatock’s work have been hugely influential since his now defunct Foundation33 website first showcased his unique approach to design. There are scores of students whose websites document some phenomena inspired by an Eatock project like the “Considered Accidents”,  a series of photographs documenting “complementary” dents on Fiat cars. Indeed, he invites people to contribute to some of the on-going projects on eatock.com. But his influence extends beyond the conceptual—the current interest in Swiss Typography is due in no small part to the formal qualities of Eatock’s most iconic design work. In the late 90’s, he produced pieces like the “Utilitarian Poster”, a generic template with pre-formatted spaces to allow anyone to create a poster for an event without needing to know how to design. Besides fulfilling some of the practical concerns of late Swiss Typography—that of function, systems and standards—it is also a visual example of classic Swiss Typography (albeit with a sense of humor). Sans serif type, a clear and organized grid, and a hierarchy system based off the rational ordering of information. There is nothing flashy about Eatock’s design, it only does what it needs to. The piece even contains the philosophy that governs his work—“Say YES to fun & function & NO to seductive imagery & color”, a philosophy that is clearly at work.

“Utilitarian Poster” 1998

“Million Edition” postcard, 2002

In 2002, he created “the world’s largest signed and numbered limited edition artwork”, a million edition postcard. This and the “Utilitarian Greeting Cards” (2003) are even more cemented in the framework of Swiss Typography right down to all lower-case Akzidenz Grotesk of the million edition. His use of a dogmatic Swiss style was never about aesthetics but to get past aesthetics. Many would argue (and rightfully so) that any choice of typeface or color or composition is an act that colors the reading of a text. Eatock’s use of a Josef Müller-Brockmann-like approach isn’t inherently neutral or “un-designed” because its white, black and red and set in sans serif type. But, it is a collection of strategies that indicate that his primary goal is for you to read the text, not debate or appreciate the typography or to look for a metaphor in the letter-spacing. He takes the development of late-Swiss Typography stripped down to its barest essentials as a set of circumstances that say “read me”. But, over the last five years of Helvetica—The Movie and daily blog posts dedicated to posters about Akzidenz Grotesk, Eatock’s “un-designed” works no longer read as pure concept and instead run the risk of being one more cool thing to blog about.

Spread from “Imprint” 2008

“Price Label Gift Wrap” 2003

Its for this very reason, I believe, that Eatock has steadily moved away from this “look”. A few years ago he produced a t-shirt that read “Fuck Graphic Design”. Set in a “default” underlined italic Courier it clearly sums up his ideas about being concerned with form. Recent graphic design work like his Imprint monograph has used a less recognizable sans type with virtually no variance in size and weight, clearly downplaying the visual aspect of the work. Throughout his career, Eatock has been dedicated to ideas that “allow concepts to determine form”* and it seems as though his further stripping away of “superfluous”* elements is bringing his graphic design ever more in line with the sculptures, lists and photographs that make up so much of his work.

*http://www.danieleatock.com/project/daniel-eatock/

Note: I am currently hustling to wrap up work on a book about the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies. I have a few entries on designers left to write and since I find blogging less initimdating than Microsoft Word I will be writing these last entries on jnamdevhardisty.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks, Namdev

All images courtesy SEA Design

SEA 10 years book

The emergence of a new design Modernism certainly has the work of London-based SEA Design as an impetus. For over a decade the partnership of Bryan Edmondson and John Simpson has been making the hybrid of International Style design with high-end materials that is now de rigeur with a new generation of designers. SEA take the crisp typography of late 60’s Swiss design and build upon it with print effects and stunning photography, in effect producing a contemporary take on the International Style.

Richard Learoyd “Twenty Two Photgraphs 2005 07”

When approaching much of their work the first thing to grab you is some technique like the reflective metallic papers used in their catalogs and posters for The Architectural Foundation or the silver emboss on the cover of artist Richard Learoyd’s book “Twenty Two Photographs 2005 07”. Both of these projects utilize an almost “standard” Swiss typography but their physical materiality plants them firmly in the present and emphasizes them as objects. The Architecture Foundation pieces gain an additional dimension as each poster plays with the reflective surface of the paper. A simple gradient from orange to a fully revealed silver is enough in Encounters, while the background of the Presences poster (not shown) is given over to visual art from the exhibition of the same name. The catalog for Presences (not shown) asserts it object-ness in a different way. Instead of a book the catalog is conceived of as a box containing multiple inserts. Where the posters are displays of technology, the catalog is one spot-color throughout and the cover of each insert is an enlarged half-tone reinforcing the archival nature of the artworks.

