“Many of us didn’t fully know what that impact and influence looked like back then, and how it still carries forward,” Sykes told me. “But as we turned more pages and did more research and had more pre-interviews with experts, with curators, with museum owners, with founders of different types of companies, and with artists themselves, we learned more and more and more.” 

It’s through this extensive research process that Sykes and her team honed in on the creation of a two-part zine series entitled, “Legacy: A Modern Renaissance,” designed to shed light on diverse communities through the lens of Black excellence and achievement. These stories highlight the ways that passing wealth to the next generation is fueling community while celebrating the innovative period of Black art, music, poetry, and literature that launched in Harlem, New York, in the 1920s and ’30s. In partnership with U.S. Bank, the campaign is the first of its kind for The New York Times, paying homage to the lasting impact of the Harlem Renaissance and its 100th anniversary through the power of print.

T Brand Studio has commissioned work from Black writers, storytellers, artists, and designers for the two 12-page zines, highlighting the immense contributions of Black creatives to the arts and wider society. The zines feature work from typographer Tré Seals, poet Mahogany L. Browne, cultural critic and writer Michaela Angela Davis, collage artist Magdaline Davis, and photographer Ivan McClellan. The first zine, “Legacy: The Wealth Issue,” was released as a printed insert in The New York Times Sunday issue on August 18, with the second zine, “Legacy: The Culture Issue” set to be distributed with the December 29 print issue. Both zines are now available to view digitally through an innovative online hub unveiled by T Brand Studio last week. The online hub continues the theme and tradition of accessibility that the zine form is already emblematic of. 

To highlight this thoughtful and poignant campaign and continue to honor the lasting legacy of the Harlem Renaissance, I spoke in-depth with Sykes about the Legacy project, from development to distribution. Our conversation is below, lightly edited for clarity and length.  

Let’s rewind to the genesis of “Legacy: A Modern Renaissance” zine series. How did the idea first develop?

This time a year ago, U.S. Bank, who’s our partner for this program, came to us and said, “Hey, can you create a coffee table book?” They understood that The New York Times would be doing an editorial alignment with the 100th anniversary of the Harlem Renaissance. We said, “We could, but as a custom content studio, our lane really evolves around creating storytelling opportunities.” That’s when we started talking about maybe not a coffee table book, but what could be more realistic is a series of zines.

We wanted to bring the story forward. What does this idea of a Modern Renaissance look like? That’s when we came up with a “Legacy Fulfilled.” We wanted to spark this idea of a national dialog to really show and demonstrate that the Harlem Renaissance was this cultural phenomenon that continues today.

This is a first-of-its-kind program for T Brand Studio and U.S. Bank, where every single contributor on our platform and on this content is Black.

What was your T Brand Studio team hoping to accomplish with this project? 

This is a first-of-its-kind program for T Brand Studio and U.S. Bank, where every single contributor on our platform and on this content is Black. We wanted to remove barriers for Black creatives by not only giving them a platform to share new and untold stories but also to say to us, “These are the stories that I want to tell.” It’s a really huge deal.

The series leverages the talents of Black award-winning writers, poets, journalists, photographers, illustrators, and even a typographer, to specifically do a few things: We wanted to build awareness around the impact and influence of the Harlem Renaissance and grant access and opportunity to a new generation of Black cultural thinkers, which we’re really doing in our culture zine. We also wanted to shine a light on Black affluence because that was a specific, targeted area that U.S. Bank wanted us to speak to, and show people that wealth shows up in a myriad of ways. People are building wealth differently today. It’s not just the financial wealth, but it’s also the intellectual capital, and the historical value that brings to bear when we’re talking about inheritance.

We wanted to ask, across poetry and music and art and fashion and culture, What does the Black diaspora look like today, and how is the impact continuing globally? That’s where the zines come into play. 

People are building wealth differently today. It’s not just the financial wealth, but it’s also the intellectual capital, and the historical value that brings to bear when we’re talking about inheritance. 

Why did you decide on the zine form for this project?

The reason we chose zines is that during the Harlem Renaissance, zines were really designed (around 1918 through the 30s) to allow people without a voice to express themselves, to really communicate with others in the community, and lean into their artistry at the same time in a way that they hadn’t been allowed to do. So we said let’s use this idea of the zines as information for what we do today. 

The zines pay homage to the powerful underground press that existed during the Renaissance that became known for delivering prolific poetry and prose, delivering local news, and giving people cultural information. We wanted to create today’s zines to run as an insert inside The New York Times. It runs in a Sunday newspaper for all of our 600,000 home delivery subscribers. Each zine specifically amplifies how the Harlem Renaissance continues to inspire some of our most powerful cultural moments in America. 

Also with these zines, so much of it has been about giving access to people, but it’s also giving space and making space for new voices, for poetry, for prose, for local news, for cultural information. They’re inspired by that tradition that gave birth to this idea of old voices and new voices. So that’s what these zines do; they not only give access and opportunity, but they give space to people whose voices hadn’t been heard and were traditionally not heard in a mainstream environment.

What are some of the stories told within the pages of these zines? 

One is about a Black family of ranchers, The Bradfords— a fourth-generation family of Black ranchers in Oklahoma. I got to go out there and see them, and talk about what it means to really grow the foundation from the roots. What does that mean for family? What does it mean for legacy? What does it mean for the future? In my mind, that was a really important story to tell, and I knew we could do it through Black farmers, who represent less than 1% of all farmers in America today. 

We also spoke with Julian James, who shared a story about inheritance and the idea that money can mean a myriad of things. He had a Movado watch that was passed down to him by his stepfather. He was a man who thought about not the clothes making the man, but the man making the clothes, and how important it was for you to carry yourself as you went out the door. So that was something that Julian took from him, and now he says that every time he wears this watch, he thinks of his stepfather and his legacy. 

We had Mahogany L. Brown, the current poet-in-residence for the Lincoln Center, write a custom poem for the wealth zine, and she said that everything about this project just felt like home to her. Her marching orders were simple: I said, “If Langston Hughes talked about this idea of a “dream deferred,” how do we bring it forward and speak to what a dream fulfilled looks like?” So she took us to Harlem. She took us to education. She took us to inheritance. She took us to all of the places and spaces that Black folks lived in during the Harlem Renaissance and said this is where and how we’re succeeding today. I thought it was a beautiful nod to the Harlem Renaissance, and it really hit on all of the cylinders as it related to this storytelling.

Can you walk me through some of the editorial design decisions that were made when bringing these zines to life? I know you worked with typographer Tré Seals, for example, to create a custom typeface for the project.  

This is a project that is rooted in the research of the Harlem Renaissance. Many of us didn’t fully know what that impact and influence looked like back then, and how it still carries forward, but as we turned more pages and did more research and had more pre-interviews with experts, curators, museum owners, with founders of different types of companies, and artists themselves, we learned more and more and more. 

In that research process we learned that the original zines during the Harlem Renaissance were designed to allow people without a voice to express themselves, to communicate with others in the community, and lean into artistry. We did a handmade approach to texture and color, and used layered compositions as an intentional nod to those artists who had bootstrapped. 

We used custom typography called VTC Sarah, created by Tré Seals, the founder, designer, and typographer at Vocal Type. VTC Sarah was inspired by his great-grandparents. They were entrepreneurs and business owners, and their names were Sarah and Henry Johnson, and they were pillars of their community. They had provided financing and resources to their neighbors when banks wouldn’t, and that really helped facilitate hundreds of purchases and land sales to the Black community. Our art director, Bri Moran, literally held up Tré’s great grandparents’ marriage certificate at one point and said, “This is what is inspiring, the typeface throughout our zines.” So in working with Tré at every iteration, he made sure that the typeface spoke to those words and the stories that we were telling. 

With the zine’s digital hub launching last week and the physical culture zine mailing out in December, can you shed a bit more light on what’s depicted in that issue in particular? 

We’re celebrating what culture looks like through a lot of different Black creatives. It’s an homage to the arts, literature, dance, and music industries created by Black artisans during the Harlem Renaissance. 

Who are some of the creatives featured in the culture zine? 

We asked Emil Wilbekin, the former editor-in-chief of Vibe Magazine who now runs the platform Native Son, to take us back to having a parlor conversation. These were conversations that were happening in speakeasies and basements during the Harlem Renaissance, where people could really talk about the issues of the day. So we said, “What does that look like if we bring that 100 years forward?” Emil helped to not only moderate the conversation with other Black creatives from different fields, but he also was able to facilitate a Q&A at the Freehand Hotel in Manhattan. I loved this conversation. They talked about what the Harlem Renaissance means today, and the impact that the Harlem Renaissance is having on these particular creatives. 

We also talked to Naima J. Keith, an art curator and an educator at LACMA. She talked about paying tribute to the artisans that came before us, and this idea that because of those artisans in particular, now we can talk about skin tones. Now we can talk about Blackness and all of its authenticity, and how that comes to the table today in ways that it wasn’t before. 

Then there’s Shanari Freeman, who’s the executive chef of Cadence in Manhattan, and she talked about the idea of paying homage to the Harlem Renaissance through collaboration. She said that oftentimes we know what to do, but sometimes we don’t necessarily know how to do it, so let’s teach each other this idea of “each one, teach one.” 

Then we have Fredara M. Hadley, who’s an ethnomusicologist over at the Juilliard School. She talked about the idea of how dances from the Harlem Renaissance are being brought back today through troupes like THECouncil, a collective of five black women who are choreographers, producers, and directors who work with global brands and celebrities. 

What was the process like for developing the digital adaptation of the zine? What considerations went into that?

In addition to the print version of the culture issue, people across the globe will have access to a digital, flippable booklet of both zines, and those are going to be housed online, within a New York Times URL that encourages people to learn more about the resources and opportunities offered by U.S. Bank.

We had a long conversation early on about this idea of a digital hub, and I would always say, “Well, what would be the point of us creating something else if we already have our print zines?” And my team explained to me that it’s because not everybody has the same level of access, which is very important here. The one thing that we wanted to do with both of these zines is to give people opportunity and access, not only to the information but to the history. So that’s exactly what the hub is set out to do; now everyone—subscribers and non-subscribers of the New York Times—will be able to have access to it. 

It’s a great opportunity for us as a custom content studio to be able to take these zines and this content in its physical form and then allow it to live on digitally while also giving people this access. That was the lesson learned for us in our wealth zine— people were like, “This is amazing. How do we get it? How do I share it? How do I link to it?” But as opposed to thinking of it as a problem, we saw it as an opportunity in order for the zines to continue to live and give access to everyone.

The post T Brand Studio Celebrates the Centennial of the Harlem Renaissance with Zine Series & Digital Hub appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Design creativity blooms in spaces where curiosity meets intention, where ideas are nurtured into forms that resonate and inspire. It’s a process marked by exploration, experimentation, and the willingness to challenge conventions to uncover new perspectives. In this fertile ground, creativity is more than a spark—it’s a cultivated journey, drawing from diverse influences and blending intuition with technique.

Celebrating our 45th year, the 2025 PRINT Awards honors design in every shape and form. And, as our industry continues to evolve and our practitioners continue to explore new mediums and methods to advance their creativity, the PRINT Awards have found new ways to recognize outstanding work.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Self-Promotions. The Office of Ordinary Things and D&K Printing. D&K Printing also printed the beautiful 2024 PRINT Awards certificates.

Categories for 2025

The 2025 PRINT Awards offer 28 categories for entries, ranging from Illustration to Motion Design & Video. In recent years, we added In-House, Design for Social Impact, and Packaging and expanded our branding categories. We also expanded the awards to offer students a chance to enter work in each category instead of only one student category. And, this year, our jury will also consider entries in Social Media + Content Design, Title Sequence Design, and Graphic Novels.

Learn more about the 2025 PRINT Awards categories.

2024 PRINT Awards Third Place Winner in Packaging, CF Napa Brand Design; Second Place Winner in Logo Design, Onfire. Design.

Citizen Design Award

Each year, the PRINT Awards highlight a free-to-enter Citizen Design Award to celebrate design work focused on one annually chosen social issue. With societies facing global challenges like climate change, economic instability, and technological shifts, our Citizen Design Award this year will honor work that speaks to social justice.

Social Justice ensures that all people are entitled to human rights and societal respect regardless of race, gender, religion, health, and economic status. Discrimination in the form of economic and educational inequities, combined with enduring legacies of oppression continue to impact many communities, creating toxic cycles of privilege and disadvantage.

Design can profoundly influence social justice through graphic tools that amplify awareness and drive change. Design can make complex issues more accessible, spark debate, inform audiences, and motivate positive engagement. This year’s PRINT Citizen Design category recognizes and celebrates the most impactful work that fosters empathy and action. From social awareness campaigns to apps, community-centered design projects, infographics, posters, social media graphics, and interactive experiences, Citizen Design will honor work that strives to make our world more compassionate and just.

2024 PRINT Awards First Place Winner in Design for Social Impact, Clinton Carlson and Team.

Our 2025 Jury

With a global jury representing a wide range of disciplines, each entry will continue to be judged on four key criteria: Craft, Longevity, Innovation, and Originality. Top winners will be featured on PRINTmag.com and receive trophies, certificates, and social media promotion. We’ll be adding jury members in the next few weeks. In the meantime, we welcome a few here!

A few of the 2025 Jury Members: Marisa Sanchez-Dunning, Bennett Peji, Jennifer Rittner, Eleazar Ruiz, Lara McCormick, Mike Perry, and Miller McCormick. More jurors are to be announced soon!

The 2025 PRINT Awards Presenting Sponsor

The team at PepsiCo Design + Innovation believes that good design is a meaningful experience. A functional product. A rich story. A beautiful object. Design can be fun, convenient, precious, or fearless, but good design is always an act of respect, empathy, and love.

That’s why PepsiCo Design + Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor and, above all, to celebrate the joy of design in all its forms. That’s why PepsiCo Design and Innovation has joined PRINT this year as our Presenting Sponsor—to recognize, honor, and, above all, celebrate the joy of design in all its forms!

Dates and Deadlines

As in years past, we’ve broken the deadline schedule for the awards into four simple tiers—Early Bird, Regular, Late, and Final Call. The earlier you enter, the more you save because it helps us plan judging schedules and other tasks in advance. Enter now for the best price! (And it’s worth noting that to enable students to enter, the pricing is consistent across the board no matter when they submit their work.)

Join us as we recognize the talent that colors our world and celebrate the beauty of fresh ideas, bold solutions, and impactful storytelling. From emerging talents to seasoned visionaries, each submission is a testament to the boundless growth of design.

Submit your work today, and let’s cultivate the next generation of creative vision!

