MUDEO is a multidisciplinary design office based around Boston specializing in graphic design, brand identity, and architecture. Here we feature a curated selection of projects within the intersection of where these disciplines meet to showcase how each is strengthened with the other. Thanks for stopping by and continue returning for more posts with high quality work each week.
Graphic design and architecture have always been intrinsically connected. Before anything is ever built, a three-dimensional architectural design must be visually documented and presented in two dimensions; the format of the graphic presentation is almost as important as the content itself. The architectural idea should be communicated and strengthened through the way it’s graphically presented. Other than physically visiting a place, the only other way to experience architecture is either on-screen through websites or presentations, or in printed publications like books and magazines.
This connection was recently the focus of an exhibition called Graphic Architecture. It was curated by Warren Taylor of The Narrows and presented at Pin-up, a new architecture and design space in Melbourne. From the Pin-up website, “The exhibition featured local and international contributions of resonant printed material connected to the field of architecture. Curated as a series of ‘clusters’, the collection revealed key moments where the relationship between architecture and the printed form have combined to communicate an explicit architectural intent beyond the traditional boundaries of the profession.
The material collated a diverse range of work – each with an overt gesture drawn from an architectural language and positioned through a sophisticated graphic manner – and sourced from the Architectural Association London, Experimental Jetset, Karel Martens, Fabio Ongarato Design, Archigram, Tomato, AMO, Harry Williamson, Clement Meadmore, Chase & Galley and more.”
Check out more on the exhibition at Pin-up.
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Legendary industrial designer Eva Zeisel recently passed on December 30, 2011, and while I never met her personally, I had an intimate understanding of her work through her grandson, Adam Bass Zeisel.
Back in 2006, I met her grandson Adam while we were both attending Northeastern University. As a business management major still attending school, he started a website called Eva Zeisel Originals to produce and distribute some of Eva’s latest designed pieces. He met one of my architectural professors at the university’s gym and asked if he knew anyone that would be able to draw some stuff. Without knowing any details of the project, I enthusiastically volunteered.
After meeting Adam on campus, I visited his apartment just outside of Northeastern’s campus where he told me about his grandmother Eva and showed me several of her designs. Impressed with everything I saw and heard, I went home later that night and searched for her on the web. Astonished, it seemed like I was the only one who didn’t know who she was! She’s produced some of the most timeless furniture, ceramics, dinnerware, you name it… and she’d been featured in exhibits around the world and received dozens of awards and honorary degrees. It was then that I knew the company that Adam was creating was something special; something that would continue his grandmother’s legacy.
In order to mass produce the furniture and collectibles that would be sold through the site, we had to redraw the original, hand-carved pieces. At a second meeting with Adam at his place, we disassembled the furniture and with a huge rolls of paper on the floor, I traced around the edges of each piece. Handling each piece, you could sense the human and organic spirit in each curve. Every curve unique and delicately considered. Those tracings were taken to a large format scanner and recreated as vector drawings for a manufacturer to use for production. At this point, I thought my work was done, but when he began designing the website, Adam realized he needed a logo.
I told him I’d be honored to design the logo for the company, and without hesitation, he agreed to let me. I found out more about Eva through Adam and he further described her method of working. He told me her approach was very hands-on and she was meticulous with her craft. Her personality and gentleness is embedded and conveyed in all of her designs and she was interested in simply beautiful things. Thus, the symbol of Adam’s company was this: a gentle hand that signified her design approach and an aesthetic that resembles the curves of her beautiful designs.
Without knowing her personally, I got to know Eva Zeisel through her designs and through the stories shared by her grandson, Adam. I’m honored to have contributed a small part of his company that continues to share her designs and her legacy.
You can see the company’s brand identity here and check out more of her designs at Eva Zeisel Originals, KleinReid, Crate & Barrel, and Design Within Reach.
In case you missed it last week, Oslo-based design studio Heydays updated their website with a new, responsive web design and loaded up with several new projects. One of those projects is for Kibsgaard-Petersen, an architectural practice based in Aalesund, Norway with a long and established history but young and innovative perspective. Simple but bold gestures go a long way in this new identity, based on the hyphen in the company’s name. Lots of white space and grayed out text and images add to the contrast of the red dashes.
