The Book

Last year’s D&AD Annual broke with tradition. Until then, the practice had been to hand the cover design over to either an ad agency or a design studio (they took turns) while treating the inside pages as a separate project. The result was a kind of packaging arms race where each year the challenge often seemed to be to produce the most ludicrous, overblown and often totally inappropriate solution possible.
Thankfully, sanity finally prevailed and, in 2005, D&AD gave over the whole book to Spin. The result was a beautifully-produced, conceptually consistent book which succeeded in honouring those chosen while also underlining D&AD’s charitable status.
This year, Design Project were chosen to produce the Annual. Check back later in the week for an interview with the designers on the project. In the meantime, have a look at what they did with it…

My Type Of Town

One of the most loaded questions any Londoner can ask another is the seemingly innnocent, “So, where do you live?”. In a city as property obsessed as London, divulging your address reveals far more than your post-code. In London, you are where you live.
Peter Dawson, of design studio Grade, recognises as much in his response (above) to a brief from the International Society of Typographic Designers. Dawson was one of 18 designers invited to take part in the ISTD’s My London/My City exhibition.

Here we go again…

If you can hear the sound of tabloid knives been sharpened, it’s because this year’s annual opportunity to bash contemporary art, the Turner Prize exhibition, is poised to open at London’s Tate Britain.

Promos of the week

Here’s a fresh crop of music videos for your delectation. First up is Chris Milk’s bug-ridden promo for Gnarls Barkley’s cover of Violent Femmes track Gone Daddy Gone, which reveals a surprising tale of unrequited love between a flea and a woman. Hmmm.

Facts Made Fun

As entries on the Wikipedia website soar over the one billion mark, it’s difficult to see how the humble old printed encyclopaedia can possibly compete. A new book from Dorling Kindersley publishers, Pick Me Up, offers a solution: make facts fun.

Arty in the Park

Graphic Thought Facility’s work for the Frieze Art Fair has helped establish the event on the international arts calendar.

Flock It

It’s wallpaper’s turn to enjoy a retro chic revival, thanks to digital technology and talented designers.

A Scanner Darkly

This month our panel discuss Richard Linklater’s innovative adaptation of the Philip K Dick novel, A Scanner Darkly

Beck’s DIY Album Cover

At first glance, you could be forgiven for thinking that the sleeve for Beck’s forthcoming album, The Information is a fairly shoddy effort. The artist’s name is rendered in Lego-esque building block letters against a light blue graph-paper grid. And that’s it.

James Joyce

In common with many of his contemporaries, James Joyce supplemented his full-time job at a design studio with a stream of freelance work, including promotional badges and flyers for monthly clubnight It’s Bigger Than (CR Oct 04) and window graphics for London’s Carhartt store (CR April).

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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

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