Review 2019 / Prospectus 2020 is a book of 260 pages featuring a collection of outstanding student works, final thesis projects in the past academic year, and an introduction of courses for Bachelor’s degree, Master’s degree, and other programmes by the Department of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong.

The cover artwork and the book design are hugely inspired by the modernist design of the Knowles Building, where the Department of Architecture is located. Generated from a rectangular grid structure, the iconic visual symbolises the forwardness, dynamism and resilience of the school, as the first impression of HKU Architecture, for prospective students and visitors.

The neon green applied on printed and digital media serves as a new interpretation of HKU's signature emerald, a color honoring the legacy but also enlightening the future.

English text is set in Neue Machina by Pangram Pangram Foundry, paired with DM Sans by Colophon Foundry. Chinese text is set in Toppan Bunkyu Midashi Gothic by Toppan Printing, paired with Source Han Sans TC.

Blickfang is an international design fair which takes place every year throughout central Europe in Stuttgart, Hamburg, Cologne, Vienna, Zurich, Basel and Bern.

Zürich’s show required a new identity due to the move into a new exhibition space. The new design needed to differentiate itself from its other European sister events as well as enabling a comprehensive communication system that could prove its flexibility through a multitude of print, digital and spatial applications. Special considerations allowed for the identity to function as animations and moving image cycles.

All typography uses NN Nouvelle Grotesk (Nouvelle Noire).

TGL and Reglo in use on the poster for Too Cool for School: a fundraiser for young migrants, held at the Trempolino in Nantes, France. TGL 0-16 and 0-17 are digizations of DIN 16 and 17, made by Peter Wiegel, using the GDR names.

The purpose of this evening is to find funds to help unaccompanied migrant children to access schooling. The entrance is free of charge support, the risograph printed poster (by Arnaud Aubry) is for sale, 3 € minimum price, also to raise funds.
A solidarity canteen will be present, all of whose profits will go to L’Autre Cantine. The expression “à votre bon cœur” takes on all its meaning here and at the same time you will undoubtedly spend a wonderful evening on the terrace of Trempolino! A very cool evening, for school! Thank you to the association SAFE which co-organizes this event.

In 1961, Ken Garland redesigned the identity for Galt Toys, set in Folio. Later, the company accepted his offer to design their toys and games. They remained a client until 1982.

When we were working for Galt Toys, although we used the same logo, we twisted it round and did umpteen versions of it and never let it stay the same. — Ken Garland, Eye

The style was maintained consistently for 20 years. The letterforms chosen for GALT TOYS were from a very recently issued typeface, Folio Medium Extended. … [We] were determined not to let the Galt Toys logo become a sacred cow, not to be mucked about with (as was decreed with so many logos in the 50s and 60s). It would, indeed, be mucked around with, but only by us. — Ken Garland, Galy Tots

Cover of first Galt Toys catalogue, 1961

publicity leaflet, 1967. Drawing by Wanda Garland.

publicity leaflet. Photography: Harriet Crowder.

Galt Post Office, Ken Garland & Associates, 1967.

Box for Montage toy.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Galt Connect, game and packaging designed by Ken Garland & Associates in 1969.

Ken Garland & Associates designed the original Fizzog matching game in 1969. This is a mid-1970s edition. The designer of this box is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

The designer of this box is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

One of two boxes for Linking Letters. The designer is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

One of two boxes for Linking Letters. The designer is unclear, but it seems to have been released during Garland’s tenure.

Memory tile game with illustrations by Kenneth Townsend.

Catalog cover for Galt Toys, 1969–70, playing with the logotype (in Folio). The small type in the ‘O’ is Univers, which was often used as a secondary typeface during this period.

Detail of above cover, reprinted as a limited-edition poster by Trunk Records.

Catalog cover, 1974–75. Drawing by Daria Gan.