Check out the new Heydays site for more work and view it on your mobile device or resize your browser window to see its responsive-design magic.
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Designers.MX is a site featuring playlists and custom album covers by a select group of designers. I was recently given the opportunity to create a mix that I call Rhythms + Melodies. I first discovered the Norwegian group Jaga Jazzist through another playlist on the site and I knew I definitely wanted to include their tune Day. The unique melody over-top the sweet drum beats inspired me to choose the rest of the playlist based on the idea of fast-paced rhythms and distinct melodies. So I went through some of my favorite artists, which include a lot of contemporary jazz and progressive rock, and grouped each genre together in the first half and second half of the playlist, ending each section with slightly more mellow tunes from Royksopp and Pat Metheny.
The cover design is a visual representation of the selected songs, using dots to denote the actual rhythms underneath lines that represent the long overtones in the songs. I hope you enjoy it! Check it out at Designer.MX.
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UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design is one of the most prestigious and progressive programs in the nation. With top notch faculty and an innovative technological approach, its students go on to work for the biggest names in architecture including Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, and Zaha Hadid.
The school approached LA-based digital agency Hello to improve its digital presence and communicate the values of the program. The homepage is image-heavy — with faculty features, news and events, and course descriptions — and each page has a long banner image or images, keeping the eye candy at the forefront.
Check out more work by Hello including a few sites for Herman Miller and the Bauhaus Workshops, and visit UCLA A.UD to see the site for yourself.
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dn&co is a branding agency with extensive experience in print, digital, film and exhibition spaces — but don’t call them a multi-disciplinary design agency. They recently launched their new site and wanted to convey their identity work through concept and form. Their portfolio of work is essentially all based in branding buildings – marketing commercial and residential properties for prospective tenants. With beautifully printed brochures, seamless and functional websites, and branded environments, they’ve set a tone for the buildings apart from the architecture that represents luxury, sophistication, traditionalism, or modernism.
Their projects include 200 Aldersgate by MoreySmith; branding for EA Shaw, estate agents in Central London; the Wells & More building owned by Great Portland Estates; Air W1 by Dixon Jones; 23 Saville Row and 14 St. George Street by Eric Parry Architects; No. 1 Kingsway by Sidell Gibson Architects, and New Brook Buildings by John Robertson Architects.
Take a look at these projects and more at dn&co and read an interview on design/array about their new website design.
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Say What is a graphic design studio based in Paris, managed by Benoit Berger, Alice Joulot and Nathalie Kapagiannidi, who graduated from the Ecole de Communication Visuelle. They’ve produced a series of booklets featuring the photography of Kim Holtermand and the architecure of Bjarke Ingels Group, Henning Larsen Architects, and Schmidt Hammer Lassen Architects. Check out more at their newly launched website, Say What?! Check out more at their newly launched website.
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Logotype and typeface, Zaha Hadid Sans, has fluid characteristics designed by Miles Newyn in collaboration with Greenspace, and is also available as a webfont
Stationery is minimal but includes patterns of parametric geometry inspired by the firm’s contemporary architecture, accented by moments of magenta within a black, silver, and white color palette
Brand guidelines are presented in a different way – a newsprint format, as opposed to a hardcover book – which keep the identity fresh and new
The website acts as an interactive archive, a collection of hundreds of projects – built and theoretical – which can be sorted and organized through a complexly-developed yet simple-to-use CMS, and allows the user to engage in the work
Lastly, a showreel of the identity was produced by Greenspace, flying through the website features and all printed collateral
Zaha Hadid Architects needs little introduction. Zaha Hadid has been in practice for over thirty years, was awarded the Pritzer Prize in 2004, and is known for her innovative and dynamic projects all around the world. The firm hired Greenspace in July 2010 to design its new identity, chosen for their process of collaboration and by identifying the brand’s potential. The brand appropriately represents the firm, communicating its innovation and professionalism, while highlighting the vast project portfolio and numerous designers.
Check out Greenspace for more of their work, experience the Zaha Hadid Architects website, see type specimens of the bespoke font by Miles Newlyn, and check out Alex Telfer, photographer of the firm portraits.
Images and information courtesy of Designboom, Creative Review, and Tundra Blog.