The post Announcing The 2025 PRINT Awards Call For Entries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The New Look of Money

Remember when financial brands looked like, well, financial brands? They evoked trust and solemnity in shades of blue, with clean layouts and sophisticated type conveying decades (centuries-even) of dependability. Chime and Klarna are rewriting the rulebook, building sleek, mobile-first apps that feel more like social media platforms than bank branches. Chime uses inviting, saturated colors and uncluttered visuals, making money management feel intuitive and, dare I say, friendly. Klarna has also nailed the balance of simplicity and style but with a hint of playfulness. It’s as if these brands are saying, “Money doesn’t have to be a chore,” which resonates deeply with a generation empowered by quick, user-centric digital experiences.

Chime brand refresh by jkr.

Radical Transparency

Klarna stands out here with its “Pay Later” options, which are communicated upfront and without fuss. It’s all about empowering the user with knowledge and then trusting them to make informed decisions. On the crypto side, transparency is even more crucial given the complexity and volatility of the market. The best crypto brands don’t just list risks; they break down what those risks mean in a practical way, bridging the gap between excitement and informed caution. It’s refreshing to see brands lean into candor, and young consumers are responding with trust.

Klarna brand by their in-house team.

Personalized and Empowering Tools

For many young people, managing finances still feels intimidating. Enter brands like Check My File, which offers simple, comprehensive views of credit standing across multiple agencies. The service is not just about delivering numbers; Check My File offers insights, making credit monitoring feel like a useful, even empowering habit. Personalization isn’t just about flashy algorithms; it’s about creating tools that users actually find helpful and that build loyalty in an authentic way. For younger audiences, this type of personalization makes finances feel less abstract and more like something they can control.

Check My File brand by Ragged Edge.

Creating Community and Social Connection

It’s no secret that social media plays a major role in how young people make financial decisions, and these brands are tapping into that big time. Klarna and 1inch are turning financial management into a shared experience. Klarna, for instance, collaborates with influencers and uses a social commerce approach, embedding itself into the lifestyle and aesthetic young people are drawn to. Meanwhile, 1inch builds communities for shared learning, making finance feel inclusive rather than exclusive. These new brands are not just selling services; they’re creating spaces where people feel a sense of belonging (and dare we say, fun!), even when dealing with something as traditionally daunting as personal finance.

1inch campaign by Talent in collaboration with the Bruce Lee family

These fresh brand aesthetics and marketing strategies signal that financial companies are finally catching on to what young audiences have long wanted: accessibility, straight talk, personalization, and community. By embracing the values of younger audiences, financial brands can become more like guides than institutions. And as they continue to evolve, it’ll be exciting to watch just how far this new wave of finance brands can take us.

The post From Intimidating to Empowering: Financial Brands for the Next Generation appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

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Founded in 1968, Studio Museum in Harlem stands as the nexus for artists of African descent. As a studio, it funds emerging artists and offers them studio space, and as a museum, it curates a compelling collection supporting underrepresented artists. It’s a place for stirring conversations and a hub for dynamic exchanges and sharing ideas about art and society.

Preparing to move and transition to a more formal posture, the Studio Museum tapped Base Design to help them redesign the website to align with its evolving mission. Established in 1993, Base Design is an international network of creative studios that focuses on cultural impact through simple yet imaginative brand narratives. The impressive client list includes Apple, The New York Times, MoMA, Bob Dylan Center, NY Mets, JFK Terminal 4, and Union Square Hospitality Group.

Base Design’s innovative website redesign for the cultural institution earned the company first place in the PRINT Awards IX/UX Design category.

Studio Museum’s aim for the project was to achieve greater accessibility for a broader community. Inspired by Harlem’s iconic brownstone stoop, the website design transforms into a dynamic meeting place, echoing the lively streets with sounds and voices.

Embracing noise as a concept, the team digitally mirrored the museum’s living space, presenting artworks immersed in the context of neighboring creations. Shifting the focus from artworks to the artists themselves, the new website features engaging video and audio clips within the margins—peripheral “chatter” to capture the animated essence of the Studio Museum’s setting.

It’s been a century since the Harlem Renaissance, a period widely remembered as a golden age for African American art, literature, music, and performance. Though, we’d argue there’s a new renaissance afoot, one that we’ll be talking about one hundred years from now, with Studio Museum in Harlem at the center, its gleaming new building, and Base Design’s dynamic website carrying the banner.

The post A Website Renaissance for Studio Museum in Harlem by Base Design appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

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Luigi Maldonado, an Argentine immigrant, and Michael Tabie, a New York expat, landed at Austin, Texas-based creative agency Guerilla Suit for different reasons. Maldonado, partner and art director, started as an intern in 2011 and, over the next 13 years, has played a crucial role in the agency’s brand and culture. Tabie joined Guerilla Suit as design director in 2020. In four years, he has earned his title as a production pro, working with clients such as Yeti, Academy Sports+Outdoors, ESPN, and Nike.

The pair have made their mark on Guerilla Suit and the design world, bringing home first and second place in The 2024 PRINT Awards Branding Campaigns category.

SXSW

Luigi Maldonado – First Place in Branding Campaigns

Founded in 1987, SXSW is best known for its annual conference celebrating the convergence of
the interactive, film, and music industries. What began as a vehicle to showcase Austin’s creative and music community to the world has done its job. The first year saw around 700 attendees. Today, it’s an essential destination for global professionals, welcoming over 300,000.

Since 2021, Guerilla Suit has collaborated with SXSW to develop the theme for each year’s conference and refresh the design system as the foundation for all visual communications and wayfinding for the annual SXSW festival. In 2024, with the pandemic era in the rearview, the team, led by Maldonado, landed on the theme of Global Reframing.

The design team’s challenge was to create a look and feel inspired by the new generation of global citizens bringing about change from the ground up. Guerilla Suit provided art direction, campaign, social media, content, guidelines, graphic design, merchandise, motion graphics, signage, and wayfinding. The team’s innovation won them first place in the Branding Campaigns category.

East Side Pies

Michael Tabie – Second Place in Branding Campaigns

Four years into his role as design director at Guerilla Suit, Tabie seems to have grown accustomed to the Texas sun. He’s also made his mark on beloved Austin institutions, like East Side Pies, the pizza choice for many a team lunch.

There’s more to East Side Pies than meets the eye. Its Austin-style pizza is bigger than its signature thin crust or sauces. ESP takes pride in quality ingredients and community by working with local farms and ranches. For 20 years, East Side Pies has marched to the beat of its own drum, delivering the best culinary-inspired cracker crust pies using fresh, handpicked ingredients. ESP tapped the Guerilla Suit team to refresh their iconic look and feel as they entered a new growth phase, opening their first brick-and-mortar restaurant.

Guerilla Suit’s work helped to deepen the brand and allow East Side Pies to embrace their status as a hometown original. The identity showcases Austin and leans into the acronym ESP by refreshing the All Seeing Pie logo and introducing mystical taglines and motifs across the brand story. The team’s work earned them second place in the Branding Campaign category.

The post ATX’s Guerilla Suit Delivers a Double-Dose of Hometown Brand Love appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“Our focus has always been on understanding people,” said Jay Houston, president of talent solutions for Addison Group’s Finance & Accounting division. “This brand refresh emphasizes what makes us unique while delivering a clear and compelling message to the marketplace.”

With the talent acquisition landscape becoming more competitive, Addison Group’s new digital presence ensures that businesses seeking specialized solutions continue to see Addison as a trusted partner. To bring this vision to life, Addison partnered with VSA Partners, a creative and branding agency, who worked with Dapper and Associates to craft an engaging, people-centric user experience.

As Addison Group continues to grow—with eight brands and 28 offices across the U.S.—this brand refresh is the latest move to showcase what sets them apart: a deep commitment to connecting businesses with the best talent.

Celebrating 25 years of success, Addison Group’s new branding is a testament to its dedication to delivering exceptional talent solutions and staying ahead in a rapidly evolving industry.

The post Addison Group Celebrates 25 Years with a Brand Refresh appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

As a new wave of creators redefines what it means to be creative, Adobe is excited to support young artists across the globe through the Young Lions Competition (YLC) at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity and Adobe Digital Edge Awards (DEA). These two competitions celebrate the talent and ingenuity of today’s rising innovators in art and communication while helping them build their careers through industry connections and a strong skill set in Adobe tools. In honor of their accomplishments, Adobe also provides $10,000 in Adobe Certified Professional exam vouchers to the Digital Edge Award winners to help them demonstrate their creative skills and stand out to employers. For these exams, Adobe partners with Certiport, the leader in performance-based testing, and industry experts to design exams that connect students’ skills to in-demand jobs.

This year’s winners found inspiration in generative AI as a tool, a metaphor for diversity, and a canvas for exploring human values. Learn how the artists behind five of this year’s winning entries harness creativity across disciplines and continents, proving that magic happens when technology and passion collide.

Seeking the Soul of Technology

In the design world, we sometimes dwell on controversial aspects of AI. However, the winning DEA entry in the Art and Design category reflects a longing to turn away from this dystopian view by showcasing how AI can make us even more human. “Soul,” the work of students Arunima Walimbe and Shruti Jain of California College of Arts, is a speculative design concept for smart wallpaper that uses AI to create a personalized experience, helping people discover and embrace the soul of their home.

AI also helped Walimbe and Jain visually communicate their idea through storyboards generated in Adobe Firefly that combined existing images in fresh ways — a theme of their creative process.

“I’m like a collage of a lot of things,” says Walimbe. “I was a science kid, and I combined that with my creative side. So, my style has a lot to do with collage making — combining things to tell a story.”

For Jain, creativity is about problem-solving and connection. “I come from a family where four generations live under the same roof, and I have seen how technology creates a generation gap,” says Jain.

I want to use my creativity to help digital immigrants like my family members understand technology.

Shruti Jain

Spreading Wonder by Combining Art and Science

Debasmita Banerjee has loved drawing and painting for as long as she can remember. However, as a Ph.D. student in physics at the University of Central Florida, she didn’t have much time for art — until she realized she could use it to tell the stories of science. In her winning DEA project in the STEM category, “Quanticle,” Banerjee’s twin passions for art and physics unite.

Banerjee discovered sound effects called “photon” and “electron” in Adobe Premiere, which she used along with Adobe After Effects to animate the wealth of real-world examples in her educational video “Quanticle.” It’s all part of her dream of making STEM education accessible to people everywhere, including villages like those in her home country of India.

“Art is an expression of science and nature — they’re two sides of the same coin,” says Banerjee. “Trees have a pattern in them that can be explained. You see math in the pattern of leaves or snowfall. Nature and art are very integrated.”

Art is an expression of science and nature — they’re two sides of the same coin.

Debasmita Banerjee

The Raw Joy of Creativity

Billy Nhiwatiwa and Ethan Brown believe that when they bring joy to their creations, it shines through in the finished work — including “Billy Wilder — The Man Behind the Picture,” their playful campaign that took home gold in the YLC design category. Their idea to disguise a logo behind other design elements using Adobe Illustrator is a prime example of how the British flatmates and creative partners love to make people smile with a clever design twist.

So much in everyday life is slightly mundane. We try to find that bit of something that makes you smile. It might be tiny, but it’s beautiful when creativity unlocks that.

Ethan Brown

The goal of spreading happiness also guides their client work. “I get a lot of joy from diving into the heart of a brand, stripping it down, and making it feel authentic and approachable — encouraging people to be more authentically themselves,” says Nhiwatiwa.

Creating Diversity and Possibility

For Berlin-based copywriter Inna Tabachenko and art director Lisa Glonti, AI wasn’t simply a tool used to create their silver-winning YLC film entry, “Successful Generation.” It was the overarching metaphor for the film’s entire message, which involved hundreds of diverse images of a “successful man” created using Generative Fill in Adobe Photoshop, a Firefly feature.

In the film, each new prompt generates more possibilities, suggesting endless ways to define success — and yet, Tabachenko points out, AI can only reflect what humans feed it.

As immigrants from Ukraine and Georgia, Tabachenko and Glonti are especially attuned to the ways culture can impact art and design, and their experiences with war and occupation have developed deep stores of empathy that inform both their creativity and their close working relationship.

“Design is part of everything we do as humans,” says Glonti. “We’re not just thinking, we’re also feeling, and our culture and art are a reflection of this.”

Creativity is a constant evolution in which we combine things in new ways to become better.

Inna Tabachenko

Evolving the Definition of Success

What does it mean to be a “real person,” particularly in the age of social media and AI? Jiayu Cao (Fiona) and Linghui Dai (Vicky) of Havas Creative, China, explored this question in “Who is the Successful Man?”, the YLC media category gold winner. Their interactive project used CAPTCHA images to “verify” and challenge viewers’ ingrained ideas of success while enabling them to make new image selections that helped evolve the gallery for good.

Cao (pictured left) is inspired by her belief that art and design are the eyes of the world, helping people see what’s in front of them — in this case, images of diverse human experiences, sourced from Adobe Stock and Firefly, that encourage us all to rethink our perceptions of achievement.

(Vicky Dai, pictured right.)

AI is merely a tool, a derivative of the human world, and when it reflects problems that exist within humanity, we need to take this seriously. AI perpetuates stereotypes, but humans have the power to break them.

Fiona Cao

Get inspired by the complete list of winners of the 2024 Young Lions Competitions and Digital Edge Awards.

Then, learn more about how Adobe Express and Adobe Firefly give you new playgrounds for exploration and creativity — all designed to be safe for commercial use.

The post Meet the Next Generation Creators Using Technology in Unprecedented Ways appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Kamala’s Recipes isn’t just another culinary website—it’s a fun blend of politics, pop culture, and delicious bites designed to activate voters through their love for food. With under 50 days to go until the election, People People launched this playful project to celebrate Kamala Harris as a leader and as someone who knows her way around the kitchen.

From the “Purple Powersuit cocktail” to dishes inspired by her viral moments, Kamala’s Recipes is an interactive celebration of Harris’s star-studded YouTube cooking show, her memorable quotes, and iconic outfits. But it’s not all just fun and food—the site smartly integrates voter registration links and encourages donations, making it as much a rallying cry for political action as it is a culinary adventure, both online and through the project’s Instagram page.

Design-wise, People People leaned into Harris’s collection of power pantsuits, drawing inspiration for a color palette that’s as bold as she is. But what truly brings the site to life is its grounding in home-cooked memories and our universal connection through food. The typography and illustrations channel the charm of family recipe cards and cherished cookbooks, while the overall design is reminiscent of bustling farmer’s markets and the communal joy of food festivals. Playful sticker-like callouts and lively layouts capture the energy of conversations shared over a meal, a tasty nod to grassroots activism.

If ever there were a recipe for bringing people together, this is it. Food and politics? Yes, please.

The post People People Serves up a Culinary Adventure with a Side of Activism appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Not simply a news portal, MAD serves as a meeting point for creative minds to collide, where new ideas come to life and the boundaries between marketing, advertising, and design blur. The platform presented a unique challenge to the brand transformation agency Ba’ndo: express the “madness” of creativity in a structured and engaging way.