The Architecture Foundation exhibition catalogs

In a self-promotion piece they declare that “SEA is all about design. Pure and Simple.” And for SEA, design is about objects. Things to be handled and handed about. They create pieces that invite touch and reflection and much of their work highlights the edges of a surface. The studio has worked with specialty papers manufacturer GF Smith since 1999 and this relationship has allowed SEA to explore the physical element of design to its fullest. The “Colorplan” book showcasing a collection of colored stock was inspired by the paper-stacks in one of the company’s warehouses and the resulting book resembles those stacks. But the typography also plays a role in the physical dimension of the work—running through-out the pages is large Helvetica Neue type that always bleeds off the sides. Ignoring the obvious embossing and other print effects that make the type physical, there is the fact that the letters have literally been chopped off. You can actually run your fingers along the exposed edge of the letter “e”.

GF Smith Colorplan book

GF Smith Colorplan book

While Helvetica Neue and Akzidenz Grotesk play a big part in their work, there are those instances that call for a softer approach. The identity for British cafe s&m is an entirely typographic solution based on onomatopeia and lists. s&m stands for “sausage and mash” and the servers’ t-shirts display a list of classic English food combinations set in stacks of Clarendon type. Their mugs meanwhile are adorned with the sounds of eating—dunk, slurp, sip, gulp. Coupled with the restaurants’ retro interiors, the effect is a demented take on all things classically British.

s&m servers tee

SEA have been on the path of the clean, the iconic and the modern for more than 10 years now and while some projects look as fresh now as when they were orginally published (the 1999 Rankin book for GF Smith, for example), the s&m and Boutique London identities show that their typographically bold solutions and passion for photography can be utilized in a multitude of ways. In SEA’s work, its the approach, not the typeface or paper that makes a design memorable.

*http://www.paperandprint.com/archive/print-paper/2002/06/3907.html

Note: I am currently hustling to wrap up work on a book about the new minimalist, brutalist and modernist typographies. I have a few entries on designers left to write and since I find blogging less initimdating than Microsoft Word I will be writing these last entries on jnamdevhardisty.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments. Thanks, Namdev

All images from Hudson-Powell.com

Hello Kitty’s Wizard Mirror for “Kitty’s Secret House” exhibition, Hong Kong.

Hudson-Powell occupy a truly unique place in contemporary design practice (aside from being a partnership of two brother, Luke and Jody Hudson-Powell) being known equally for the elegant print design they craft for restaurants, cultural institutions and fashion and generative digital artworks and applications. Considering the typical chasm between those two practices, it comes as no surprise that the studio do a little of everything in between as well.

Canteen opening invitation

Much has been made of such digital projects as an art-generating program for the Barbican London, children building Rube Goldberg-esque constructions in Nickelodeon TV spots or Hello Kitty’s Wizard Mirror installation (a fun-house mirror kind of project where viewers could see themselves with an ever-changing abstract head) but little has been said about their print work which seems to come from a completely different mind. Their work for Canteen, a restaurant opened with the aim of celebrating British cuisine and design is just that, a celebration of British design with references to the classical typography of 1950’s Penguin book covers and the iconography of shields. The exterior signage set in Johnston Light (a pre-cursor to Gill Sans) is a thing of beauty that feels like its been sitting on the building for the last 60 years while the individual print pieces consitute a kind of elegant Modernism—serif type organized in a grid of rule lines and white space. A shocking contrast to the neon colors and explosive imagery that is in much of their digital work.

Canteen exterior signage

In projects like the fashion newsletter Letters From London and a record sleeve for the band Men-An-Tol (designed in collaboration with Jethro Haynes) a similiar tension between modernism and tradition is at play. Both designs luxuriate in their deep blacks while making use of a fairly agressive modern composition but the use of humanist sans serif typefaces softens the effect. Instead of appearing technical there’s an ambience of some other time in history. One that we don’t know first-hand but are sure it exists. The closet comparison I can make between the brothers’ print work and another designer would be the early work of Peter Saville. Hudson-Powell, like Saville, are masters of creating works that evoke contradictory themes, times and places and it is for this reason that the work is so striking.

Letter From London newsletter

But what to make of the aesthetic schizophrenia of their print and digital work? I believe it is simply a matter of context. There is a clear context for the Canteen work that places it in within a certain historical trajectory, there is not such a trajectory or even a need to acknowledge a trajectory when creating your own software to produce self-generated images or making an installation for a celebration of Hello Kitty. Its context, of course, that grounds their work in graphic design practice while leading to so many interesting end-points. As the brothers say, “if we had just wanted to do any our own projects and work on our own style, we probably would have ended up as artists instead of designers.”*

* Interview in +81 Magazine, Japan. Vol. 40, 2008.