In a town renowned for its spectacular architecture, the new Aqua Tower has become the latest attraction in Chicago’s skyline. Designed by Jeanne Gang, principal of Studio Gang Architects, the 82-story mixed-use building is much more than the standard straight rectangular glass tower. The contoured façade appears to undulate, rippling between waves of concrete balcony overhangs and organically shaped areas of glass that mirror back the sky.
Although this undulation seems random as if formed by nature, it was designed to serve an environmental purpose. The balcony overhangs shade the interior from the scorching summer sun keeping interior temperatures fairly even, and they protect the building from Chicago’s heavy winds — so much so that the building doesn’t require a tuned mass damper to stabilize it against wind vibrations and sway. Built to LEED certification, Aqua Tower incorporated many other green and energy-efficient features, including an 80,000 square foot rooftop garden and six different types of window glazing to cut solar load on the exposed glass.
French communication agency W Atjust and director Thierry Poiraud gave a new twist to the tilt-shift photographic technique in making this commercial for the French railway network, Reseau Ferre de France. Tilt-shift uses special lenses and unique angles to capture a real life scene as if it were in miniature. In this case, the video combines tilt-shift photography with models and 3-D animation and adds a giant human hand making improvements to the railway network. Nice touch.
For home remodelers weighing whether real hardwood or Pergo XP laminate will wear better on the floor, check out this marketing video, produced by Atlanta-based ad agency, Fitzgerald+CO. Pergo XP foregoes the standard product performance demonstration and shows a cast of odd characters performing unspeakable acts on the flooring. Fitzgerald+CO wisely chose to film the ad in Venice Beach, California, where even bikini-clad roller skaters and Mr. Universe muscle men don’t cause a stir — just another day at the beach.
How do you market a product that is viewed as a commodity in most parts of the world? Taipei-based Green in Hand sought to elevate the perceived value of rice grown locally in Eastern Taiwan by presenting it in stylish, contemporary packaging. Touting its brand as a “life style proposal of exquisite agriculture,” Green in Hand packaged its organic rice in an earthy plain brown paper bag with a natural twisted twine handle and hand-drawn calligraphy label to create a simple and sustainable look.
Colorful gift packaging reinforced Green in Hand’s message that it “provides service for those who care about the relationship between human and land.” The floral design looks pretty enough to be a ladies’ handbag. The packaging program won both the Red Dot and Hong Kong Design Council awards.
When motion pictures were first introduced in the late 19th century, people were enthralled by the fact that the images actually moved. It didn’t matter that there was no plot, no acting, no attempt to design the set. It was entertaining in itself, until it stopped being a novelty. In many ways, that has been the case when 3-D mapped projected light shows were introduced a few years back. Crowds oohed and aahed over the display of multi-colored lights on a building, the special effects of crumbling pillars and giant silhouettes of people strolling across the exterior walls. It was dazzling, magical. Now people have become blasé. Been there, seen that. The next generation of 3-D mapped projections needs to have a customized theme, a message, and an artistic sensibility.
That’s why we like the projected light show that San Francisco-based Obscura Digital made to mark the United Arab Emirates’s 40th anniversary as an independent nation. Projected onto the façade of the Sheikh Zahed Grand Mosque in Abu Dhabi, the show was designed to suit the occasion, integrating historical themes and cultural motifs with the architectural elements of the mosque. Aladdin’s genie couldn’t have done it better, but in the case of Obscura, it required 44 projectors, totaling 840,000 lumens of brightness, to cover the 600×351 foot surface area of the mosque.
Canal+, the French television network and film production company, promoted its familiarity with every aspect of the filmmaking business, in every genre including porn, by creating a detailed flow chart of the process. Developed by Euro RSCG, the Canal+ infographic/advertisement is fun, fascinating, a great primer for novice filmmakers, and a convincing argument for why filmmakers would benefit from Canal +’s knowledge and support.
We don’t know how to wish you a happy new year in multiple languages, but we found several cats that do. From the team at @Issue, we wish you all the best in 2012 — peace, friendship, health, great collaborative clients, a free flow of creative inspiration, and many many moments of joy and laughter. Thank you for following @Issue throughout the year.
Here’s an effective print ad for VW Phaeton that doesn’t show the product at all — not the exterior, interior, engineering marvels or even a silhouette of the product. In fact, you wouldn’t make the connection to an automobile, much less a specific brand, if you didn’t see the VW logo and read the tagline at the bottom of the page: “Arrive in better shape. The Phaeton with adaptive air suspension.” At first glance, the ad just looks like an intriguing dissection of Cubist art. Look again. The humor (and the marketing message) come through when the ad is taken in as a whole. Very clever.
A UNESCO resolution called for 2011 to be observed as the International Year of Chemistry, with conferences, symposia, lectures, expositions, fairs and art exhibitions that focused on “the achievements of chemistry and its contributions to the well-being of humankind.” UK-based graphic designer/illustrator Simon C. Page (who created the incredible prints for the International Year of Astronomy 2009) was brought in to develop a poster campaign.