Ba’ndo tackled this project’s complexity by building a complete brand system, which included illustrations, animations, and mascots inspired by the letters in the logo. This system gave MAD a distinct voice that was energetic, curious, and full of life.

The logo itself is minimal yet striking, with retro influences. Its aesthetic draws on an 80s vibe, blended with pop art and modern elements, achieving a balance between nostalgia and forward-thinking design. The sharp lines and bold details convey MAD’s dynamic energy, while the flexibility of the logo offers limitless possibilities for future evolution.

MAD’s logo is more than just a typographic solution—it is a character with a distinct personality. Each letter of the logo has multiple expressions—bold, curious, and slightly wild—to mirror the facets of the brand.

Inspired by the MAD logo, the mascots further expand the brand’s world. Each mascot is lively, energetic, and curious—perfectly capturing the spirit of MAD. Together, they enhance the brand system, adding an extra layer of engagement and playfulness.

One of our favorite project highlights is the Instagram story generator, designed to allow users to interact with MAD’s identity in a personal and playful way. This tool, which encourages users to make minor modifications to the logo’s letters, not only creates a personal connection with the brand but also adds an element of fun and entertainment, aligning perfectly with MAD’s mission to engage its audience creatively.

For Ba’ndo, working on MAD provided a chance to explore new frontiers in brand identity design. The outcome is more than just a logo or a set of visual guidelines; it’s a holistic system that embodies the spirit of creativity. MAD serves as a platform for sparking new ideas, inspiring bold moves, and connecting people across design, marketing, and advertising — and with it, a brand designed to continue to evolve and inspire the creative community, exploring brand identity design through dynamic, expansive, and fluid ecosystems.

The post Ba’ndo’s Identity for MAD Captures the Madness of Creativity appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Amidst the typography industry’s corporate consolidations, Positype proudly asserts that it remains one of the largest independently controlled font collections.

Customers, agencies, and creatives are looking for independent foundries to offer more. This new site is a blend of modern functionality with subtle nods to successful approaches from our past.

Neil Summerour

Positype celebrates “subtleties of mass, perfect imperfections, warmth, and uniqueness,” making the website a pleasure to peruse.

We had some fun exploring the newest typefaces in the Positype family, from the techno-futuristic Ginza Pro Wide (above) to the award-winning Clear Sans Pro. The accessible and multilingual typeface was influenced by early 20th-century signage in five new writing scripts (we love its Korean expression, shown below in Extra Bold).

Envy (above) is, well, fun—and that’s the official word on the site, folks. Smiles is a whimsical and retro-fabulous release, influenced by wood type designs and hovering at the edge of legibility (below).

You’ll also find workhorse typefaces like Overture (below). The Bodoni-inspired typeface, 24 years in the making, was aptly named as a nod to the Debussy Summerour listened to on loop while designing it.

We’re partial to Overture’s fantastic ornaments and swashes.

Halogen Pro is a softer, refined take on its iconic predecessor, with expanded script support in Greek and Cyrillic.

Read more about the relaunched website and the new typefaces on Positype’s blog.

The post Positype Declares Independence with a Refreshed Website & New Typefaces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Now, more than a decade later, Canva is turning its focus toward organizations, offering a suite of design and productivity tools tailored to the visual communication needs of workplaces around the world. As remote and distributed work environments become the norm, Canva’s updated brand system addresses the escalating demand for effective collaboration around visual communication.

The product updates prompted Canva to reconsider its brand strategy, with key questions driving the effort: Can Canva maintain its distinctive voice while reaching new audiences? Can it balance global scalability with local relevance?

The updated brand system builds on Canva’s established global identity, characterized by its distinctive gradient, hand-crafted logo, and custom typeface. The refresh simplifies and amplifies these elements, creating space for dynamic visual content that reflects Canva’s diverse user base.

Key features of the refreshed brand system include:

Building a platform for content: Inspired by how Canva enables users, the refreshed brand system leans into its role as a platform for flexible content. Core brand assets remain fixed, while flexible brand elements can be tailored, allowing the brand to scale globally while maintaining its connection locally.

Uniting brand and product: Design layouts that more closely mirror how you flow through Canva’s interface—from inspiring content scrolls to pages that drag and drop to immersive full-screen moments.

Spotlighting work in progress: The act of making often brings the most joy. Canva’s new system celebrates this, spotlighting design at work instead of the finished product: a brand in motion, even when static.

Humanizing the UI: Cursors, comments, and bespoke emojis come alive across every brand touchpoint to tell human stories of connection and collaboration.

Amplifying brand voice: Fresh messaging dials up the brand’s playful personality, bucking the trend of speaking in corporate buzzwords.

Empowering through accessibility: A simplified color palette reflects Canva’s view that empowerment and accessibility go hand in hand, with updates to meet AA’s strong accessibility standards for every color.

Canva’s creative team used its tools to execute the brand refresh consistently across 4,000-plus members in more than 40 countries. This approach incorporated custom brand templates, AI-powered voice tools, and a comprehensive brand kit.

The redesign also involved collaborations with creative agencies Vucko, which developed an updated motion system to bring personality to the brand’s movement, and Buck, which created a custom emoji style reflecting Canva’s color gradients and playful spirit.

Canva has championed the democratization of design for more than ten years, making design accessible to millions regardless of their creative background. With over 190 million monthly active users and annual revenue surpassing $2.3 billion, Canva’s impact on the design world is unmistakable. This brand refresh marks a new chapter for Canva, poised to further its mission of empowering creativity and collaboration on a global scale.

The post Canva’s Brand Refresh Empowers a World of Design appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Lucas Sharp and Chantra Melee came together as personal partners in design school. Malee branched off into branding while Sharp found his footing in type design. Soon, they became professional partners, forming Sharp Type in 2015. Early clients were the Hillary Clinton campaign and Samsung. Their flagship ‘Season One’ typeface, Sharp Sans, emerged from the team’s work with Samsung.

As with any design business, the churn of clients and work can make it challenging to stand back and look at your own brand. “It was important to have a beautiful product from the beginning. The way we presented ourselves would make or break our relevancy,” says Malee. “When we came out with the initial website, it was groundbreaking in its own way. But by four years in, we knew we needed to start updating it.” Sharp Type had been leapfrogged by their foundry peers’ new websites. Even so, the team took their time envisioning the new site in-house over four years, which launched this May.

Justin Sloane, the foundry’s lead systems designer and typeface designer, whom Malee and Sharp also met in design school, led the website redesign. On bringing the website project in-house, Sharp says, “We didn’t go the agency route. Our preferred mode of collaboration involves absorbing vs. interfacing. And we were finally at a point where we could afford to hire Sloane. So we gave him the time and space to explore.” Here’s a fantastic profile of Sloane’s process and the iterations of the new website.

So, why ‘Season One’ and ‘Season Two?’ Sharp describes how different the current industry is from when they started. Malee and Sharp anticipate a breaking point in the industry, especially in the age of AI, where it will be hard to rise above the noise. “It used to be that designers’ styles got turned into conventions,” Sharp explained, “but citing source material and that chain of custody is no longer relevant. The model we’re moving to is more akin to fashion versus fine art. We were really into this idea of starting a whole new library. We wanted to pursue new stuff all the time. So we decided to de-emphasize the old library and develop a whole new suite of fonts.”

Before it was about timelessness. Now, it’s about timefulness, and doing stuff that’s really relevant in this moment.

Lucas Sharp

“Our new strategy aligns with some of the industry changes, but it’s also acting as a motivator. We’re excited about the creation around the corner. Having this as a new paradigm for the team creates this new dynamism and energy,” says Malee.

Sharp Earth

Sharp Earth, a multi-script san serif typeface family, was developed simultaneously and launched with the new website in May. This new multi-script sans serif typeface was spearheaded by Lucas Sharp and drawn in collaboration with a team of local experts from around the globe. Sharp started sketching Sharp Earth on a trackpad in Thailand. “Globalization is like toothpaste—we can’t put it back in the tube. It’s not going away. Western culture drove the first wave of globalization and has been absorbed, remixed, and adapted. The artifacts from globalization end up being greater than the sum of its parts.” Sharp explains. “The way that adaptation comes through in typography is very cool.”

Sharp was inspired to create a post-modern typeface in how it interacts with other language scripts. “Everything has already been done in this modernist paradigm, responding to that first wave of the modernist aesthetic. It’s interesting to see the character of cultures in the type specimens.” Sharp said. “In Thailand, for example, to fit into the modernist box, type had to contort itself, which removed the script’s very particular loop style. I wanted to create a typeface about that beautiful interaction, one step removed, where the foundation isn’t the Latin paradigm but the adaption and remixing.”

The whole process of building Sharp Earth for a global design culture had to be collaborative. Malee explained, “We always work with native designers in those language scripts. But there are moments where we can innovate in these collaborations. Bringing our outsider perspective and using our creative expression through this new form, there are moments where we can innovate in these collaborations. Some of these ideas really worked! (Many did not). Those incremental moves give typefaces something new.” Sharp adds, “You can understand the platonic ideal of the alphabet and writing system, but you still need to work with native designers and have them be the filter for your crazy ideas.”

But for all it is, Sharp Earth is not a typeface that throws out the rule book. At its core, it is a san serif workhorse. The team wanted to create something eminently useful. Trendy moments add some tension, like what Sharp calls the “overbite vibe.” But the story here is about Sharp Earth’s utility across language scripts. “We worked with each collaborator, not just ‘how do we replicate that move in your script,’ but what is its semiotic meaning? What does that feel like to a Western audience, and how can we deliver that feeling to the audience of the language script it’s drawn for?” Sharp explains. It’s not always one-to-one. Form is an international language, but the bending of conventions works differently in different languages and cultures. Building Sharp Earth was a cool learning experience.”

Sharp Earth doesn’t really fit into the genre signifiers. It’s not exactly geometric, or grotesque. It’s really a mash-up of globalization.

Lucas Sharp

This case study goes into the creation of Sharp Earth and includes some of the team’s near-term plans for the font family, including Chinese and Hangul scripts.

DOSS Collection

In keeping with its release schedule, Sharp Type released another fun new superfamily in June. DOSS is a techno-futurist collection, drawing inspiration from rave and underground culture. Designed by Marc Rouault, DOSS is designed as a series on a theme “like House Industries, or Emigre for Gen X,” says Sharp. The collection encompasses four styles: Exaflop, Acid, Plexus, and Problem. Read more about the process behind the DOSS Collection.

Malee and Sharp describe the new website as a beautiful display case, and they are excited to fill it. And, I agree, the website is gorgeous. “We want to be like a boutique clothing store: there are a few things on display and we want to draw your eye to those things.”

You can follow along with Sharp Type’s ambitious year of new releases on Instagram or at sharptype.co.

The post Sharp Type Season Two: A Gorgeous Website, Global Outlook, and New Suite of Typefaces appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Too often, designers get stuck in a loop. Even the best design teams can get bogged down in the theoretical, endlessly testing and iterating in hopes of creating the perfect new product, whether a new building, service or digital experience. But to design something truly innovative, sometimes it helps to turn off the computer and get outside.

As a design leader, I often organize “analog research” field trips for my teams. When designing digital products for healthcare, retail, or financial services clients, we often start by taking part in real-world experiences in unrelated industries: hospitality, restaurants, sporting events, etc. These experiences push us to think about what it means to be human so that we can design digital products with humans at the center. And we don’t just go on these field trips as a design team; we often invite our clients along.

Sometimes, designers need only look outside their immediate circles of understanding to supercharge innovation. A solution often already exists; it only needs to be lifted and shifted.

One of my favorite analog field visits took place aboard the Scarlet Lady, Virgin Voyages’ cruiseliner based out of Miami. My team invited a group of New York healthcare executives to show them how technology could transform a real-world experience. Together, we walked in the shoes of a typical vacationer, from check-in to the pool deck. Yes, someone had to do this difficult work, so we begrudgingly agreed! We started gathering information about the customer experience the moment we stepped aboard. We immediately realized that checking into the Scarlet Lady was a distinct part of the experience. Virgin’s check-in process starts the moment you book a ticket and get access to a personalized app. After quickly and efficiently boarding the ship via the app, it accompanies cruisers throughout their vacation, offering personalized activity recommendations, restaurant bookings, and 24/7 support. There’s even a special feature called “Shake For Champagne.” With a quick shake of your phone and the press of a button, staff will deliver a bottle of Moët & Chandon to you almost anywhere on board.

The healthcare executives left with new ideas on how a digital experience could get more patients through the doors of its ambulatory facility in Manhattan. They conceptually knew this before spending an afternoon on the Scarlet Lady, but they viscerally understood it afterward. They used what they learned to design a new ambulatory care building that incorporated humanistic architecture, relaxation spaces, and digital in-room interactions – making the patient care journey much smoother and less stressful.

The list of fractured consumer experiences is long, and analog research could help make them better.

Our day-out on the Scarlet Lady could also inform other types of design projects. For example, the hospital could later decide to design an app that provides a fast-track check-in experience for frequent visitors. Like the Virgin Voyages app, the hospital’s app would prepare patients for their visit days (or even weeks) ahead of arrival via punchy, on-brand text notifications. The app would build trust and confidence by adding small, personalized touches, such as an exam room display that greets visitors by name and explains what’s to come.

Sometimes, designers need only look outside their immediate circles of understanding to supercharge innovation. A solution often already exists; it only needs to be lifted and shifted. This tracks with renowned futurist William Gibson, who quipped, “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” That is why I take my design teams on analog research field trips to observe consumers in all types of environments.

Healthcare in the US is complicated and fractured. But what if it didn’t have to be? By designing patient experiences based on how people behave and what they actually want, going to the doctor could be as tech-forward as boarding a cruise ship, tracking a pizza delivery, or zipping through airport security with Clear.

I am certainly not the first to point out the benefits of observing consumers going about their real lives to improve the healthcare system. Over a decade ago, celebrated surgeon and author Atul Gawande urged his clinical colleagues to visit the Cheesecake Factory to advance their thinking. Gawande envied the Cheesecake Factory’s ability to create an efficient but tailored experience at scale, which, as he stated, turns out to be “one of the biggest complaints that people have about healthcare.”

Of course, other consumer experiences are also excessively complicated or unpleasant: air travel, shopping for insurance, renting cars, applying for jobs, signing up for cell phone service. The list of fractured consumer experiences is long, and analog research could help make them better.

Analog Research on the Cheap

Analog design research doesn’t have to be expensive – or happen on a luxury cruise ship – to be successful. Even smaller, lower-stakes opportunities can harness the power of analog thinking.

When another client, a healthcare device company, struggled to get patients to use its device consistently, my team designed a series of field visits to retailers known for successfully analyzing data to deliver a great customer experience. We took executives from the company and my design team to participate in class at OrangeTheory Fitness. Then, we tried out Sleep Number beds at a retail store in Chicago. At first glance, these outings might not seem relevant to a medical device company. However, both of these businesses understand how to tap into consumer data to motivate action – specifically getting people to keep coming back to work out at OrangeTheory gyms and closing the deal at Sleep Number stores by creating personalized sleep profiles for each customer.