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Undesign was founded in 2003. They design identities: that is their job. Identity is the outward expression of a brand or a company: it includes everything, from the name to the symbol, from the visual aspects to the verbal ones.
Artiva Design is a creative studio located in Genoa (Italy) since 2003. Artiva’s work is based on the interest of two designers, Daniele De Batté and Davide Sossi, in visual art, graphics, illustration and multimedia. In 2007 they started a side-project called Take Shape, creating a vast choice of high quality patterns for different applications.
Miulli Associati is a specialized creative laboratory in graphic the design and particularly in the artistic direction, the coordination image for public institutions and privately-owned companies, publishing, in the museum exhibitions, and web design in the fields cultural, institutional and food. Miulli Associate has obtained important acknowledgments to international level and its work has been published on several occasions.
Studio Filippo Nostri deals with graphic design. His website presents a selection of works from 2006. With years of experience and working for important museums, institutions, galleries and publishers, the studio has developed a deep knowledge of the entire design process. Relevance to the content, coherence in the structure and in the details, right typographic choices and optimization of materials are the guidelines for each project.
Alessio Avventuroso is an independent young designer from Italy currently based in Valencia (Spain). Born in San Remo in 1986, in 2005 he moved to Milan where in 2008 he graduated in Industrial Design at the Politecnico di Milano. In September 2008 he went back to Valencia, after the Erasmus experience at the Universidad Politecnica, where he got his Master’s degree in Graphic Arts.
Designwork was founded in 2002 by Artemio Croatto and is based in Udine. Designwork that today counts among its customers some of the major brands of Italian design. The fruitful and exciting partnership with Foscarini in 2010 leads to the design of the magazine inventory of which is art director.
CDM Associati specializes in art direction, publishing, corporate identity for corporations, museums and businesses. When they design, they attach great importance to spaces, volumes, weights, sizes, surfaces, signs, colors, images, transparencies and any type of material. They do this because they think that the form is an integral part of the content and that its perception is not just about seeing, but involving the other senses.
Think Work Observe is a graphic design practice based in Italy and run by Piero Di Biase and Alberto Moreu. They follow different projects in graphic design, typography and photography, and design mainly printed matter and visual identities.
Mimesis Communication was born in 2005 in order to create a studio which focuses on graphics, publishing, communication for companies, cultural events, experimentation and also teaching graphics and communication.
Tassinari/Vetta is a design office working in the fields of editorial design, visual identity, communication and exhibition design, mainly for public institutions, museums, major exhibitions and cultural events. It was founded in 1985 by Paolo Tassinari and Pierpaolo Vetta and is currently run by Leonardo Sonnoli and Paolo Tassinari.
Youth Projects was founded by Andreas Markdalen, principal designer at frog design. He is a multi-disciplinary art director and designer with 7+ years experience in design related industries. Born 1981 in Stockholm, Sweden. BA Degree with Honours University of the Arts/LCC (London). he has worked in Bassano del Grappa, Italy and London, UK and is currently based in Milan, Italy.
Tankboys are an independent graphic studio born in 2005 and based in Venice. Its founders are Lorenzo Mason and Marco Campardo. They graduated at the Venice’s Design Faculty of IUAV and they haven’t stopped working together ever since. Tankboys deal with arts and communication, focusing mainly on print and editorial projects.
ma:design is a graphic design studio founded byMonica Zaffino and Massimiliano Patrignani. They are a young, dynamic, flexible, in motion, made by a team of professional communication, always ready to listen to the companies following them in the different project phases, from consulting to implementation of individual projects.
Mcastiglionidesign is the graphic design firm of Mattia Castiglioni, based in Milan, specialized in corporate identity, packaging, infographic and, generally, in all paper projects.
Studio Miotti is a graphic design firm, specializing in advertising, graphic design, and print design. Based in Vedelago, Italy.
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As I prepare for my upcoming vacation to Sicily, today I’ve featured a select list of Italian design firms from my bookmarks. Images and descriptions are from the designers’ respective sites. Hope you enjoyed.
I’ll be away for the next two weeks and will have limited online access, but be sure to return here in two weeks for yet another feature. It might be a while before I tweet, but follow me @MUDEO for daily bits on graphic design and architecture.
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