Another Hayman Adventure

Recent offerings from, Pentagram New York partner, Luke Hayman. We like big bold type on the openers and great infographics. See more on the Pentagram site.

Jan Kaplický Architect of the Future

The Guardian dubbed him 'the most radical architects of the last 40 years'. Best known for designing the Media centre at Lord's and the branch of Selfridges in Birmingham's Bullring centre, Czech born Jan Kaplicky died this year and is the subject of a new exhibition on at The Design Museum along with the bigger-scale Mariscal, both opening tomorrow. Well worth a visit if you like crazy visions of the future. We, here at Things to Look At enjoyed peering very closely into the models so we could imagine some Logan's Run vision of the future.Here is what Design Museum's Deyan Sudjic has to say on the legend.

Walker Evans for Fortune

We’re in the middle of commissioning a story here and like a bolt of lightning I remembered one of the most precious pieces of photographic journalism – Walker Evan’s story for Fortune magazine July 1955 on the beauties of the common tool.
There are countless essays on these photographs, its meaning and significance. I admire them for the questions they ask, who uses these tools, what are they are used for, why are they significant? These objects have been taken out of their everyday contexts - suddenly they are presented with such austerity, that they've take on a particular significance, suddenly they are special, important and beautiful. Perhaps these photographs were a metaphor for the social or economic or political class system. I suppose they could be interpreted in many number of ways - one thing that struck me was how stunning they look – something truly special I think.

Wired Magazine

The EDO held its first lecture of the year last week, inviting the Creative Director of Wired magazine, Scott Dadich, to speak about his involvement with the magazine and the brand new UK edition that's just been launched. It was a glorious technicolor talk with an impressively animated presentation. Read all about it over at the Eye blog.

With an average circulation of 2 million, it was the ethereal dream of the budget that allowed for months of thinking time, grand plans and ridiculous details which made it stand out for us here at Things To Look At. Here are some examples...


You are inspired by a shot from Terminator 2, as many of us are


So you commission some sketches of rockets, some intricate CGI, of many individually crafted rockets with well thought out propulsion systems. A bit of on location desert photography and hey presto, there's your cover!


You get the iconic Martha Stewart to bake you a Wii cake that HAS to taste good and look like a Wii.


You ask the CGI wizards behind Transformers to render out your own 1gig Transformer image which is detailed down to the very last scratch on the eyeball



All so you can achieve the sorts of covers Wired is famed for. Here are a few more from its lifespan, more of which can be seen here or here.



To find out more about the deep processes behind Wired courtesy of Scott's entries on the blog of the US equivalent of the EDO, the SPD. You can even have a crack at designing your own cover here, although we couldn't make the image uploader work.

Other great parts of the talk were of course the amazing infographics



And the amazing attention to detail in some of the photography

Florid Type

Type samples of fanciful typefaces from the Victorian period of typography, referred to as 'a great weedy jungle'. There was a growing practice of decorating the face of a classic letter style and surrounding it with 'shrubbery and doodling'. It's always interesting when these forgotten faces suddenly crop up in magazines or other contemporary graphic design.


Scroll Alphabet, German Chromolithographer, Louis Prang & Co., Boston, 1864


A leafy Tuscan font from the German calligrapher Joseph Balthazar Silvestre's Album published in 1843


Alphabet Lapidaire Monstre by the Swiss/French type designer Jean Midolle. The bottom third contains the surnames of famous men which correspond to each letter. The font was revived on Urban Outfitter's shopping bags last year.


Initial letters by one of America’s preeminent penmen, Daniel T. Ames, New York, 1879

Geigy

Corporate Diversity : Swiss Graphic Design and Advertising by Geigy 1940 - 1970
Museum für Gestaltung Zürich; Janser, Andres; Junod, Barbara (Eds.)
2009, 208 p. 385 illus., 360 in color., Hardcover
ISBN: 978-3-03778-160-9
Lars Müller Publishers

There's something very beguiling about medical illustration reduced down to simple geometric shapes. Only in the 50's could an advert for fabric whitener look like a minimalist techno record cover. This is a great book, full of beautiful work.

New vs Old

Jeremy just unveiled the new Architectural Review logo by Creative director Violetta Boxhill & art director Cecilia Lindgren. Over the years the AR has had various incarnations, it's rather refreshing to see this return to its heritage. One wonders what the redesign will look like inside. Will it also mirror the splendor of past designs? Our delve into the archive shows issues from 1967-1972 art directed by Bill Slack. The Eye blog has now posted up the redesign issue making some interesting comparisons between new and old. Here is a quote from the article about the pages spreads below.

Bill loved punning headlines (which he wrote himself so they’d fit his layouts) set all-caps in condensed grot fonts (like Twen magazine was doing in Germany), with Clarendon for text and captions, and Victorian display fonts to headline articles about architectural history. He mixed black and white architectural photographs printed on art paper with text printed on uncoated tinted stock, would turn the pictures at 90 degrees as content demanded and, where budget allowed, insert a dramatic gatefold.

Parr for Vuitton

It’s been a while since we put up a fashion photograph on Things To Look At, no better way to kick start it than with Martin Parr’s images for Louis Vuitton I think. This work is particularly interesting, not only based on how good it looks but because there’s definitely an effort here to do something different. Its unusual because its fashion reportage – distinctly different from the posed glossy campaigns from years past. Its an interesting commission on Vuitton’s part to work with Parr, famous for his modern photo documentary style. The images have an easy elegance, it all seems unforced and seamlessly casual. The crops and focused shots on detail are almost movie like, which is further enforced by an apparent narrative. He’s on holiday (the bag), meeting with friends then off to a party in the evening (ok its not an Oscar, but at least there’s a story). Not quite sure how many times I’ve seen fashion campaigns work with the idea of a narrative in this way – I wish it’d happen more.