Sweaty and sore – and with a slight case of bedhead – we left these field trips with a vision for a new app for the healthcare device company. We leveraged individual customer data to see how the product could fit into each user’s daily life. Then, we designed an app to remind patients to use their medical devices, closely timed to their daily habits. And, after seeing the personalized, human touch at OrangeTheory and SleepNumber, we ensured help was just a touch away when customers got stuck.

Analog research field trips are fun, inexpensive, and deliver lots of value for digital creative teams that spend most of their time behind computer screens. Why not try one the next time your design team is stuck?

How to Plan an Analog Field Trip

STEP 1 – Dream Big

Assemble a group of peers and pose a few framing questions: What is the core problem we’re trying to solve? What industries have already solved it? Where in your day-to-day have you experienced something wonderful or delightful? Brainstorm potential field visits around the answers, grouping similar ideas along the way.

STEP 2 – Plan

Not all analog experiences require weeks of planning. Some can come together in an afternoon depending on the opportunity. Start by triaging your ideas into three categories:

Level I: Observational

• These low-stakes visits don’t require planning or permission.
• Make it real: Go to a location, observe interactions, take notes and pictures.


Examples: Visit a brick-and-mortar store of a digital-first retailer and watch shoppers. Sit in an airport lounge. Observe a hospital waiting room.

Level II: Planned

• A bit more complex, these experiences call for a bit of planning, and sometimes payment.
• Make it real: Arrange for a guided tour, pay an expert from an external industry, or design an equivalent interactive experience.

Examples: Host a paid interview with a leader from an adjacent industry. Sign up for a guided tour of a company’s public operations.

Level III: Comprehensive

• These are involved field experiences that require lots of behind-the-scenes coordination.
• Make it real: Conduct a behind-the-curtain field visit with an industry insider.

Examples: Go behind the scenes with team members at a 5-star hotel in NYC, observing internal meetings and interactions with guests.

STEP 3 – Immerse

Now comes the fun part: experiencing. After the hard work of dreaming up and planning an analog field trip, go do it. Soak it up. Document your findings through pictures, notes, and sketches. Interview users, both staff and customers, to establish best practices. Don’t worry too much about relevance to your own industry in the moment; you will have time to synthesize learnings later.

STEP 4 – Debrief

Now is the time to make sense of everything you experienced. Distill learnings into a digestible format where others who didn’t attend the field visit can process and get inspired by the analog experience.

Owen Sanderson is the Director of Research & Design Strategy at IA Collaborative, a global innovation consultancy. He’s worked in human-centered design over the last decade at IDEO and Deloitte – and now lives on a small island off the coast of Maine.

Angélica Chíncaro is a Senior Design Strategist at IA Collaborative, and a skilled illustrator and cartoonist. Originally hailing from Peru, Angé is a graduate of MIT’s Integrated Design & Management program and now calls Chicago home.

Illustrations created by Angélica Chíncaro.

The post Want to Design a Great Product? Go on a Field Trip appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Data Visualization/Information Design

First Place

Street Gum Dots Marching Symphony
Jae Young Kim – Pratt Institute
USA

The Street Gum Dots project accumulated 100 findings in multiples to examine the sequence of a database and transform it into visual narratives to represent the experience in graphical representations. Over four weeks, 100 sets of gum dots on street tiles were collected by 3D scanning following the self-constrained walking directions and the shuffled music playing on Spotify.

Second Place

Fashion, Beauty and Post-Colonial Perceptions
Joumana Ibrahim – Savannah College of Art and Design
USA/Dubai

Stereotypes about Arab women’s beauty standards are often perpetuated by Western media, but they overlook the cultural roots of these practices. Historically, grooming and fashion have been integral to Arab culture, with women socializing in gender-specific spaces like Dubai’s hair salons and Damascus’ hammams. Affordable beauty services further widen access. Arab women’s approach to feminism, embracing cultural and religious differences, challenges Western stereotypes. Visual displays inspired by Lebanese Instagram influencer Lilian, using data from Statista, highlight the influence and empowerment of Arab women in their region and globally.

Third Place

Me, My Languages, and I
Joumana Ibrahim – Savannah College of Art and Design
USA

Dissecting thoughts through languages: Consciously extracting and quantifying the components of the languages the designer uses daily. In this project, Joumana looked at her WhatsApp messages and voice notes for two weeks in January and focused on the languages she used when communicating with people. The infographic consolidates all the 600+ data points she extracted from the messages, which are organized using the following categories: languages, relationship, time, date, nationality, emotion, conversation content, and media sharing.

Environmental Design

First Place

Bike Lane Parking Preventer
Yoon Seo Kim – School of Visual Arts
USA

Many New York City bike riders feel stressed when drivers park or load items in bike lanes, despite a new ‘Citizen Reporting’ bill meant to address this issue. Lack of driver awareness and forgetfulness are key reasons for these violations. Yoon Seo Kim designed a bike lane reminder to guide drivers without offending them, finding the process enjoyable and personally meaningful due to their own biking experiences.

Second Place

Elephant in the room
Eason Yang
USA

NED, a non-profit named for “No Evidence of Disease” and “Not Entirely Dead,” champions cancer survivors in the workplace by highlighting their extraordinary abilities forged through adversity, making them exceptionally employable. It challenges the negative perception of cancer-related career gaps, emphasizing that the resilience, determination, and empathy gained from battling cancer are valuable skills sought by employers. The project seeks to raise awareness of the stigma and bias against cancer survivors’ resume gaps, addressing the “elephant in the room.”

Third Place

Fidelis: A Study in Fraktur Calligraphy
Conner Gayda – Jacksonville State University
USA

This installation reimagines blackletter typography by transforming it from its medieval origins into a medium for social commentary. Conner’s hand-drawn calligraphic letterforms adopt the politically charged aesthetics of D.I.Y./punk music, using gritty, highlighter green posters with provocative political imagery to create a contemporary altarpiece. The installation’s centerpiece features three immersive typographic murals made of masking tape, legible only from specific angles to evoke the distorted art of punk music. The largest mural spells “fidelis,” symbolizing perseverance amidst the chaos, and collectively, the installation challenges traditional perceptions of blackletter typography.

IX/UX

First Place

Deafinite
Jingxin Xu – School of Visual Arts
USA

Deafinite is a pioneering suite of Mixed Reality (MR) devices designed to empower individuals with hearing impairments, particularly in travel settings where verbal language barriers may exist. It features an innovative traveling app with Augmented Reality (AR) Navigation for easy navigation and Deafinite Glasses for real-time communication with non-sign language users. This integration of advanced technology enhances accessibility and inclusivity, enabling confident and independent travel for those with hearing impairments.

Second Place

Sproute App Prototype
Zach Hall and Jordan Heath – University of North Texas
USA

Transportation accounts for 29% of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. If each worker avoided driving just two days a week, they could cut their annual emissions by about 1,600 pounds per person. Sproute, a navigational app, not only promotes sustainable transit options but also fosters a supportive community encouraging users to adopt eco-friendly transportation. The app gamifies these choices through points, badges, and leaderboards, aiming to make sustainable travel engaging. Developed by a team of two in a junior interaction design course, Sproute features custom illustrations, badges, icons, and maps, with phases including research, wireframing, style guides, and a final Figma prototype.

Third Place

Trash Panda App Prototype
Macy McClish and Keaton Dillard – University of North Texas
USA

Trash Panda addresses the average household’s $1,866 annual food waste issue by offering a user-friendly app for food tracking, inventory management, grocery lists, and meal planning. Designed with custom illustrations and lively copywriting, Trash Panda aims to motivate users to better manage their kitchens. The app features streamlined flows for grocery shopping, recipe management, and inventory organization, along with intuitive list building and helpful notifications. Its branding and logo design emphasize a fun and approachable tool that encourages efficient use of food resources while reducing waste.

Motion Graphics & Video

First Place

Mirage
Jeffrey Xiyang Su, Hanson Ma, Michael Wang – Art Center College of Design
USA

The design team from Art Center College of Design crafted Mirage, an animated short film depicting a poignant love story transcending social barriers. Their aim was to blend the complexities of cyberpunk aesthetics with deep emotional storytelling, showcasing their technical prowess and creative evolution. Premiering at the Ahmanson Auditorium, Mirage symbolizes their journey, emphasizing perseverance, pursuit of excellence, and the power of teamwork in achieving artistic milestones.

Second Place

Happy Little Birthday
Juni Kweon – Art Center College of Design
USA

“Happy Little Birthday” is a touching 3D animation that portrays a personal story about the childhood fear of celebrating birthdays alone. The narrative unfolds from the perspective of a mysterious hand meticulously preparing for a birthday celebration, from setting up music to lighting candles on a cake. Despite efforts, the hand faces loneliness until a little bird appears, offering companionship and a heartfelt gift. This gesture turns the birthday into a joyful and memorable occasion, emphasizing themes of warmth, friendship, and the reassurance that even in solitude, one can find companionship and happiness.

Third Place

Rapp Snitch Knishes
Audrey Whang – School of Visual Arts
USA

In this vibrant animated motion music video for “Rapp Snitch Knishes,” an homage to the late rapper MF DOOM unfolds. The video showcases a captivating fusion of mixed-media imagery and digital collages, capturing the essence of MF DOOM’s persona. Bold typography adds an energetic layer to the visuals, complementing the dynamic portrayal of the legendary artist. Throughout the video, the iconic color palette associated with MF DOOM is prominently featured, infusing each frame with his unmistakable aesthetic. This homage not only celebrates MF DOOM’s enduring legacy but also serves as a testament to his influence on contemporary music and visual culture, ensuring that his artistic spirit continues to resonate with audiences worldwide.

Outdoor/Billboards

First Place

Spy
Ting Jui Chang – School of Visual Arts
USA

The International Spy Museum in Washington D.C., renowned for its exploration of espionage, undergoes a rebranding inspired by the secretive aura of classified documents, notably their blacked-out sections. This motif infuses the museum’s identity with the allure of mystery and secrecy inherent to espionage. By incorporating elements reminiscent of redacted files, the new brand captures the intrigue and clandestine nature of the spy world. This innovative approach transforms the museum’s identity into a captivating reflection of its mission to delve into intelligence and intrigue, inviting visitors on a journey into the covert realm of spies.

Second Place

Go Skateboarding Day
Hyowon Kwon – School of Visual Arts
USA

Skateboarding, which originated from Californian surfers in the 1900s, has evolved to let skaters enjoy it safely even in busy and densely populated narrow cities in 2023. The goal of this project is to elevate skateboarding from a subculture to a mainstream culture through the “Go Skate” campaign and improve the public’s perception of riders by promoting its enjoyment among the general public. The custom typeface draws inspiration from the various perspectives and shapes of ramps seen during different skateboarding techniques. The typeface can appear plain from one aspect and three-dimensional from another and can be read vertically as well. To enhance the readability of this typeface in posters and billboards, a distorted secondary typeface is used.

Third Place

Elevating Everyday Sounds
Chuanyuan Lin – School of Visual Arts
USA

Crafted as dynamic posters and captivating ad designs, this project aims to showcase the beauty and rhythmic potential of everyday sounds while promoting a STOMP show. The designs highlight how this performance art turns mundane noises into a mesmerizing spectacle through visually engaging graphics and compelling messaging. By emphasizing STOMP’s unique blend of percussion, movement, and creativity, the campaign invites audiences to witness firsthand the transformation of ordinary sounds into extraordinary performances. With each element meticulously crafted to evoke the show’s energy and excitement, the posters and ads serve as powerful tools to entice and captivate viewers, drawing them into the world of rhythm and innovation.

Packaging

First Place

Horsepower Cold Brew Coffee
Vasavi Bubna – School of Visual Arts
USA

Just like a car’s engine would seize up without motor oil, many people cannot make it through the day without their caffeine fix. Inspired by vintage motor oil cans, Horsepower Cold Brew Coffee depicts coffee as a fuel for humans. Along with the hand-lettered wordmark, a maker’s mark was also designed to go on the cap of the coffee tins. The ratios on each can represent the steeping time and intensity of the brew. The coffee packages come with a card with mixing ratios for the concentrate, as well as a set of funnels to channel the true feeling of an auto-body shop. The design of these cards was inspired by old gas station receipt designs.

Second Place

Dark Energy
Eshaan Sojatia – Rochester Institute of Technology
USA

In order to show dark energy and other things in the universe, the project had to be done in black and white only. Each cover delves into a different part of a cosmic mystery, from Acceleration of the Universe, Cosmological Constant, Modified Gravity Theories, and Quintessence to Emergent Gravity. Eshaan used a dynamic mix of graphic elements and geometric shapes along with typography to create elements that represent the forces. The designer stuck to a black-and-white color scheme as a metaphor for how mysterious and hard to pin down dark energy.

Third Place

Never Will
Rabiya Gupta – School of Visual Arts
USA

The design team here was tasked with creating type-only album covers based on a randomly assigned art movement and music genre. Rabiya was given the Bauhaus movement and country music and decided to create a cover for Never Will by country music artist Ashley McBryde. Embracing Bauhaus’s emphasis on geometric forms, the designer integrated these elements into my design, infusing it with a sense of modernist aesthetics. However, to imbue the cover with a personal touch, the designer introduced a functional dimension, crafting a typographic pattern and system that echoed Bauhaus principles while also resonating with the spirit of country music. This fusion of influences resulted in a visually compelling cover that pays homage to Bauhaus while capturing the essence of McBryde’s music.

Posters

First Place

Alzheimer’s Poster
Emily Brown – University of Texas at Arlington
USA

This poster was created for Alzheimer’s Awareness. Emily wanted to use collage to show the dispersion of memories and the idea of the loss of self/who you are with the onset of the disease. After seeing what her grandmother and father went through when caring for her grandfather as he lived with Alzheimer’s, she also wanted to include a positive message for parents and caregivers, reminding them that memory loss is not the end of hope. The designer also includes ways to contact the Alzheimer’s Association, where to get help, and how to give to their cause.

Second Place

Barely Hanging On
Sean Howes – University of North Texas
USA

For this project, the designer had to create a poster design to visualize a social issue of our choice. The suicide rate among workers in the construction industry is 53.3 deaths per 100,000 persons, which is much higher than the overall rate of 12.93 per 100,000 U.S. citizens. The hand grasping the bucket of tools symbolized the workers’ strength and pride in their work. The wrist about to snap symbolizes poor mental health, yet the hand still holds onto the bucket, refusing to show weakness even though their “Barely Holding on”.

