Mapping New Worlds
MOMA’s Design and the Elastic Mind show explores design’s role in visualising the digital landscape
Karlsson Wilker in South Africa
The organisers of the Design Indaba conference asked NY design studio Karlsson Wilker to spend ten days in South Africa, creating a new piece of work each day in reaction to what they saw on their travels…
London redefined
situation 9, 2007
Strip a city street of all its commercial clutter and is it still identifiable? This is one of the questions posed by a series of artworks by Austrian artist Gregor Graf, currently on show at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London.
Graf mixes old technology with new in his work, using medium format photography to take the initial shots of a city before removing, via Photoshop, all traces of language and signage from the images, including commercials signs, street signs, people and traffic. The cities become virtually unrecognisable as a result, and oddly sinister. Graf has previously photographed Linz and Warsaw in this style, and turned his attention to London when commissioned to create some works by the Visual Arts Platform at the Austrian Cultural Forum. Shown above is a blissfully quiet Oxford Street…
Swisscom gets Moving Brands treatment
London-based Moving Brands’ rebrand of Swiss telecom company Swisscom includes a three-dimensional graphic mark as well as a re-drawn wordmark…
Indaba live blog
OK, here we are at the Design Indaba in Cape Town attempting, internet connection willing, to blog live from the first session of the morning by Gert Dumbar and carrying on through the rest of the day
Roger Beckett
Everybody at Creative Review would like to wish Roger Beckett all the best as he leaves the magazine to pursue other interests.
Roger worked on the launch of Creative Review in 1980 and also on the launch of our sister title, Design Week, eventually becoming publisher of the latter. For the past few years he has been publishing director of both Creative Review and Design Week, helping us to launch The Annual and Monograph as well as overseeing our acquisition of the Creative Handbook.
“During my time at Centaur [publisher of CR] I have worked in many different markets but have always felt a great affinity to the creative sector. I have been fortunate enough to work alongside and do business with some fantastic people and hope that our paths will cross again in the future,” he says.
We will all miss Roger’s energy and enthusiasm as well as all the help he has given us in developing Creative Review and wish him every future success.
Design Indaba Day 1
Patrick Burgoyne will be blogging from the Design Indaba conference in Cape Town this week
Design Indaba has often been referred to as the best design conference in the world: it certainly attracts the big names, this year being no exception as the event kicked off with a presentation by (and I think for once this term is genuinely applicable) a living legend of graphic design, Ivan Chermayeff.
What’s wrong with this picture?
Just watch the first minute or so of the above clip, a Brits broadcast from online entertainment channel ITN On. As product placement goes, you might think that Will Ferrell’s new film, Semi-Pro, had lucked in what with the reporter’s clipboard proudly declaring its title to camera (0.33). But keep watching – Farrell’s only gone and innocuously got his film into another shot (from 1.12-1.30): this time the intrepid reporter’s standing next to a billboard advertising the movie and – hey – there’s its title again, on the side of the taxi she’s climbing into! Lucky coincidence?
Well, no. All of these references to Semi-Pro were actually added in to the broadcast digitally and, according to MirriAd who are behind the work, this is a first for “embedded advertising in showbiz content”. While the work is for an online commercial channel, targeting an audience who, potentially, would be interested in seeing the film, doesn’t this all just feel a little creepy?
Gap’s Sound of Color
Ryan Ebner’s film for Marié Digby’s track Paint Me In Your Sunshine, based on the colour yellow
What is the relationship between sound and colour? It’s a question pondered by psychologists and artists over the centuries, and now, finally, Gap clothing has also entered the debate with their latest project, The Sound of Color.
A branded content campaign which aims to launch Gap’s brightly-coloured Spring 2008 collection through non-traditional means, the Sound of Color saw the clothing company, in conjunction with San Francisco-based production company Rehab, approach five bands and ask them to write a song based on a specific colour. The Blakes, a Seattle-based Indie band, took blue; Dntel, a member of the band The Postal Service, took on red; hip-hop artist/producer Swizz Beats was given green, singer/songwriter Marié Digby yellow, and The Raveonettes opted for black and white.
Once the songs were complete, they were then given to five directors who were asked to create videos to accompany them. While they were requested to reflect the colour associated with each track in their films, the directors were otherwise given a free rein to create the films however they liked, without consultation with the musicians.
CR Redesigned
If you pick up a copy of the March issue of Creative Review, out this week, we hope you’ll notice something a bit different about it: We’ve had a redesign.
The Somnambulists
Princess Tolstoya, 1800-1873
Edinburgh-based photographer Joanna Kane’s latest book, The Somnambulists, is a series of rather unconventional portraits. While at first glance the images appear to be intimate studies of various sleeping figures they are, in fact, recent photographs of life and death masks that are between 150 and 200 years old.
Creative Review’s Annual Awards 2025 are officially open for entries
One of the most respected and trusted awards for the advertising and design industries are back for 2025. Run, don’t walk to get your entries in before the Early Bird Deadline on 25 October
How to scale your design business
Growth is a dream for many businesses, but it comes with challenges. Daisy Crowder, brand and marketing director at design recruitment agency Craft, offers advice on how to navigate the change and keep staff on side
Cultivating community with Ganni
The Danish luxury fashion label has spearheaded the characterful evolution of Scandi style. Here, chief brand officer Priya Matadeen discusses its approach to collabs, the pressures of being a responsible brand, and how Ganni Girls grew from a hashtag to a badge of belonging
Why are brands apologising so much right now?
Brands are saying sorry at a more rapid rate than ever. CR’s advertising columnist Ben Kay delves into why sorry is no longer the hardest word and whether this is an effective strategy for winning audiences
How Guinness embraced social
By loosening its approach to advertising, and engaging with its audience directly, the drinks brand has transformed with the times and won a whole new set of fans
Tracing Banksy’s art history remixes
Kelly Grovier’s new book charts the artist’s persistent dialogue with classic and contemporary art
How Lego creates meaningful brand experiences
We speak to Lego’s VP of global brand development Alero Akuya about the brand’s rare ability to straddle the physical and virtual worlds with ease – whether through its immersive new art exhibition in Paris or collaborations with Epic Games and Nike
Matt Willey brings a human touch to Kaos titles
The Pentagram partner has created the titles for the acclaimed new Netflix show, which reimagines the Greek myths in a contemporary setting
A visual history of movie posters
A new book from Reel Art Press collates the first comprehensive history of film posters. We explore why they remain an underappreciated area of cultural design
The Monthly Interview: Rob Lowe, aka Supermundane
Mark Sinclair talks to the artist and designer about his new book, Lost Ordinary Magic, and the importance of recognising the power of simplicity and the everyday wonders that surround us
Unravelling adland’s obsession with 90s nostalgia
We explore how the 90s, an era the UK looks favourably upon for its thriving culture, are continually inspiring a stagnated creative industry
Building the visual world of Fontaines DC
The band’s surreal new album visuals explore a darker, more grotesque side of romance. We speak to the creative team behind the campaign about challenging the visual tropes of rock music