This blog is taken more and more of my time, so with over 1000 posts already created I have decided to pause new post for the minute. Thank you to everyone who has been there over the last 15+ years but I think the time is right now. All old post will still be available for you to review.
I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.
“Coca-Cola and Christmas are synonymous,” says Kristie Malivindi, creative director at JKR. It’s true that the brand has carved out its own strangely prominent spot in the festive calendar, largely thanks to the Coca-Cola lorry announcing the arrival of the holidays via the nation’s TV screens each year. “Coke holiday campaigns are a seasonal tradition.”
This year, Coca-Cola is consolidating its Christmas links by debuting a visual identity created by JKR and the brand’s in-house design team specifically for its holiday campaign work. The identity was designed to be “iconically Coke” and “iconically Christmas”, according to Malivindi, while being flexible enough to work globally across all of its touchpoints – from digital platforms to packaging to communications.
“We created a suite of ornaments in a tight palette of colours, shapes, patterns, (and from different perspectives), to balance recognition of the brand with flexibility of application,” she says.
The holiday campaign identity also includes a new serif typeface that brings “warmth and sparkle”, Malivindi says. Designed by Brody Associates, the typeface is based on specimens from the Coca-Cola archives, which lends it a kind of vintage charm.
The team also channelled their efforts into creating a motion design toolkit that would help the festive campaigns to thrive on digital, which was “a bit of a first for Coke”, Malivindi says.
Logo Rewind, a new book by designer, researcher, and educator Darren Leader, brings together over 200 trademarks from medieval-era Norwich in England and studies their impact on modern logo design.
“The rediscovery of Norwich merchant marks from the 13th to the 17th century is a graphic gem and an important piece of the puzzle in the early history of the development of the modern logo,” writes Jens Müller in the book’s foreword.
Beginning with the history of modern graphic design, Logo Rewind looks at the often overlooked impact of these trademarks, taking readers on a journey through medieval-era Norwich and exploring their use as symbols of trade and business.
Another of the book’s contributors (and CEO of the Design Council), Minnie Moll, explains how these symbols needed to separate their creators from the competition, as well as appeal to a largely illiterate population for whom the use of wordmarks would be ineffective.
Looking through the host of trademarks featured in the book, it is immediately obvious how strikingly contemporary many of them are, bearing the angular lines and geometric shapes that we so often see used in modern logos.
For clarity, Leader has recreated each one digitally, making them accessible through providing the merchant’s name, occupation, location, and year of identification. As a result, readers are able to understand the context for each mark, and can witness the evolution of these designs as time passes.
Traditionally, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONBs) are designated parts of the British countryside that are under conservation due to their significant landscape value. Totalling 39, these areas are found throughout the entire country, and are visited by millions of people every year. However, a recent survey carried out by the organisation showed that public awareness of them was below 50%.
London-based creative agency Nice and Serious was brought in to steer a full rebrand of AONBs that would spark engagement and help them to better serve their communities. This began with simplifying the name to National Landscapes, along with a new visual identity for the organisation that stresses the importance of these natural areas.
The team at Nice and Serious also wanted to unite all of the 39 areas, and as such, developed a consistent narrative and visual system that could tie them together. Throughout the visual system, these areas and the people that occupy them are woven into a “living patchwork”, symbolising their interconnectedness.
“The idea of the living patchwork came to underpin the visual design system,” explains Nice and Serious creative director Peter Larkin. “Where each square is as unique as the next – filled with endless patterns of people and place. Up close, these individual patches represent one part of the landscape’s story, but step back and they thread together to form our nation’s fabric. One that’s vibrant, and full of life.”
Accessibility and inclusivity were an important consideration during the design process and informed the typeface used for the identity. The main one, Effra, was selected for its “contemporary, humanist aesthetic but also its open characters, distinguishable letter forms and lack of ‘mirroring’ – all which help it be more legible for people with dyslexia,” Larkin says.
An Irish pub has given John Lewis a run for their money after imitating a Christmas advert in the style of the popular retailer.
Charlies Bar, a pub in Enniskillen in Northern Ireland, created an advert which shows an elderly gentleman going about his day before enjoying a pint of Guinness with friends and strangers. The pub posted the video on TikTok with the advert viewed more than a quarter of a million times on the platform.
Its that time of the year again when Christmas ads are every were here’s some of my favourite!