Third Place

Synesthesia
Jia Li – School of Visual Arts
USA

Synesthesia is a perceptual phenomenon, a “crossing of the senses,” in which one sense triggers another sense. For instance, listening to music may evoke an individual’s perception of colors and shapes. This series “Synesthesia,” explores the relationship between human perceptions, based on how we interpret various sensations, and individuals with synesthesia may “see” sound, “touch” smell, and “smell” color. A person experiencing synesthesia may observe that their senses blend, adding an extra dimension to their perception of the world. For instance, they may associate taste with colors, feel textures when eating, and describe shapes as either “round” or “pointy.”

NEXT: We spotlight student winners in advertising, annual reports, branding identities, brochures, editorial, and logos.

The post PRINT Awards 2024 Student Spotlight: Winners in Packaging, Posters, IX/UX, Information Design & More appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Data Visualization & Information Design

First Place

City Pulse 2023: The Future of Central Business Districts
Minjung Lee – Gensler Research Institute
USA

Gensler’s City Pulse 2023 report examines the future of central business districts (CBDs) by analyzing insights from 26,000 survey respondents across 53 cities globally. It addresses challenges such as business closures, reduced foot traffic, and office vacancies in CBDs three years into the pandemic. The report provides a global overview of findings and focuses on three downtown personas: residents, employees, and local visitors. For each group, it offers insights into their current experiences in CBDs, statistical predictors of a great downtown experience, and future-proofing strategies. Additionally, the report includes regional and city-specific data in an appendix. Ultimately, City Pulse 2023 suggests that by catering to the diverse needs of residents, employees, and visitors, CBDs can revitalize and thrive in the future.

Additional credits:
Lela Johnson, Laura Latham

Second Place

203 X Infographics
Sung Hwan – Infographics Lab 203
Republic of Korea

Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a world-famous classic Chinese novel, is still very much loved. It is a novel that is recognized as the best classic in the East and a must-read book, to the extent that there is a saying, “Do not deal with someone who has not read the Romance of the Three Kingdoms at least three times.” This series of twelve posters tells the story of the Three Kingdoms, centered around the main characters of the Three Kingdoms, Liu Bei, Guan Yu, and Zhang Fei, through this infographic. Posters represent Greek and Roman Mythology, Journey to the West, Giant Panda, King Sejong, Pictogram, Taipei, and Yoga.

Third Place

Global Workplace Survey Comparison 2023
Minjung Lee – Gensler Research Institute
USA

The 2023 Global Workplace Survey Comparison examines responses from 14,000 full-time office workers across nine countries and three continents, aiming to understand how workplaces can enhance employee performance and experience amid the transition to mobile work. The report reveals that high-performing workplaces significantly improve personal productivity, job satisfaction, career advancement, work/life balance, and personal health, while also fostering team outcomes such as community sense, relationships, connection to company mission, and productivity. Workers in top workplaces recognize their positive impact on business outcomes, displaying higher engagement, commitment, workflow awareness, team relationships, and a sense of belonging. As organizations shape their future workplace strategies, investing in high-performing workplaces can positively influence business performance at all levels, with employees worldwide seeing the workplace as a preferred destination rather than a mere obligation.

Additional credits:
Lela Johnson, Laura Latham

Student Honorees – Data Visualization & Information Design

First Place – Street Gum Dots Marching Symphony by Jae Young Kim, Pratt Institute, USA
Second Place – Fashion, Beauty and Post-Colonial Perceptions by Joumana Ibrahim, Savannah College of Art and Design, United Arab Emirates
Third Place – Me, My Languages, and I by Joumana Ibrahim, Savannah College of Art and Design, United Arab Emirates

Environmental Design

First Place

Black Power to Black People Exhibition
John Kudos – KASA Collective
USA

The exhibition offers an intimate exploration of how The Black Panther Party utilized branding and media to shape its narrative and garner community support, becoming a significant militant force of its era. The exhibit design features oversized protest signs outside the gallery and iconic photographs of key figures like Huey Newton inside. Organized chronologically, it tracks the development of Black Panther branding across six sections, accompanied by tracks from the Seize the Time LP by Elaine Brown. Bold typography, military colors, striking icons, and heroic imagery of armed members emphasize the party’s powerful design strategies, echoing their impact even decades later.

Additional credits:
Creative Director, John Kudos; 3D Creative Director, Robert de Saint Phalle; Art Director, Ashley Wu; Designer, Fay Qiu; Project Manager, Amanda Knott; 3D Renderer, Imam Fadillah; Design Intern, Saskia Wulandiarti; Photography, Samuel Sachs Morgan

Second Place

Made in Japan Exhibition
John Kudos – KASA Collective
USA

The exhibition offers an immersive exploration of Japan’s graphic design golden age through curated posters from the Merrill C. Berman Collection. Inspired by Ikko Tanaka’s Nihon Buyö poster, the exhibition design incorporates geometric shapes. A triptych of oversized title walls resembling a Japanese folding fan welcomes visitors, creating a seamless exhibit space. Each gallery section features thematic backdrops with vivid colored shapes that progressively enlarge, mirroring the evolution of Japanese graphic design. Oversized typography reminiscent of lettering on ships carrying Japanese immigrants adds a sense of industrialization and globalization, reflecting key influences on Japan’s graphic design history.

Additional credits:
Creative Director, John Kudos; 3D Creative Director, Robert de Saint Phalle; Art Director, Ashley Wu; Designer, Fay Qiu; Project Manager, Amanda Knott; 3D Renderer, Imam Fadillah; Design Intern, Saskia Wulandiarti; Photography, Samuel Sachs Morgan

Third Place

Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde
Ola Baldych – Poster House
USA

Poster House’s exhibition “Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde,” launched in September 2023, charts the trajectory of the Art Deco movement from the 1925 Paris Exhibition to World War II. Designed by Ola Baldych, the exhibit channels Art Deco’s vibrant colors and geometric patterns, with pink symbolizing modernism and metallic designs evoking industrial materials. Hand-painted ombre murals trace the movement’s ascent and decline. Pine slat temporary walls create mid-horizons, complementing the linear patterns in wall graphics, while A.M. Cassandre’s iconic works take center stage, featuring section headings in his “Bifur” font. The design seamlessly integrates with the posters, incorporating dynamic lines and bold hues, blending mechanical production with hand craftsmanship to capture the essence of Art Deco. This immersive exhibition provides a whimsical yet specific exploration of each poster’s significance within the movement.

Student Honorees – Environmental Design

First Place – Bike Lane Parking Preventer by Yoon Seo Kim, School of Visual Arts, USA
Second Place – Elephant in the Room by Eason Yang, USA
Third Place – Fidelis: A Study in Fraktur Calligraphy by Conner Gayda, Jacksonville State University, USA

IX/UX Design

First Place

Studio Museum in Harlem
Base Design
USA

The Studio Museum in Harlem, established in 1968, stands as a vital hub for artists of African descent, fostering creativity, dialogue, and community engagement. To modernize its online presence, the museum enlisted BaseNYC for a website redesign, aiming to reflect its dynamic spirit. Inspired by Harlem’s vibrant atmosphere, the design emulates a brownstone stoop, serving as a lively digital meeting place. Embracing noise as a concept, the website integrates artworks with surrounding creations, placing emphasis on the artists and their narratives. Video and audio clips within the margins further enhance the immersive experience, capturing the essence of the Studio Museum’s energetic setting.

Additional credits:
Mirek Nisenbaum, Min Lew, Andrey Starkov, Harry Laverty, Ross Gendels, Marc Hill, Masha Basyrova, Vivian Valentin, Artem Lyustik, Sergei Khegai, Volha Trehubava, Jerry Johnston, Ji Park

Second Place

theo Transformation Advisory
Hana Snell – Caliber Creative
USA

theo is an advisory group that partners with entrepreneurs, executives, and industry leaders to metamorphose talent and guide their enterprises through transformational journeys. With a refreshed wordmark, visual identity, and inventory of infographics, the brand’s new look reflects the same frameworks meant to transform organizations. The combination of gradients, emanating graphic elements, and gentle brush strokes create an expressive approach to otherwise corporate data visualization. Color is strategically used throughout the website to categorize each level of a client’s journey (talent, culture, and enterprise), while the color-field digital paintings abstractly represent the various impacted industries. This dynamic mixture of elements is energetic and impactful, inspiring clients to trust in the theo expertise and embark on their own metamorphosis.

Additional credits:
Brandon Murphy, Erin Brachman, Trevor Scott, Cosme Olivas

Third Place

Fearless Website
Rony Dixon – Texas Tech University
USA

Fearless is a podcast showcasing the untold stories of Texas Tech through candid interviews with students, faculty, staff, and alumni, introducing listeners to individuals embodying the Red Raiders’ qualities and contributing to the university’s broad impact. With an immersive, long-form storytelling approach, Fearless delivers compelling narratives highlighting the passion and perseverance of the Texas Tech community. The recently redesigned website, launched alongside season three of the podcast in 2023, reflects the podcast’s personal, relatable, impactful, engaging, sincere, and authentic character, prioritizing relevance and connection for listeners.

Additional credits:
Web Design, Rony Dixon; Lead Web Developer, Gary Eubanks; Director of Design, Veronica Medina; Producer and Host, Taylor Peters; Photography, Justin Rex; Photography, Ashley Rodgers; Co-Producer, Allison Hirth

Student Honorees – IX/UX Design

First Place – Deafinite by Jingxin Xu, School of Visual Arts, USA
Second Place – Sproute App Prototype by Zach Hall and Jordan Heath, University of North Texas, USA
Third Place – Trash Panda App Prototype by Macy McClish and Keaton Dillard, University of North Texas, USA

Motion Graphics & Video

First Place

Santé: Designed by Patrick Norguet
Molly Skonieczny – Tolleson
USA

“Santé: Designed by Patrick Norguet” is a meticulously crafted stop-motion animation video created by Tolleson, a creative agency, and Studio TK, a furniture company. Departing from typical designer videos, the duo sought to amplify Studio TK’s voice and stand out in the industry. The video production embraced analog techniques, aligning with Studio TK’s craft furniture production ethos. Through interviews with designer Patrick Norguet, a script was constructed to distill complex design ideologies into understandable visuals. Each handmade prop was carefully placed, capturing the essence of Norguet’s work. Inspired by Norguet’s love for music, the video utilizes visual metaphors to convey profound ideas, such as the transition from black and white to color representing the journey from concept to creation. With around 1,400 frames, the video celebrates the emotional essence underlying every design project, showcasing the art of storytelling through stop-motion sequences and captivating visuals.

Additional credits: Steve Tolleson, Jesse Goldberg, Evan Tolleson, Briana Tarantino; Photography, Eric Einwiller

Second Place

Doris Duke Foundation: When Artists Thrive, We All Thrive
Bryce Bizer – None Other
USA

None Other was commissioned by the Doris Duke Foundation to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Doris Duke Artist Awards, which provides substantial grants to individual performing artists. To capture the essence of a decade of achievements, None Other adopted an unconventional approach. Instead of traditional interviews, they used motion design-based photography paired with audio interviews. This method allowed for flexibility in documenting seven artists across various locations, ensuring a comprehensive narrative. The resulting film was showcased at a landmark anniversary event, garnering widespread attention from both the artistic community and media outlets, including CBS Mornings, NPR, and Billboard.

Additional credits: Daphne Chiang; Photography, Gabriela Bhaskar, Brittainy Newman

Third Place

Dieline Awards 2024
Justin Colt – The Collected Works
USA

The Dieline Awards is an annual competition celebrating outstanding packaging design. For 2024, Dieline approached The Collected Works to create a short film for their upcoming call-for-entries campaign, celebrating the meticulous and material-focused nature of packaging design. The end result is a 30-shot, one-minute-long 3D motion piece exploring the unique properties of various commonly used physical materials, gradually joining together into the form of the Dieline Awards trophy.

Additional credits: Jose Fresneda, Christian Townsend, Vincent Drayne, Mina Son, Justin Raymond Park

Outdoor/Billboards

First Place

Life Less Scary – Billboard Series
Stephanie Morrison – Dunn&Co
USA

Grow Financial, a Federal Credit Union, launched the “Life Less Scary” campaign to address the heightened financial fears of millennials and Gen-Z. They collaborated with 3D artists to create a set of “monster letters,” which were featured in out-of-home placements to represent Grow’s financial products in a visually engaging yet approachable manner. Inflatable versions of the monster letters were displayed on billboards, adding an eye-catching element to the campaign. The monster alphabet was integrated across various campaign elements to convey the message effectively.

Additional credits: Chief Creative Officer, Troy Dunn; Creative Director, Max Dempster; Art Director/UX Design, Mitchell Goodrich; Copywriter, Michala Jackson; Designer, Cris Trespando; Designer, Cody Davis; Account Supervisor, Rachel Jensen; Account Coordinator, Ann Butler

Second Place

I Am Toronto Pearson
Joshua Duchesne – Made by Emblem
Canada

Toronto Pearson Airport launched the “I AM TORONTO PEARSON” (IATP) program in 2016 to support its vast employee community, but the COVID-19 pandemic impacted its business and employee morale. To rejuvenate its workforce and reputation, Pearson sought to revamp the IATP brand, focusing on enhancing employee engagement. Made by Emblem undertook the task, aiming to celebrate Pearson’s employees as resilient heroes. Inspired by Nike athletics, the new brand identity centered on employees, featuring custom typefaces and authentic street photography to reflect the employee community’s spirit.

Additional credits: Megan Drummond, Christina Kim; Photography, Taha Maharuma, Daniel Neuhaus; Videographer, Colin Clark

Third Place

Dream Streetcar
Matt Wegerer – Whiskey Design
USA

In 2023, Barbie Fever took over, and the world couldn’t get enough. Barbie has had dream houses, dream campers, and dream boats, but she has never had a Dream Streetcar. That is how the Kansas City Streetcar was transformed into this pink dream. This toy-inspired makeover included sticker headlines, fake wheels, and perforated curtains. The inside was also decked out with the latest fashion of Barbie, Ken, and yes, even Allen.

Additional credits: Lindsey Musil; Photography, Travis Carroll, Monica Melber; Printer, Signco; Videographer, James Meierotto

Student Honorees – Outdoor & Billboards

First Place – Spy by Ting Jui Chang, School of Visual Arts, USA
Second Place – Go Skateboarding Day by Hyowon Kwon, School of Visual Arts, USA
Third Place – Elevating Everyday Sounds by Chuanyuan Lin, School of Visual Arts, USA

Packaging

First Place

Lou Reed / Words & Music / May 1965 – Special Edition Packaging
Masaki Koike – Phyx Design
USA

Lou Reed – Words & Music offers an extraordinary, unvarnished, and plainly poignant insight into one of America’s true poet songwriters. Capturing Reed in his formative years, this previously unreleased collection of songs—penned by a young Lou Reed, recorded to tape with the help of future bandmate John Cale, and mailed to himself as a “poor man’s copyright”—remained sealed in its original envelope and unopened for nearly 50 years. Its contents embody some of the most vital, groundbreaking contributions to American popular music committed to tape in the 20th century.