Whether pushing soft drinks, electronic games, clothes or jewelry, all the TV ads during the Christmas season seem alike. They are packed with every Christmas cliché — a rosy-cheeked Santa, cute kids in pajamas, elves, reindeer, snow, families gathered around the Christmas tree basking in the warm glow of a fireplace. If you’ve seen one Christmas commercial, you’ve seen them all – and can’t remember any of them, much less the product they’re promoting. So, it is refreshing to see some retailers strive for originality. Here, Brooks Brothers and Walmart chose animals to celebrate the season by singing “Jingle Bells.” There the similarity ends, and the fun begins.
The crew of the Royal Navy’s HMS Ocean came up with a creative way to announce their Christmas homecoming after seven long months at sea. In a series of giddy antics, they lipsynced their way through Mariah Carey’s rendition of “All I Want for Christmas.”
Last April the HMS Ocean was sent out for what was supposed to be a seven-week training exercise, but suddenly got diverted to Libya instead to support the UN air mission during the uprising against Moammar Gaddafi. When the crew finally got word that they’d be back in their home port of Plymouth for Christmas, they celebrated by making their own video during an unusually quiet two-day period. A morale booster for the crew, the video is silly, funny and a “feel-good” way to usher in the holidays. Welcome home.
Typically, the observation platforms of landmark buildings are designed to offer breathtaking views of the city, not vice versa. At the ARoS Museum of Modern Art in Aarhus, Denmark, the recently completed viewing tower on the roof is its own work of art. Designed by renowned Danish/Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson, the circular glass walkway is a multi-colored halo crowning the brick cubic structure built in 2003 by Aarhus-based Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects.
Known locally as “Your Rainbow Panorama,” the museum’s walkway invites visitors to see the city through curved colored glass arranged in the color spectrum. Explaining his intent, Eliasson says, “I have created a space which virtually erases the boundaries between inside and outside – where people become a little uncertain as to whether they have stepped into a work or into part of the museum. This uncertainty is important to me, as it encourages people to think and sense beyond the limits within which they are accustomed to moving.”
One of the UK’s largest works of public art, the Comedy Carpet, opened in October on the seaside promenade in front of the renowned Tower in Blackpool. Designed by artist Gordon Young in collaboration with Why Not Associates, the typographic landscape is made up of jokes, songs and catch phrases from more than 1,000 British comedians and writers. Commissioned by the Blackpool County Council to create a piece of installation art, Young determined that “Blackpool occupies a unique and important place in the social history of Britain. Comedy in all its guises is a big part of who and what we are…. Blackpool has been a magnetic chuckle point for the nation.” Young added that he also wanted to maintain the high craft standards of Blackpool’s historic architecture, including the famous Winter Gardens, library and Tower. “
The 2,200 square meter Comedy Carpet was five years in the making. Each piece (over 160,000 letters) was cut from solid granite or cobalt blue concrete, arranged into over 300 slabs and cast into a high-quality concrete so it wouldn’t fade. The Comedy Carpet has become an instant tourist attraction, with visitors walking across the promenade and reading the memorable words of legendary comedians.
Looking for a Christmas present that a designer will appreciate? Try “PANTONE®: The 20th Century in Full Color” (Chronicle Books) by color experts Leatrice Eiseman and Keith Recker. The book takes readers on a color-palette tour of the last century presenting a decade-by-decade account of fads, fashions, films, social and art movements, objects, and events and the colors associated with them. Each subject is presented with color chips of the palette, complete with exact Pantone numbers — e.g., Buttercup Yellow (PANTONE 12-0752), Nile Green (PANTONE14-0121), Lipstick Red (PANTONE 19-1764). Perusing this book, it becomes apparent that color is very much a part of our collective memory, evoking a sense of time and place and the emotional climate of the era. It’s a unique way of seeing the 20th century.
Here authors Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute, and Keith Recker, Pantone color and trend consultant, join us for a brief interview.
Consider this: Consumers in China went through 57 billion pairs of disposable wooden chopsticks in 2009 alone, which equates to more than 3.8 million trees. For a nation that ranks 139th worldwide in forest land per capita, that means that China’s forests may be wiped out in 20 years if consumption continues at that rate.
Last winter Greenpeace East Asia and Ogilvy Beijing teamed with artist Yinhai Xu and students from 20 Chinese universities to stage a public awareness campaign. Together, they gathered some 80,000 pairs of used chopsticks from Beijing restaurants to assemble a “Disposable Forest” in a popular Beijing shopping center. The display urged people to carry around their own pair of chopsticks when eating out and asked them to sign a pledge to stop using disposable chopsticks. The 80,000 pairs of chopsticks that were transformed into four full-sized trees are a mere sliver of how many disposable chopsticks are used worldwide. Even though wood is a renewable resource is it really worth it to cut down a tree to make an eating utensil that is used once and thrown away?
Here’s a case of taking the same visual concept and using it to communicate two different marketing messages. This “night light” print ad, created by Cossette West in Canada, promotes the fact that McDonald’s is now open all night, 24/7.