“A Fairy Tale of Ships, Trade and Travels in Indonesia” by Swiss photographer and seaman Beat Presser, published by Afterhours Books and Scheidegger & Spiess.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

For the 2015 holidays, the Breitling watch company sent clients a box of chocolate. But they didn’t just slap their logo on some black cardboard and call it a day. Jeremia Adatte designed a colorful WWII-era tin with vintage pin-up and Art Deco influences. The retro art is meant to charm (Adatte chose a relatively tasteful representation of a genre that was inherently sexist), but it’s the thoughtful type choices and treatment that really drew my attention.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

The exterior of the tin is set entirely in Mostra Nuova. Mark Simonson’s type family already includes an extensive range of alternates, but Adatte made some of his own lettering-inspired modifications to a few of the glyphs. For example, to establish a custom logotype for this fictional brand of chocolate, three holes are punched into Mostra Nuova’s ‘BR’, and a dot replaces the middle of the ‘E’. A 3-dimensional extrusion effect completes the look.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

To establish a custom logotype for this fictional brand of chocolate, three holes are punched into Mostra Nuova’s ‘BR’, and a dot replaces the middle of the ‘E’. A 3-dimensional extrusion effect completes the look.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

The sticker on the inside of the box lid is another fairly convincing throwback design using type by comic book lettering experts Comicraft (Rocketship from Infinity), and a typical advertising script (Leader) which comes directly from the archives of Filmotype, a pioneering phototype company founded in the 1950s.

These type genres are perhaps a decade too late in comparison to the Deco-style exterior of the tin. Leader is a very nicely drawn and authentic freehand script, but it’s more mid-’50s than ’40s. Still, it’s close enough, and by the time Breitling’s recipients saw this sticker they were certainly too busy diving into the chocolates to notice or care.

Overall, it’s a warm and lovingly crafted promotional gift celebrating Breitling’s roots in aviation (the company built onboard chronographs for Royal Air Force cockpits). I wouldn’t complain if it landed in my mailbox.

Source: https://www.behance.net. License: All Rights Reserved.

The new visual identity of Maison Rostang (Michelin starred restaurant in Paris) using SangBleu Serif and SangBleu Sans. Graphic design by Studio Furious.

Published by Restless Books

DHUB interior graphics

Design by Atlas, the new studio of Astrid Stavro and Pablo Martín, has designed a stellar new identity system for the iconic Museu del Disseny de Barcelona and the Disseny Hub. The identity is reminiscent of the best of modernist design, yet contemporary and original. The largely typographic solution uses Graphik to the fullest.

Read an interview with the designers for Grafik Magazine and watch a video about the design details.

DHUB posters

DHUB interior graphics

DHUB brochures

DHUB posters

DHUB posters

DHUB posters

Design Hub Barcelona poster

Poster and catalogue for Tout le monde connaît Roger Excoffon (“Everybody knows Roger Excoffon”), an exhibition at Musée de l’imprimerie in Lyon. The bilingual catalogue gathers more than 100 previously unpublished documents about the iconic French art director Roger Excoffon (1910–1983), designer of identities, logos, stamps as well as several famous typefaces such as Mistral, Banco, Choc, Vendôme, Antique Olive and Calypso.

Don’t miss Extrafine’s dedicated web cartography project that accompanied the exhibition. In a collaborative effort, hundreds of examples of Excoffon’s typefaces in use in the public space were mapped and can be explored via Google Street View.

With the exception of road signs and Starbucks logos, most Californians see this bit of lettering more than just about any other: the script on the current California license plate.

This general plate design was introduced in 1993 and (with some minor variations) is still in use today. I don’t yet know who is responsible for the script, but the designer clearly began with Ron Zwingelberg’s Rage Italic, a 1984 Letraset font — in the casual handwriting tradition of Mistral — that epitomizes the carefree, convertible drivin’, sun-in-the-hair, California dreamin’ aesthetic of the ’80s to early ’90s.

See more examples of the plate and its varations at David Nicholson’s extensive license plate index, Marc Welby’s Plateshack, and The Press Democrat’s Road Warrior column who reminds us that “California’s license plates are made by the thousands each year at Folsom State Prison.”

“California” set in the Rage Italic font, without modification. Rage was tamed for the California mark. The typeface’s rough contours were smoothed and letter connections improved (‘al’, ‘li’). The designer also ended the word with a new ‘i’ and swash ‘a’, perhaps stemming from the font’s alternate ‘a’, shown here.

A panel at the Peterson Automotive Museum: “The scripted red ‘California’ was introduced in 1993 and went through three different type sizes, starting with this comparatively small script and settling, in about 1997, to the large script which is seen on plates today.”