Second Place

Golden Hour
Miles McKirdy – Golden Hour Wellness
USA

Golden Hour is pioneering the evolving cannabis industry in the United States, capitalizing on its legal infancy to redefine consumer perceptions. Positioned as a disruptive and approachable brand, Golden Hour aims to transcend the stereotypical ‘stoner’ culture, offering a sophisticated approach to cannabis consumption. With a mission to be recognized as more than just a product, the brand strategically focuses on five key areas: Branding, Engagement, Education, Innovative Packaging, and Sustainability.

Additional credits: Creative Director, Miles McKirdy; Brand Strategist (and Miles’s Partner), Jessica Arnone; Project Director (and Miles’s Dad), Dr. Mark Lewis McKirdy; Art Director (and Miles’s Mum), Carol Mary McKirdy; Photography Cheyenne Lawson

Third Place

The Grappler
CF Napa Brand Design
USA

Vinoce Vineyards brought back their Zinfandel brand, “The Grappler,” due to popular demand. Partnering with CF Napa, they aimed to give it a bold new look for exclusive sale at their tasting room and wine club. Drawing on parallels between winemaking and wrestling, CF Napa created colorful labels inspired by Lucha Libre. The angled placement adds a lively touch, celebrating wrestling while honoring the Vinoce Vineyards owner’s ties to Mexico and the farmworkers there. Collectors are encouraged to collect all six wines, each featuring a unique mask design.

Student Honorees – Packaging

First Place – Horsepower Cold Brue Coffee by Vasavi Bubna, School of Visual Arts, USA
Second Place – Dark Energy by Eshaan Sojatia, Rochester Institute of Technology, USA
Third Place – Never Will by Rabiya Gupta, School of Visual Arts, USA

Posters

First Place

Upside
Edica Holeman Design
USA

This interactive poster is a result of the designer’s reflection on the design process as a form of catharsis. The white typographic elements are generated from custom code written in p5.js, representing the complexity of human experiences. The text acknowledges the mix of good and bad in life. Using p5.js, the typography starts legible but transforms into waving staggered tiles as the user interacts with it, symbolizing the highs and lows of life. References to cargo and packaging add depth, and the poster can be hung in any orientation. A QR code allows viewers to access the interactive typography.

Second Place

Minnesota Twins History Poster
Jovaney Hollingsworth – DLR Group
USA

During the renovation of the club lounge at the Minnesota Twins baseball stadium, a large framed poster was created to showcase the team’s extensive history. To encompass the diverse range of players, coaches, and achievements, a collage style was chosen. Historical elements were meticulously recreated to maintain quality and adhere to the team’s brand guidelines. The project received positive feedback from the client and may be considered as a gift for club members or included in a community fundraising initiative.

Third Place

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City Monarchs)
Jovaney Hollingsworth – DLR Group
USA

The Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (NLBM) in Kansas City celebrates the history of African-American baseball, located near where the Negro National League began in 1920. The museum holds artifacts from the pre-integration era of Major League Baseball, nurturing legendary players like Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige. The XGD Studio at DLR Group created posters featuring Monarchs players, including Buck O’Neil and Jackie Robinson, to support fundraising for a new museum facility. The posters feature a comprehensive list of Monarchs players and are designed for branded merchandise like mugs and t-shirts, expanding fundraising opportunities. DLR Group’s experiential graphic design services contribute to preserving and celebrating the Monarchs’ legacy.

Student Honorees – Posters

First Place – Alzheimer’s Poster by Emily Brown, The University of Texas at Arlington, UAS
Second Place – Barely Hanging On by Sean Howes, University of North Texas, USA
Third Place – Synesthesia by Jia Li, School of Visual Arts, USA

NEXT: Check out student winners in packaging, motion graphics & video, IX/UX, posters, environmental design, outdoor/billboards, and data visualization/information design.

The post PRINT Awards 2024 Spotlight: Winners in Packaging, Motion, Environmental, Data Visualization & More appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Artistic duo Xavier and Daniel, the Boldtron twins, have unveiled their latest collection, “The Vault of Wonders: Chapter 1—The Abyssal Unseen,” which showcases groundbreaking advancements in AI video technology. This collection merges the historical intrigue of the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities with the mysterious depths of the abyssal ocean (at depths of 6,500 to 16,500 feet). Through sophisticated AI tools, the twins bring to life creatures once only imaginable, blending historical curiosity with cutting-edge digital craftsmanship to create a mesmerizing collection that challenges our perceptions of nature and technology. 

Much like the Renaissance cabinets that blurred the lines between natural history and imaginative interpretation, “The Abyssal Unseen” invites viewers to reflect on the authenticity of beings born from digital code. The videos’ use of looping pays homage to the early mechanics of animated art, embedding each digital organism within the broader narrative of perpetual life cycles found in nature.

The collection’s abyssal theme wonders about the scarcely explored regions of the deep ocean, where creatures adapt to extreme conditions. The Boldtron twins’ creations echo these biological adaptations, illuminating the creativity needed to explore uncharted territories, whether in the ocean or in digital realms.

With meticulous character design that mirrors the precision of ancient scientific illustration, the twins employ advanced digital tools to sculpt intricate details that invite close scrutiny. This collection is an intellectual exploration, connecting the rich history of scientific and artistic curiosity with contemporary digital creativity.

“The Vault of Wonders: Chapter 1—The Abyssal Unseen” is not just a display of digital art but a thought-provoking journey that challenges our perceptions and expands our understanding of life in the digital age. Each piece serves as a visual spectacle and a node in the vast network of cultural and scientific exploration, depicting realms beyond the immediate reach of human senses.

Videos by BOLDTRON, music and sound design by MYGAL.

The post The Abyssal Unseen: A Cabinet Of Curiosities For The Digital Age  appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

New categories in this year’s awards program acknowledge the dynamic nature of design and the myriad ways designers integrate with their clients, the brands they represent, and their customers’ experiences. We separated Brand Identities from Brand Campaigns. Packaging Design took a leading role. Our Brand Collaborations category considered campaigns that join brands with other brands, artists, and organizations to expand access to diverse audiences, push industry boundaries, and address social issues.

The award-winning work embodied aesthetic trends such as mixing various weights and fonts.

Left to Right: Hey Barista Magazine | Oatly; Nuit Blanche Tapei | Left Brain; Upside | Erica Holman Design

In Packaging Design and Illustration and Posters, our jury tagged a trend towards 70s nostalgia and vintage minimalism.

Left to Right: Golden Hour | Golden Hour Wellness; Joystick Jazz | HandMade Monsters; Minnesota Twins History Poster | DLR Group

Type Design—always a resource for cutting-edge creativity—included work ranging from bubble type combined with texture to a dynamic font creation process using AI and machine learning techniques.

Left to Right: Life Less Scary | Dunn&Co; Handy Type | Rozi Zhu

The Data Visualization and Motion Design categories also included exciting examples of retro and progressive creativity. Entries included engaging stop-motion graphics and innovative and visually appealing data visualizations and infographics. Honoring both old and new, entries in these categories found ways to present complex data and concepts in easily digestible and truly beautiful formats. Entries in IX/UX Design also made a breadth of information accessible using multi-sensory prompts such as music and street sounds. Printed work, too, tapped into user experience, highlighting the importance of haptics and form to create memorable brand engagements.

Clockwise: City Pulse 2023 | Gensler Research Institute; Origins | The Office of Ordinary Things for D&K Printing; Sappi Holiday Kit | VSA Partners for Sappi North America

We hope you’re as excited as we are with this year’s family of PRINT Awards winners! Below, you can see the winning designers’ names, project descriptions, and imagery of their work from the Monadnock Award, Citizen Design, Professional Best of Show, Student Best of Show, Editors’ Choice, and Agency of the Year.

Over the next few days, we’ll share project descriptions in every category so you can enjoy the full range of creativity, innovation, and joy of this year’s awards.

Monadnock Award

Recipes for Impact
Mark Kaminski, Alina Kosmala – Compass Group
USA

“Recipes for Impact,” is a collaborative project between BLK & BOLD and Canteen, designed by Mark Kaminski at Compass Group. This exceptional book not only showcases artistic and functional excellence in design but also demonstrates profound community impact.

“Recipes for Impact” is more than just a coffee and tea recipe book; it is a testament to the power of thoughtful, community-focused brand initiatives. Crafted with Monadnock’s premium, sustainable paper, each page of this book reflects a shared commitment to environmental responsibility. BLK & BOLD’s initiative, ‘5% For Our Youth,’ which directs proceeds to support children in need, aligns seamlessly with Monadnock’s ethos of making a positive impact through every aspect of their work.

The design team, led by the talented Mark Kaminski and Alina Kosmala, utilized Monadnock’s Astrolite paper to bring their vibrant, barista-tested recipes to life. This choice not only enhanced the visual appeal but also ensured that every aspect of this project was executed with environmental integrity.

Additional credits:
Alina Kosmala; Printer, Walsworth

Citizen Design Award

Read Queer Books
Leila Taylor- Brooklyn Public Library
USA

During Pride, Brooklyn Public Library celebrated the history of LGBTQIA+ communities, reflecting back at the progress that’s been made and looking forward to the future. This year, as a response to the increasing violence, oppression, and discriminatory legislation targeting queer communities, Brooklyn Public Library commissioned a unique piece of art that evoked liberation, resistance, and rebellion. As books centering queer characters and experiences have been regularly targeted in book-banning campaigns, the design team focused their messaging on reading, urging people to challenge the erasure and suppression of LGBTQIA+ voices and to Read Queer Books.

Additional credits:
Illustration, Isip Xin; Copywriter, Lauren Rochford; Production Manager, Jack Cavicchi; Senior Digital Marketing Manager, Jenn Proffitt

Professional Best of Show Award

Seasonal Stationery
BYMAKBAS
MAKBAS Print Studio
Kuwait

“The Ramadan Series” is a special collection designed to celebrate the Ramadan season, which is marked by fasting, worship, and community gatherings. The series includes:

“Ramadan Sparkle” Cards: Hot foil stamped cards to add a festive sparkle; “Rays of Ramadhan” Cards: Blind embossed cards for making a bold statement; “Ramadhan Scene” Cards: Modern architectural line art with neon screen printing, reminiscent of fluorescent lights guiding people home.

For a spiritual touch, the collection includes: “Written in the Stars” Envelopes: Featuring matte gold and silver foil to depict a night scene of shooting stars; “The Hijri Set”: Embossed patterns with gold foil, marking the Islamic calendar’s start through migration.

Additionally, the series encourages gratitude with: “COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS” Journal: A compact gratitude journal inspired by the tradition of counting sheep to foster calm before sleep.

Lastly, to embrace the season’s tranquility: “No Pressure” Notebooks: Five separate notebooks in one, promoting freedom and creativity without the pressure of to-do lists.

The collection concludes with: “Over the moon” Envelopes: Designed for Eid, these envelopes symbolize the joy of children receiving money, featuring night skies and city lights with fluorescent screen printing, extending the “Ramadhan Scene” theme to Eid celebrations.

Student Best of Show

Damaged Goods
Doyeon Kim – School of Visual Arts
USA

Damaged Goods is a contemporary newspaper about film photography. ‘Damaged goods’ are products that are broken, cracked, scratched, and no longer desirable. But in this newspaper, it’s quite the opposite. In film photography, damaged and ruined film and its unexpected moments are aesthetic as they are. Every page in the newspaper is somehow damaged and exposed to light, however visually pleasing. The names of the journalists are also placed irregularly to convey the moments of unexpectedness that the film camera has. Doyeon focused on the art direction of this newspaper– photo selection, color and type choices, and even the photo direction.

Editors’ Choice

Studio Museum in Harlem | Website Redesign
Base Design
USA

Founded in 1968, the Studio Museum in Harlem is dedicated to artists of African descent, serving as a studio for emerging artists and a museum with a curated collection of underrepresented artists. Rooted in Harlem’s cultural legacy, it is a hub for dynamic conversations and exchanges about art and society.

As the museum prepared to move and adopt a more formal posture, it sought a website redesign to enhance accessibility and reflect its vibrant, communal spirit. BaseNYC was tasked with creating an engaging online platform that mirrors the museum’s dynamic energy.

Inspired by Harlem’s brownstone stoops, the redesigned website emulates a dynamic meeting place filled with sounds and voices, reflecting the museum’s lively atmosphere. The focus shifts from artworks to the artists, featuring video and audio clips as peripheral “chatter” to capture the animated essence of the Studio Museum.

Additional credits:
Mirek Nisenbaum, Min Lew, Andrey Starkov, Harry Laverty, Ross Gendels, Marc Hill, Masha Basyrova, Vivian Valentin, Artem Lyustik, Sergei Khegai, Volha Trehubava, Jerry Johnston, Ji Park

Agency of the Year

John Kudos – KASA Collective
USA

KASA Collective is an international design agency that creates interactive experiences for public, corporate, and cultural spaces. Their multimedia installations use storytelling, design, and technology to engage audiences. KASA Collective is a collaboration between two award-winning agencies, KUDOS Design Collaboratory and Conduit, who have worked together on complex projects for over 20 years. The agencies have expertise in 2D, 3D, and 4D design. 

This year, KASA Collective won first place honors in Environmental Design for Black Power to Black People Exhibition and second place in that same category for the exhibition Made in Japan. John Kudos, through KUDOS Design Collaboratory also took home second place in Self-Promotions for his beautiful 2024 ONE LOVE Calendar.

