Straight up, I’ll admit that I struggle to resist a condensed sans typeface set in uppercase. I’ll also confess that I’ve spent the last hour (no lie), trying to identify this one… Helvetica? Hell no. Railroad Gothic? The wrong track. Söhne? Sö not. Must be Knockout? Another blow. For Druk’s sake is it Druk? Well, whatever it is, it’s neatly...
When I first caught Perky Bros’ latest project I misread it as ‘Tempo’, the speed at which music is played. Timing is everything, or so it is said. For real estate company Tembo this notion takes the form of patience; the time to grow gently and judiciously. Property development, momentarily paused during the pandemic, seems to have recovered and is again...
The skincare industry is a varied visual landscape. At one end of the spectrum, brands like Glossier and Soft Services (reviewed July 2022) have found balance in softness and understated minimalism. At the other Dr.Jart+ (reviewed Jan. 2018) and Malin+Goetz bring pharmacy-chic with functional, type-led packaging. And then we have our classic, heritage brands – like Kiehl’s and Elizabeth Arden – which...
Triboro worked on its first restaurant branding project over a decade ago, at a time when the folklore was that if you were a restaurant serving traditional food the visual language should evoke the region and time period of the cuisine. This was intuitive and, as Triboro founder David Heasty recounts, led to some well-crafted and beautiful results but often leaned...
After seeing Collins’ work for the San Francisco Symphony – a pioneering typographic and digital experiment with Swiss foundry Dinamo – I thought it would be some time before I’d be surprised by another visual identity in the music space. Sure, there’s an abundance of styles and artists to be inspired by within an art that has evolved in tandem...
Big C Charters is a premier charter service located in the San Francisco Bay Area, offering hands-on fishing trips and excursions. The company gets its name from Christian Cavanaugh, captain, founder and former professional basketball player. With a growing fanbase and fleet, Mucho was commissioned to create a new logo, colour palette and custom typeface for the brand, as well...
Formed in 1911, while San Francisco was rapidly rebuilding after the devastating earthquake of 1906, the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) has been serving audiences in the Bay Area and beyond for 111 years. In 2018, Esa-Pekka Salonen – a Finnish conductor and composer – was announced as the incoming musical director, with his tenure to start during the fall season...
Agricultural practices are constantly changing to provide greater crop yields. In an effort to achieve this goal, modern farming has created a host of ecological side effects. Most notably, overconsumption of water and a reliance on chemical fertilisers, GMOs and pesticides. Plenty is an indoor vertical farm providing green produce to the masses through sustainable practices, using less space and...
Tacos are a Mexican staple, consisting of a small hand-sized corn or wheat-based tortilla topped with a range of fillings. They make for perfect on-the-go food, packed full of flavour. This combination of convenience (quick to make or eat) and tastiness has seen the traditional dish rise in popularity as an ideal product to package and sell in many markets....
In case you’ve missed it, low and no-alcohol drinks are a thing. With over 20% of adults in the UK claiming to be teetotal, abstinence is cool: Brewdog is now Punk AF (that’s ‘alcohol free’), Thomson & Scott’s Noughty is (fairly) nice, and Seedlip is sexy. This sobriety revolution is driven, in part, by the mindfully sceptical Gen Z, turned...
The MoMA logotype, set in Franklin Gothic No. 2 and designed by Ivan Chermayeff, is an icon, and has been part of the New York urban landscape and international museum graphic vernacular since its creation in 1964. With evolving communicative needs and channels, the MoMA logotype was made a central graphic device as part of a new visual identity launched in...
Freadman White is a Melbourne-based architectural practice, led by Ilana Freadman and Michael White, that seeks to embed a curiosity-driven and experientially charged tension into their architectural work, reveal beauty in simple and overlooked settings, and design contextually informed structures with a disciplined whimsy. Further, rather than responding literally to physical surroundings, the practice develops spaces that are visually intriguing,...