It builds on a visual idea, conceived by Leo Burnett USA, for an outdoor marketing campaign touting McDonald’s as having the “Best Fries on the Planet.” Visible from three miles around, the billboard shot vertical beams of golden light up from a super-sized French-fry packet, illuminating the night skies of Chicago. Although this spectacular “tribute to fries” garnered lots of accolades for its ingenuity, the outdoor light show was also called insensitive for what some considered an uncanny resemblance to the Twin Tower “Tribute in Light” commemoration of the 9/11 tragedy. We don’t think so. For one thing, the billboard – which came down last week – was only shown in Chicago near the company’s headquarters. Also, the red box of fries is so iconic that viewers immediately associate it with the fast-food giant and chuckle. Don’t know whether this marketing concept will be extended beyond print ads and billboards, but maybe it should be turned into a promotional giveaway of a real “french fry” night light.
Learn how to reduce your carbon footprint. Click here to read about Sappi’s new eQ tools.
Redefining What’s Possible Through the Power of Design
The “designer’s printer” of high-end corporate marketing materials and advertising. Consistent winner of the most prestigious printing and design awards.
Multidisciplinary design firm with offices worldwide, specializing in graphic design, architecture, interactive and industrial design.
Studio Hinrichs, founded by Kit Hinrichs in 2009, is a San Francisco-based design consultancy engaged in all aspects of design, including packaging, brand identity, corporate communications, environmental graphics, interactive media, and publishing. To find out more about the 365 Typographic Calendar.
IDEO is an innovation and design firm that uses a human-centered, design-based approach to help organizations in the business, government, education, and social sectors innovate and grow.
Gung Hay Fat Choy!
This traditional, paper cut dragon features this years Chinese zodiac animal. Happy lunar new year!
Your Profit Is My Fear
Jean-Benoit Levy, noted Swiss poster designer, created this poster concerning the powerless position an individual has facing the war effort throughout the world.
Altered Lanscape
Altered Landscape, a celebration of the Nevada Museum of Art's 80th Anniversary is now on exhibition in Reno, Nevada. A lavish book, designed by Brad Bartlett.
Vanishing Species Stamp
This commemorative stamp, featuring an Amur tiger cub, is the latest edition to the USPS campaign to raise funds for vanishing species. It was illustrated by Nancy Stahl.
Limited Edition 9/11 Poster Available
Studio Hinrichs has produced a limited edition 9/11 commemorative poster to benefit the NYC Firefighters Brotherhood Foundation.
Spark Pro Competition
The 2011 Spark Competition registration runs through September–November and is open to all designers, architects, and industrial designers.
Happy Birthday Hatch Show Print!
A Nashville original, Hatch Show Print celebrates its 132nd year as a letterpress shop. They have created posters for America's country and western stars for generations.
Cheeky Covers
Bloomberg Businessweek introduces two covers for the Valentines issue on the "Infidelity Economy". Click here to peek at the men's cover.
Industrial Designer Stamps
United States Postal Service announces the publication of 12 commemorative stamps on American Industrial Designers in July 2011.
Happy Lunar New Year!
@issue team wishes everyone a prosperous year.
@issue
Back issues (single copies or complete sets) of @issue: Journal of Business and Design are available for sale from Corporate Design Foundation. Contact CDF here.
365 Typographic Calendar
The 2011 365 Calendar is now available for the tenth year. For more information, click here.
American Craft Redesign
American Craft Magazine, published over the last 70 years by the American Craft Council, boasts a new look and feel in the December/January issue.
Levi’s Water<Less Jeans
A change in the finishing process let’s Levi’s cut water use by as much as 96% in its new Water<Less jeans line, a total savings of 16 million gallons of water by spring 2011.
Twitter Cookbook
Author Maureen Evans condenses over 1,000 recipes – from lemon lentil soup to biscotti – down to 140 characters or less.
Unique Poster
35th annual American Indian Film Festival
“Day of the Dead” Tequila
Dr. Lemon Tequila in Argentina marks Latin America’s Day of the Dead festivities (November 2) with this advertisement, designed by Plenty in Buenos Aires.
Logo Licious!
Peleg Top’s latest book on international logos has just been published; it’s an interesting array of global large and small firms.
Hand/Eye Magazine
Hand/Eye describes people, places, products, projects and ideas that bridge the worlds of art and craft, design and development, culture and commerce, and environment and ethics.
Scout's Honor
US Postal Service has just released a commemorative stamp celebrating the 100 anniversary of the Boy Scouts in America, designed by Craig Frazier.
PUBLIC Bikes
Rob Forbes, founder of Design Within Reach, has launched PUBLIC, a collection of modern bikes and gear for cyclists who want to ride in style.
TO Watch
From designer / architect Tokujin Yoshioka comes a sculptural stainless steel watch for Issey Miyake. The hands are interior faces that move independently to tell the time with hour etched on the outer face.
Ammunition adds HeartBeats for Lady Gaga
This is the latest extension to Beats by Dr. Dre highly successful headphone line. It's both a fashion accessory and a high-end audio product.