Additional credits:
Art Director, Ashley Wu; Designer, Fay Qiu; Project Manager, Amanda Knott; 3D Renderer, Imam Fadillah; Design Intern, Saskia Wulandiarti; Photography, Samuel Sachs Morgan

Professional Honorees

Advertising

First Place—Georgetown Optician – Adventures in A-Eye | Pum Lefebure | Design Army
Second Place—BMW Motorrad – Storied: 100 years of BMW Motorcycling | Justin Page | The Simple Machine

Annual Reports

First Place—SPH This Year 2023 | Susan Prentiss | Boston University, Creative Services
Second Place—Smithsonian Annual Report 2022 | Jason Mannix | Polygraph
Third Place—The Future is Nuclear, Bruce Power Annual Review and Energy Report | Erin Grandmaison | Bruce Power

Books—Covers/Jackets          

First Place—Opinions | Robin Bilardello | Harper
Second Place—Evil Eye | Milan Bozic | Harper
Third Place—Feminist Designer: On the Personal and the Political in Design | Alison Place | University of Arkansas

Books—Entire Package

First Place—Milton Glaser, POP | Mirko Ilic | Mirko Ilic Corp.
Second Place—Type Something For Me | Joyce Shi | G Axis Press
Third Place—Alucinação | Felipe Goes | Felipe Goes Designer

Branding—Campaigns

First Place—SXSW 2024: Global Reframing | Luigi Maldonado | Guerilla Suit
Second Place—East Side Pies | Michael Tabie | Guerilla Suit
Third Place—Central Market Passport Portugal | Dana Nixon | *TraceElement

Branding—Collaborations

First Place—2023 Nuit Blanche Taipei – Time to Rise Up | Department of Cultural Affairs, Taipei City Government; Left Brain
Second Place—2023 Romantic Route 3 – Falabidbog | Hakka Affairs Council; Hakka Public Communication Foundation; Left Brain
Third Place—Confronting Design | One Design Company

Branding—Identities & Identity Systems

First Place—The National Museum in Krakow | Emilka Bojańczyk & Zuzanna Charkiewicz | Podpunkt Studio
Second Place—Portuguese Government | Studio Eduardo Aires
Third Place—GUILD | COLLINS

Brochures & Catalogs

First Place—Naked Trails | Kyle Poff | Leo Burnett Chicago
Second Place—MCA NOW | Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago Creative Studio
Third Place—l.a.Eyeworks Booklet | Becca Lofchie Studio

Citizen Design Award

First Place—Read Queer Books | Leila Taylor | Brooklyn Public Library
Second Place—2023 Manatee Pride Festival – Joining Together to Celebrate Our Community | Craig Byers | Studio Craig Byers
Third Place—The “Q Deck”- LGBTQ+ Educational Cards | Kelly Holohan | Holohan Design

Concept Work

First Place—Orb Time Font (OTF) | Raven Mo          
Second Place—Hand copying meditation | Miki Kawamura 
Third Place—Afar: Cultural Cards | Andy Vera Design

Data Visualization & Information Design

First Place—City Pulse 2023: The Future of Central Business Districts | Minjung Lee | Gensler Research Institute
Second Place—203 X Infographics | Sung Hwan Jang | Infographics Lab 203
Third Place—Global Workplace Survey Comparison 2023 | Minjung Lee | Gensler Research Institute

Design for Social Impact

First Place—Foundry Field | Clinton Carlson Design | University of Notre Dame
Second Place—One Small Step, Integrated Campaign | I/D.W Studio
Third Place—Curt Bloch and his Onderwater-Cabaret | Thilo von Debschitz | Q

Editorial

First Place—The North Face – 50 Years of Parkas Zine | Justin Colt | The Collected Works
Second Place—Hey Barista magazine | Chloe Scheffe & Natalie Shields | Oatly
Third Place—HUE, The Magazine of FIT, The Fashion Institute of Technology: Fall 2023 | Alexander Isley | Alexander Isley Inc.

Environmental Design

First Place—Black Power to Black People Exhibition | John Kudos | KASA Collective
Second Place—Made in Japan Exhibition | John Kudos | KASA Collective
Third Place—Art Deco: Commercializing the Avant-Garde | Ola Baldych | Poster House

Handlettering & Type Design

First Place—Handy Type | Rozi Zhu   
Second Place—Life Less Scary – Alphabet | Mitchell Goodrich | Dunn&Co.
Third Place—The Typography of a Genius Industry | Gaetano Grizzanti | Univisual

Illustration

First Place—Metropolitan Transportation Authority Courtesy Campaign | Ricky Sethiadi | MTA Marketing
Second Place—Joystick Jazz | Mark Borgions | HandMade Monsters
Third Place—Simple Mills Illustrations | Ellie Schwartz | Design B&B

In-House

First Place—BYMAKBAS Seasonal Stationery | MAKBAS Print Studio
Second Place—Lunatix NFT Collection | Ben Morris Sketch | Unilever
Third Place—Cannes 2023 | Luisa Baeta | Axios

Invitations & Announcements

First Place—Marwen Invitations | Brian Berk | Leo Burnett Chicago
Second Place—Monroe Community College Foundation Gold Star Gala Invitations | Jewel Mastrodonato | Dixon Schwabl + Company
Third Place—American Heart Association Gala Invitation Suite | Hana Snell | Caliber Creative

IX/UX Design

First Place—Studio Museum in Harlem Website Redesign | Base Design
Second Place—theo Transformation Advisory Website | Hana Snell | Caliber Creative
Third Place—Fearless Website | Rony Dixon | Texas Tech University

Logos

First Place—Turks Head | CF Napa Brand Design
Second Place—Benny’s Bike Shop | Sam Allan | Onfire. Design
Third Place—Kinetic Identity | One Design Company

Motion Graphics & Video

First Place—Santé: Designed by Patrick Norguet | Molly Skonieczny | Tolleson
Second Place—Doris Duke Foundation: When Artists Thrive, We All Thrive | Bryce Bizer | None Other
Third Place—Dieline Awards 2024 | Justin Colt | The Collected Works

Outdoor & Billboards

First Place—Life Less Scary | Stephanie Morrison | Dunn&Co.
Second Place—I Am Toronto Pearson | Joshua Duchesne | Made by Emblem
Third Place—Dream Streetcar | Matt Wegerer | Whiskey Design

Packaging

First Place—Lou Reed / Words & Music / May 1965 – Special Edition | Masaki Koike | Phyx Design
Second Place—Golden Hour | Miles McKirdy | Golden Hour Wellness
Third Place—The Grappler | CF Napa Brand Design

Photography

First Place—HP OMEN – Choose Fun | Ethan Scott | Designory

Posters

First Place—Upside | Erica Holeman | Erica Holeman Design
Second Place—Minnesota Twins History Poster | Jovaney Hollingsworth | DLR Group
Third Place—Negro Leagues Baseball Museum (Kansas City Monarchs) | Jovaney Hollingsworth | DLR Group

Self-Promotions

First Place—Origins | The Office of Ordinary Things for D&K Printing
Second Place—2024 ONE LOVE Calendar | John Kudos | KUDOS Design Collaboratory
Third Place—2023 Sappi Holiday Kit | VSA Partners for Sappi North America

Student Honorees

Advertising

First Place—Literary Mixtape | NaRe Hong | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Stuf by Oreo | Elyza Nachimson | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Verizon | Hongjin Li | School of Visual Arts

Annual Reports

First Place—Victims First Annual Report | Aurora Schafer | University of North Texas

Books—Covers/Jackets

First Place—Zubaan | Ariana Gupta | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Speaking in Tongues | Yoon Seo Kim | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Artist Book | Jiawen Zhang | School of Visual Arts

Books—Entire Package

First Place—Bento of Memories | Shiyao Wu
Second Place—Dos Palmares | Maί­ra dos Palmares Santana
Third Place—Six-Legged Book | Seo Jin Lee | School of Visual Arts

Branding—Identities & Identity Systems

First Place—Museum of the Moving Image | Mina Son | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—POT.ION | Mina Son | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Found Sound Music Festival | Don Park | School of Visual Arts

Brochures & Catalogs

First Place—FORM | Fiona Tran | Drexel University

Citizen Design Award 

First Place—Lampião da Esquina | Pedro Melo | Federal University of Rio De Janeiro

Data Visualization & Information Design

First Place—Street Gum Dots Marching Symphony | Jae Young Kim | Pratt Institute
Second Place—Fashion, Beauty and Post-Colonial Perceptions | Joumana Ibrahim | Savannah College of Art and Design
Third Place—Me, My Languages, and I | Joumana Ibrahim | Savannah College of Art and Design

Design for Social Impact

First Place—Elephant in the room | Eason Yang
Second Place—Phantom Limbs: Design Interventions and Site-specific Storytelling | Veronica Tsai | Art Center College of Design
Third Place—Ace Week | Nicole Tocco | Savannah College of Art and Design

Editorial

First Place—Damaged Goods | Doyeon Kim | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Experiments in Type Zine | Yerin Lee | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Gestalt Tattoo | Jung Youn Kim | School of Visual Arts

Environmental Design

First Place—Bike Lane Parking Preventer | Yoon Seo Kim | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Elephant in the room | Eason Yang  
Third Place—Fidelis: A Study in Fraktur Calligraphy | Conner Gayda | Jacksonville State University

Handlettering & Type Design

First Place—Up In The Air Gonggi Typography | Jae Young Kim | Pratt Institute
Second Place—Amunet Type | Xinyu Liu | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Bird Words| Jada Merritt | California Institute of the Arts

Illustration

First Place—Stilts, Bears & Skeletons | Heike Scharrer | Cambridge School of Art
Second Place—Xiaoyun Tian | Xiaoyun Tian | Cambridge School of Art
Third Place—Gulf Horizons Illustrations | Jazmine Garcia | University of North Texas

IX/UX Design

First Place—Deafinite | Jingxin Xu | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Sproute App Prototype | Zach Hall and Jordan Heath | University of North Texas
Third Place—Trash Panda App Prototype | Macy McClish and Keaton Dillard | University of North Texas

Logos

First Place—Architectural Digest | Mishen Liu | Art Center College of Design
Second Place—Tiger Ale | Emily Brown | The University of Texas Arlington

Motion Graphics & Video

First Place—Mirage | Jeffrey Xiyang Su, Hanson Ma, Michael Wang | Art Center College of Design
Second Place—Happy Little Birthday | Juni Kweon | Art Center College of Design
Third Place—Rapp Snitch Knishes | Audrey Whang | School of Visual Arts

Outdoor & Billboards

First Place—Spy | Ting Jui Chang | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Go Skateboarding Day | Hyowon Kwon | School of Visual Arts
Third Place—Elevating Everyday Sounds | Chuanyuan Lin | School of Visual Arts

Packaging

First Place—Horsepower Cold Brew Coffee | Vasavi Bubna | School of Visual Arts
Second Place—Dark Energy | Eshaan Sojatia | Rochester Institute of Technology
Third Place—Never Will | Rabiya Gupta | School of Visual Arts

Photography

First Place—The Dream | Emily Brown | University of Texas at Arlington

Posters

First Place—Alzheimer’s Poster | Emily Brown | University of Texas at Arlington
Second Place—Barely Hanging On | Sean Howes | University of North Texas
Third Place—Synesthesia | Jia Li | School of Visual Arts

NEXT: We spotlight winners in Advertising, Branding Campaigns, Collaboration and Identities, Editorial, In-House, Photography, and Self-Promotions.

The post Celebrating Excellence and Innovation: Announcing the Winners of the 2024 PRINT Awards appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Art is still seen, for the most part, as something that relies on being viewed in person and as a cultural experience largely reserved for a ‘certain type’ of person. The art world can feel exclusionary on many grounds: geography (most larger galleries are in big cities like London, New York, or Berlin), accessibility (little provision been made has historically for things like disabilities and neurodivergence), diversity (of staff, artists, themes), and more. 

In the early days of lockdown, many galleries attempted new ways of showing art, often through online 3D walkthrough experiences, with varying success. In the years since, we’ve seen further significant shifts in how we interact with culture: the post-pandemic world is one of ‘phygital’ spaces, augmented realities, and new experiments in the gallery-from-home experience from NFTs to immersive takes on Van Gogh. 

Ultimately, cultural organizations exist with a singular purpose: to share information, stories, and cultural works. However, many wrestle with doing so while catering to increasing demands for engaging digital experiences as much as physical encounters. The tension here is around tempo: digital trends and innovations change rapidly, while the nature of art, and especially of art-led archives, is far more slow-paced and meticulous. 

Fortunately for such organizations, today, we have rafts of technology at our fingertips to help address this issue. Digital tools can open up countless opportunities to work in ways that encourage viewers to self-curate; they can transcend geographical and temporal boundaries and make art more accessible than ever. 

Self-curated digital experiences empower audiences to absorb data and stories in ways that are meaningful to them and encourage active, rather than passive interaction. 

Personalized, immersive, and meaningful 

But instead of focusing on how or where we interact with culture – physical, digital, immersive, and so on – we must approach culture and how we interact with it by thinking about the who.  

Today, more than ever, audiences desire a sense of control when interacting with organizations of all kinds. That means cultural organizations must offer considered experiences that marry the best of all worlds: the remotely accessible gateway of digital exhibitions, the richness of immersive experiences, and giving the viewer agency and autonomy. 

It was that issue of resolving the gap between physical art-viewing, online experiences, and user-led interactions with art that was at the heart of the challenge for the renowned Tremaine Collection, which holds more than 700 artworks by the likes of Andy Warhol, Georgia O’Keeffe, Bridget Riley, Roy Lichtenstein, and Jackson Pollock. We created a new digital experience allowing viewers to peruse at their own pace, with works categorized by parameters like creator, acquisition date, or form, such as sculpture, monoprint, or even ‘Christmas Card.’ Supplementary information is readily available from the collection’s archival documents and ephemera, and the artworks are further enriched using multiple media, such as audio narratives that work much like established physical gallery audio guides. 

Self-curated digital experiences enable people to interact with information in a more controlled, personalized, richly immersive, and multimedia-led experience. These experiences empower audiences to absorb data and stories in ways that are meaningful to them and encourage active, rather than passive interactions from viewers or visitors. 

The primary consideration should be the story itself: How can it be even more engaging by harnessing digital tools?

Connecting to broader narratives

Through the smart use of technology, we can move on from the nostalgic notion of art as a static object displayed as strictly ‘look, don’t touch’ within a hushed gallery space. By harnessing digital tools such as the ability to show virtual spaces that go beyond our understanding of physical spaces, we can connect artworks to broader ideas around their cultural context, social and political backdrop, and insights into the people who created them.

The Tremaine Collection’s digital experience uses the idea of stacking as if one were sifting through papers in the archives. In 3D space, this allows the artworks to be manipulated in a way that is not possible physically. For instance, showing how the collection grew over time reveals insights into the mind of the collector and the artistic climate of the time.

Tech should be seen not as an augmentation to the physical gallery site but as an extension of our senses – enabling us to connect the dots between individual artworks and the overarching narratives that informed their creation and help explain their impact.  
 
However, the primary consideration should be the story itself: How can it be even more engaging by harnessing digital tools? Tech-first approaches – deciding to use AR but without a clear picture of exactly why, for instance – rarely succeed. Story-first approaches rarely fail.  

Lessons from galleries for brands

Brands, too, could benefit from shifting their mindset beyond the concrete ‘realities’ gathered from data analytics and preference cookies of digital marketing (their gallery walls, if you will). Consumer-facing brands tend to use analytics to capture efficiencies and tailor customers’ experiences primarily to encourage them to stay on their site longer and spend more.
 
Today, people increasingly seek to connect more deeply with the brands and platforms they interact with. TikTok’s popularity is a testament to its algorithm, which tailors content to people based on their preferences and prior interactions with content on its platform.

When brands look towards personalization, they need to think beyond their product or service to how they connect with people in a way that supports their worldview and understands their needs. Any corporation with a story to tell can consider ways to personalize experiences rather than relying solely on the cold, hard doctrines of the algorithm. 