Founded in 2007, the music streaming platform Deezer has often been in the shadows of its main competitor Spotify. But with users in over 180 countries and almost 10 million subscribers, recently the platform has shifted towards a new brand purpose, defined as ‘Deezer helps you be and belong’. With that comes a new identity rooted in their belief that ‘Music is the beating heart of life’.
Bringing in design studio Koto to help, at the heart of the rebrand is a fresh logo that symbolises a beating heart. The logo aims to capture Deezer’s essence and draws from a few core ideas: love and passion for music, and instilling a sense of belonging in the Deezer experience. The logo has also been set in motion and pulsates to echo rhythms and beats.
Beyond the logo, Koto has adopted a motion-first approach with the rest of the design system further building on the beats element as well as playfully tapping into the rhythmic pulse of music. The beats take various forms to create dynamic patterns and graphic elements to help bring the identity to life. This offers Deezer flexibility by using these beats as illustrative elements, sound expressions, or container shapes for brand imagery.
Sinead Kirby, senior strategist at DesignStudio says, “BVB’s impressive performance means they’re certainly no longer the underdogs, but they are still challengers. Our task was to bring these two worlds together to revive the BVB passion and retell their story.”
This began with a new strategy line developed by the studio – ‘Together we go all in’ – that formed the basis for the new identity, which started rolling out over the summer in time for the new season. “BVB’s existing identity was limited to a logo that was designed to sit statically in a stadium,” says DesignStudio ECD Vinay Mistry, who explains that the club needed a “full system that could live across every touchpoint” and engage fans around the world.
The studio looked to the club’s home ground, Signal Iduna Park, for the solution. “Our visual system is based on one of BVB’s most iconic assets – Die Gelbe Wand, or ‘Yellow Wall’ – which perfectly symbolises the club’s collective power and community,” explains DesignStudio design director Lorenzo Di Cola. The nickname refers to the blanket of yellow created by fans in the south stand in the stadium – the largest standing area in a European football ground.
The typeface also forms the foundations of the refreshed wordmark, and while the crest itself remains unchanged, the design team have introduced new textures and motion design to it. Fresh, hazy photographs and restrained player portraits lend a softer edge to the rigid lines and high contast palettes of the design system.
Mistry adds: “Our design sympathetically modernises BVB, capturing the challenger attitude that makes it so iconic and beloved, and boldly evolving it for the fans of today, and the future.”
The London Transport Museum is opening a new gallery to showcase the rich history of poster and art design, of which it has been an integral driving force since the dawn of the 20th century. The Global Poster Gallery will feature posters for London Transport and the Underground from the Museum’s extensive collection.
Round London sightseeing tour by Abram Games, 1971 © Abram Games Estate and TfL
London Zoo by Abram Games, 1976 © Abram Games Estate and TfL
The launch of the first exhibition, How to Make a Poster, coincides with the opening, and will offer visitors a chance to explore the world of poster commissioning and creativity in the pre-digital age. Visitors will gain invaluable insights into the processes involved in creating some of the 20th century’s most important works in this medium.
These include works by American artists Edward McKnight Kauffer and Man Ray, German graphic designer Hans Unger, and British artists Abram Games, Tom Eckersley, Paul Catherall, and Dora M Batty – the latter of which was a particularly influential female graphic designer in this era.
There is still the Country by Dora M Batty, 1926 © TfL from London Transport Museum’s collection
Busabout by Hans Unger and Eberhand Schultze, 1970 © TfL from London Transport Museum’s collection
A new view of London by Paul Catherall, 2007 © TfL from London Transport Museum’s collection
Founded 15 years ago, the Brooklyn Community Foundation was set up to celebrate Brooklyn’s brilliance and resilience, and to be a “new model for community philanthropy”. Championing and supporting the people and businesses within the borough, the organisation felt a change was needed to achieve its ongoing vision “for a fair and just Brooklyn”.
Working with Brooklyn-based agency Mother Design, the first step towards this was a new name. The foundation now goes by Brooklyn Org, and has also launched an updated website and brand new identity.
The new design, which was created pro bono, aims to target a new generation of emerging “Brooklyn givers” and new residents. The borough receives just 7.6% of charitable funding despite being home to 30% of New York City’s population and 30% of the City’s nonprofits.
The visual direction of the identity is inspired by the density of Brooklyn and it pays homage to the “close-knit unity of the borough”. The wordmark is also a nod to Brooklyn’s neighbourhood blocks and the typography used is Community Gothic, designed by Frere-Jones type foundry.
Graphic Design 