Posters

IDA Congress Adopts a Global Perspective

By Delphine Hirasuna | June 3, 2011September 4, 2014

IDA Poster 1

For its first-ever International Design Alliance (IDA) Congress in Taipei this October, the organization put out a worldwide call for a poster design. The response was particularly nice. Here are four by Helmut Langer, James Chen, Katsunori Watanabe and Kazumasa Nagai.

What’s intriguing about the IDA Congress, themed “Design at the Edges,” is its cross-disciplinary approach, encompassing industrial design, communication design and interior architecture/design, and its big global-issue program, covering economic development, the Internet, biotechnology, urbanism and international migration. Nothing lightweight about the topics. Not what you expect from a design conference. If the speakers stay true to these subject categories, it may be the first design conference that truly focuses on the role that design can play in addressing the major problems confronting the world today.

Brand Logos

Moving the Edges of Logo Design

By Delphine Hirasuna | June 2, 2011September 4, 2014

Current TV, the media company started by former U.S. Vice President Al Gore and businessman Joel Hyatt, has launched a new logo designed by Wolff Olins and animation house GHAVA. Replacing the static pixelated identity created by Meta Design and Peter Saville in 2005 (contemporary for its time), the waving Current logo is meant to be viewed in motion, or at least to imply that it is in motion. Unlike traditional logos, the Current identity takes advantage of the technological capabilities of the broadcast medium. Dropped out of whatever background is behind it, the name undulates like a flag, leaving the borders and proportions loosely defined. The logo itself uses a familiar compressed modern gothic font and foregoes any use of proprietary colors. As flat graphics, it’s pretty simple. What makes it special is that movement isn’t used as an afterthought, but as the essence of its uniqueness.

Global Trends

20’s & 30’s Graphic Design in Japan

By Delphine Hirasuna | April 27, 2011September 4, 2014

Today design trends ricochet around the globe instantaneously, thanks to the Internet. But a look at these posters, advertisements and magazine covers produced in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s show the integration of art movements from European cultures, including Constructivism, Surrealism and Cubism. The graphic works — which appeared in “Modernism on Paper: Japanese Graphic Design of the 1920s-30s” by Naomichi Kawabata – represent a period when communication design was emerging in Japan. The posters and ads from this period are sometimes referred to as “city art,” because merchants wanted to appeal to urban consumers by departing from traditional pictorial naturalism and embracing message-driven avant-garde visuals that implied that they were keeping pace with styles from the West. The aesthetics and composition communicated this awareness of the larger world and established many of the principles of early graphic design in Japan.

Brand Logos

MIT Media Lab Introduces Algorithmic Logo

By Delphine Hirasuna | March 23, 2011September 4, 2014

For decades MIT Media Lab didn’t have a logo; now it has the potential for 40,000 of them. Brooklyn-based designers E. Roon Kang and Richard The came up with a fitting symbol to represent the preeminent research center dedicated to the convergence of design, multimedia and technology. Using three colors plus black, the algorithmic design features three intersecting spotlights that can be arranged into 40,000 unique shapes and 12 colors. Researchers can individualize the logo for their business stationery yet still link themselves to the Media Lab. The concept is geeky, serendipitous, and a melding of math and design to arrive at a different way of looking at things.

Interior Architecture

Technology and Art Converge in Las Vegas

By Delphine Hirasuna | March 10, 2011September 4, 2014

In a town known for its over-the-top decor, the new $3.9 billion Cosmopolitan Hotel, which opened on the Las Vegas Strip in December 2010, is a show-stopper from the moment you walk into the main lobby. Designed by Digital Kitchen, the interior of the resort greets guests with a dazzling electronic art installation. Digital images dance up and down towering illuminated columns, dreamlike and surreal. Technology is integrated seamlessly into the design, offering the flexibility to change and refresh the texture, character and mood of the interior from a central control. It’s entertainment. It’s art. It’s a respite from the slots and roulette table.