Rare Harvest by Marx Design
Posted: May 8, 2019 Filed under: Food and Drink, Packaging Reviews | Tags: Best Packaging Designs, Branding & Packaging of 2019, Colour in Use: White, Coloured Paper, Creative Packaging, Design For Print, Design News, Design Opinion, Design Reviews, Designed by Marx, Fonts in Use: Apercu, Fonts In Use: Geometric Sans-serif, From New Zealand, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Blog, Honey Packaging, Luxury Logos and Packaging Design, Material Thinking, Metallic Spot Colours, Packaging Company, Packaging Design, Packaging Design Blog, Packaging Design Resource, Packaging News, Packaging Opinion, Structural Package Design, The Very Best of 2019, Type Foundry: Colophon, Typography, Uncoated Papers & Cards, Visual Identity Design Blog Comments Off on Rare Harvest by Marx DesignOpinion by Richard Baird.
The True Honey Company (TTHC) dedicates itself to the production of mānuka honey, a monofloral variety produced in Australia and New Zealand from the nectar of the mānuka tree. It has a unique colour and texture and a high level of dietary Methyglyoxal, an organic compound with antibacterial and antiviral properties.
With a price range starting at 60.00AUD and rising to 230.00AUD per jar, and working in a market flooded with sub-standard honey and dishonest marketing, communicating the value of the product and the commitment of TTHC to quality and ethical production through an impactful and engaging brand identity and packaging design was paramount. This task was given to Auckland-based graphic design studio and packaging specialists Marx Design who played with a material and structural language to express the rarity and value of such a product.
Marx Design returned to the project in 2019 to develop packaging for Rare Harvest, a limited edition mānuka honey from TTHC certified at an unprecedented 1,700+ MGO (31+UMF), the highest ever recorded. Marx Design, working in collaboration with Think Packaging, further the material language of value and rarity that characterised the first range, and fold in the theme of Mānuka blossoms.
Speculations On Anonymous Materials by Zak Group
Posted: November 13, 2018 Filed under: Art and Design, Graphic Design Reviews | Tags: Book & Magazine Cover Design, Book & Magazine Design, Book Review, Custom Typography, Design Blog, Design For Print, Design Reviews: Editorial Design, Designed by Zak Group, Designed in London, Editorial Design, Graphic Design, Graphic Design Blog, Magazine Design, Magazine Spreads, Metallic Spot Colours, Spot Colours, The Best Graphic Design Work of 2018, The Very Best of 2018 Comments Off on Speculations On Anonymous Materials by Zak GroupOpinion by Richard Baird
Speculations on Anonymous Materials (2013), nature after nature (2014) and Inhuman (2015) is a trilogy of exhibitions, curated by Susanne Pfeffer, that took place at Fridericianum, Europe’s oldest public museum, located in the German city of Kessel. The exhibitions, which mark the institution’s turn towards post-humanist thinking, intended to demonstrate how current artistic practices shift the theoretical boundaries separating the natural from the artificial. London-based design studio Zak Group was recently commissioned to catalogue the trilogy of exhibitions, which was then published by Koenig Books. The catalogue is set in German and English, has 220 pages and features three metallic spot colours.
Mies In London by OK-RM
Posted: September 3, 2018 Filed under: Architecture and The Built Environment, Art and Design, Graphic Design Reviews | Tags: Book & Magazine Cover Design, Book & Magazine Design, Designed by OK-RM, Metallic Spot Colours Comments Off on Mies In London by OK-RMOpinion by Richard Baird
Mies In London is a project by Real Foundation that seeks to document modernist architect Mies van der Rohe’s only design for the United Kingdom, Mansion House Square; a bronze tower and grand plaza located at the heart of London opposite the bank of England and commissioned in 1962 by Lord Peter Palumbo. Following a long struggle with Royal and political concerns, as well as an increasing disfavour for modernism within the public consciousness, the project was halted by an inquiry in 1984 with many of the details and artefacts lost to time.
Through careful research and collaboration with RIBA, the CCA and Drawing Matter over three years, editor Jack London and co-editor Yulia Rudenko have brought to light the inside and out of Mansion House Square as envisioned by Mies. The project is an interesting and ambitious example of Gesamtkunstwerk / Total Project. This is expressed by Real Foundation in their own practice and material response through a combination of book and objects; an ashtray and door handle. The book, designed by OK-RM, chronicles and presents the grand architectural gesture and philosophy for the site using the arrangement of content; documents and images with extended captions as a narrative tool.
This article, in a break from convention and with a desire to experiment editorially, has two interwoven parts; the familiar format looks at the micro (the graphic and the material), while inset italics explores the more meta. These can be read independently or sequentially.