Opportunity for serendipitous experiences

Often, we find our favorite artwork, song, movie (or brand of cookies) through serendipitous experience. Breaking down the gallery walls creates space for joyful chance encounters. There’s something incredibly powerful in the human sense of discovery – whether that means meandering into the Tate Modern’s Rothko room on a school trip, ‘Shazaming’ your new favorite track at a bookstore, stumbling upon a new coffee shop, or encountering a beguiling pop art painting you’ve never seen before online.  
 
Discovery means memorability and resonance, which are as crucial for brands’ success as they are for cultural institutions to have a real, meaningful impact on people. The most successful brands merge widespread appeal with personal connection, and arguably, the best cultural institutions achieve something similar.  
 
By slackening the reins of tightly curated presentations of information and art, the viewer takes on some of the curatorial responsibility, enabling them to enjoy art when, where, and how they want. Away from the white cube space, people can take the time to study an artwork they love forensically – or just move on immediately from one they don’t.  
 
It’s the difference between going to a library and using Google search. The latter is about capturing and enhancing efficiency and using precise metrics to generate revenue. The library, however, is joyful precisely because of its ‘inefficiencies’: that’s where the powerful, serendipitous moments are found – the ones that impact our lives and which we remember forever.  
  
We’re in a hugely exciting time for art galleries thanks to ever-expanding opportunities to bridge physical and digital visitor experiences and open their archives in newly dynamic, accessible ways. However, all types of organizations can learn from these innovations: in broad terms, these shifts are about interrogating how we surface and communicate information – something as relevant to brands as to culture centers. When we consider how best to use data beyond capturing efficiencies, we can start to deliver self-curated, discovery-led experiences that people genuinely want to engage with, now and in the future.

Synoptic Office is an award-winning design consultancy founded by Caspar Lam and YuJune Park. It works globally with leading cultural, civic, and business organizations to communicate ideas, build experiences, and cultivate new audiences. The studio’s work has been honored by Fast Company’s Innovation by Design Awards, The Webby Awards, Design Week, the Art Director’s Club, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts. Synoptic Office was selected to participate in BIO23 and BIO26, the Biennial of Design at the Museum of Architecture and Design in Ljubljana. They have exhibited at the Ningbo Museum of Art in China, the 26th International Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno, and at Palazzo Mora with the European Cultural Centre in collaboration with the 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale. Synoptic Office is a certified Minority Business Enterprise (MBE).

All imagery © The Tremaine Collection.

The post Self-Curation is the Next Frontier for Art Galleries appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Crafted by Landor Milano, the brand transformation has turned Imperia’s emblem into a pasta-rolling marvel, churning out impeccable fettuccine and tagliatelle ribbons. This pasta renaissance blends the essence of Italy’s rich history with vibrant, disruptive cues, appealing to both pasta traditionalists and culinary renegades.

For Alessio Galdi, Design Director at Landor Milano, reimagining Imperia’s identity was both a homage to its storied past and a leap into its future. “Imperia is a brand rooted in the history of our country,” Galdi reflects. Navigating this dual mandate was no small feat: the rebrand needed to resonate with the heritage of a 90-year-old company while also appealing to a global, contemporary audience.

To achieve this, the team delved into Imperia’s historical archives, unearthing elements like the oblong background shape from the 1960s. Once adorned with 3D drop shadows, this vintage motif has been reinterpreted into a sleek, modern form. Now, this crisp shape is the centerpiece of the identity, dynamically “rolling over” to reveal the wordmark, embodying the essence of pasta-making in motion.

Typography plays a starring role in the new identity, with a nod to advertising styles from the 1940s onwards. Landor Milano introduced a pasta-inspired custom typeface, Sfoglia Grotesk, tailored specifically for this project. Inspired by ‘Sfoglie’ pasta sheets, the font features unique ligatures and character details that echo the finesse of freshly rolled pasta. Senior Designer Gianluca Ciancaglini highlights the artistry in the typeface: “The plump teardrop detail of the ‘r,’ the sharp ink traps, and the soft terminals all bring a distinct, ownable flavor to the brand’s typography.”

Color, too, plays a pivotal role. The revamped color palette is vibrant and inviting, drawing parallels to a plate of lasagna as rich as Nonna’s ragu. Landor’s approach goes beyond static visuals; they crafted animated 3D sculptures inspired by Bruno Munari’s ‘Useless Machines.’ These whimsical creations, paired with a 2D motion system by Motion Design Director Salvatore Illeggittimo, add depth and dynamism to the brand, making it as playful as it is profound.

“Munari said that any cookery book is a book of design methodology,” notes Galdi. This philosophy underpins the entire rebrand, positioning the kitchen as a crucible of creativity and experimentation. The animations depict silky pasta ribbons and dough being expertly pressed and rolled, encapsulating the artistry of pasta-making and the brand’s innovative spirit. A visual system that dances like pasta in boiling water infuses a motion soul, turning machines into culinary maestros.

Adriana Testaverde, Client Manager at Landor Milano, sums up the transformation: “The redefined identity of Imperia marks the dawn of a dynamic era for the brand, particularly in its pursuit of creativity and experimentation.” By targeting younger demographics, Imperia is shedding its nostalgic image and inviting a new generation to explore the joys of pasta-making.

This rebrand is more than a visual overhaul; it’s a strategic pivot that blends form and substance. Imperia is reshaping the pasta-making experience for the global market with a generous helping of Italian spirit. The refreshed brand values what people love most: pasta your way, with a uniquely Italian twist. In doing so, Imperia rolls out a new chapter in its illustrious history.

Imagery by Landor.

The post Landor Milano’s Delicious Rebrand of Imperia appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Denver-based True Anomaly, a pioneer in integrating spacecraft, software, and AI to enhance national security and ensure space access for allies and commercial partners, has launched a new brand identity. This transformation, executed in collaboration with Danish strategic brand agency Kontrapunkt, showcases True Anomaly’s innovative edge in space security technologies.

Central to the new identity is the logo, inspired by the Greek letter Nu (ν), symbolizing the ‘true anomaly’—a measure of an object’s position in its orbit. The logo combines a triangle with an elliptical orbit, representing sleek modernity and the assertiveness essential in the security industry.

The brand’s new typeface, TWK Everett by Nolan Paparelli, offers edgy simplicity and precise details that shine across text and display.

Kontrapunkt also helped develop distinct visual identities for True Anomaly’s expanding product suite, including customized color schemes, 3D renders, motion principles, and a custom pattern generator, all seamlessly integrated into the brand’s new website.

The rebranding effort contributed to True Anomaly’s successful Series B fundraising, which aimed to better equip the company for its expanding range of digital and physical products. The fundraising attracted $100 million in investments, solidifying True Anomaly as a leader in space security technology.

The rebrand underscores True Anomaly’s out-of-this-world solutions and reinforces the critical intersection of advanced branding and robust space security in today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape.

The post True Anomaly Launches Space Tech Brand Identity by Kontrapunkt appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

“I’ve always been working towards a world in which design for people, design for good, and inclusive design is just good design,” said Young, design researcher and acting chair of the MFA Interaction Design program at SVA. For decades thought leaders have been working to pinpoint the future of good design–and educators have been simply trying to keep up. Now they’re shaping the future themselves. This year, Young collaborated with Pinar Guvenc, partner at the award-winning global design firm SOUR, to construct the first year-long, graduate-level Inclusive Design course in the United States.

Designed to train the next generation of strategic, collaborative, thoughtful, and yes, inclusive designers, Inclusive Design I & II is SVA’s response to corporate reconstruction across industries. Since November 2023, interaction has seen mass layoffs from design leaders like IDEO and technology mega-companies including Google and Microsoft, citing “weak consumer demand.” 

There is demand, just not for their products. People with disabilities hold about $490b in purchasing power in the United States, while 68% of Gen Z prioritizes sustainable shopping. With these two groups holding consumer power, organizations have come to understand that corporate sustainability means social responsibility. Solutions are scarce, as design and tech hemorrhage capital in search of a new ‘new normal.’ 

With an undefined future, the leadership at MFA Interaction Design chose to focus on the only two constants in design — people and their problems. “Every designer is a social impact designer,” said Young. “Whether they like it or not, they’re having an impact on society and people.” 

Instilling inclusion, co-creation, and engagement into design processes may provide the necessary salve to these wounds, setting a strong foundation for our future. It’s the curb cut effect when a design created for a few changes the lives of many. Think of the touch screen on your trusty smartphone, rubber grips on vegetable peelers, or closed captioning; all universal products initially designed with the disabled community in mind. “If you’re not co-creating with people, what you’re putting out there is not going to stick or it’s not going to last, and therefore it’s not going to sustain,” said Guvenc.

Initially designed in two parts stretching over the second year of the MFA program, the course starts slow—painfully slow. Much of Inclusive Design I is spent slowing down, observing, deepening vocabulary, and unlearning traditional design processes. The MFA program defines inclusive design as designing with, not for, communities we aim to serve, recognizing that lived experiences are equally as important as professional expertise. The first few classes are simple yet complex, differentiating inclusive from accessible, universal, or equitable design and exploring what it means to actively invite participants into the process as co-designers. 

“Every designer is a social impact designer. Whether they like it or not, they’re having an impact on society and people. 

Adriana Valdez Young, design researcher and acting chair of SVA’s MFA Interaction Design program

From early January to May 2024, the second-year students in Inclusive Design II were given the mammoth task of redesigning their studio bathrooms. Though interaction design is often seen as a technological field, SVA broadens this definition to include the vast system of networks, services, narratives, products, and experiences shaping our daily lives. “Inclusion, where it differs from accessibility, is not necessarily concerned about the baseline axis,” said Guvenc. “It is concerned about the entire journey and the experience.” Because of this, the faculty chose to focus on a physical, universal human experience to frame the class project in the course’s pilot year.

Left: First-year students celebrate at the DesignIt headquarters with experience designer Brooke Viegut following an expedition throughout New York City; Right: Pinar Guvenc (left) moderates a talk with Jade McDonnough (center) and Marshall Sitten (right) about practicing inclusion as designers and creatives.

This initial class has proven to be a fruitful struggle. Designing for inclusion is a complex, intentional process, filled with co-creation, value-setting, shifting mindsets, community research, and detailed prototyping. As students began conducting anonymous surveys, Guvenc and Young found the emerging designers stuck in habitual thinking and linear processes; many of the students’ first drafts included problematic language and ableist assumptions. Several final prototypes raised an eyebrow, including one with signage depicting a male and female icon perpetuating the gender binary.

“These deeply ingrained mindsets and habits take time to break,” said Young. “For me, it’s about being patient; knowing that we have planted the seed and that seed might sprout later in their design careers.”

The students’ thinking evolved greatly, even if there wasn’t a sharp pivot in their work this year. “Inclusive design is a mindset I can keep with myself, in all types of design,” said Fan Fang, product designer and soon-to-be MFA Interaction Design graduate. “[The course] helped me learn how to decentralize my role as a designer.” Fan Fang’s thesis project focuses on democratizing gaming for those who are visually impaired, designing a tactile controller for blind people to play video games and access information traditionally only visually available. Other graduate projects this year range from apps embracing generative AI to nurture critical thinking for middle schoolers (ThinkKee by Amogh Gharpure), creating a better experience for people with mobility impairments to navigate ride-share platforms in New York City (Unit by Jennie Yang), to tools supporting young people in learning to care for their hands and prevent chronic injury from extensive technology use (Handy by Mihira Patel). 

Under Young’s leadership, the MFA Interaction Design program is turning the needle toward crafting more inclusive designers. Across courses, from entrepreneurial design to game design, students have been tasked with prioritizing ethics and inclusive values, asking them to go deeper into the same projects with these contexts in mind. This year the thesis project requirements have been redesigned to include community engagement, video stories, and a detailed body of work consisting of at least three different design prototypes addressing each student’s research, deepening their understanding of design and its impact. 

If you’re not co-creating with people, what you’re putting out there is not going to stick or it’s not going to last, and therefore it’s not going to sustain.

Pinar Guvenc, partner at SOUR

Looking to the future of the program, Young and Guvenc are hopeful. Inclusive design is still in its early stages as common practice, but its impact is clear. As Black Lives Matter invigorated new diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in leadership, and the deadline for the 2025 European Accessibility Act looms, companies have a need for lower and mid-level employees who bring a thoughtful lens to their work. “I feel like there was this portal that opened to making inclusive, accessible, and community-centered design this new norm,” said Young, “and we’re jumping through this portal to help future-proof our students.” Beyond future-proofing students, inclusive design just might be the key to future-proofing our world; we’ll just have to wait and see.

co-24: MFA Interaction Design Thesis Exhibition, a walk-through exhibition of works by 21 emergent designers exploring the themes of collaboration, connection, compassion, and construction towards a more intentionally inclusive future. May 16-17, 136 W. 21st St. RSVP here to attend.

Brooke Viegut is a narrative-driven experience designer, audience-centric theater maker, design critic, live entertainment researcher, donut connoisseur, cultural producer, collector of silly little things, and the creative lead at for.play. She is the author of Anonymous Intimacy (coming 2024) and holds an MA in Design Research, Writing, and Criticism from the School of Visual Arts.

Header: a snapshot of a tabletop at MFA Interaction Design filled with inclusive design tools and inspiration. Photo by Adriana Valdez Young.

The post The Next Generation of Design is Inclusive appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The rise of streamers like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, and Apple TV has catalyzed a (New) Golden Age of TV: episodic shows have become more poignant, more engaging, slicker than ever, and more nuanced—honing in on pinpoint cultures and subcultures.

The best of these programs (think Succession, Severance, The White Lotus, Shōgun, The Handmaid’s Tale, Fleabag, The Bear, Beef, and on and on) take cues from the world of cinema and demonstrate a new approach to craft and detail. When we get an ad break, however, people are all too often served generic, cookie-cutter promos that viewers understandably look to mute or skip. Essentially, it is the worst of what we as an industry create.

Given the abundance of talent working in the industry, it’s surprising that the ads surrounding today’s culture-defining shows fall far short. Undoubtedly, those who direct and conceptualize these spots have the ability, talent, and storytelling skills. With streaming now representing over 38% of all TV usage—why the lackluster commercials on streaming platforms?

I’m not looking to start a debate (well, maybe I am!), but the best we collectively have to offer shouldn’t be celebrated by a select few only on the festival circuit. Our most stellar work should delight, entice, and educate in living rooms and bedrooms all year round.

Surely, this is also a debate for the media buyers amongst us, but essentially, audiences are smart, and the quality of what we consume has increased over the past decade (contrary to what David Chase, creator of the greatest show of all time, The Sopranos, has recently said about the decline of episodic content). So, let’s give them the best of what we as an industry have to offer.

Netflix’s optional ad-supported plan, launched in 2022, has amassed 15 million users. Prime Video launched ads this year, and we’ve all read the speculation that even Apple TV+ is now poised to do the same. Safe to say, streamers are increasingly moving towards ad-supported services.

We all know about the Super Bowl effect: the connection between ads and the game transcends inside-industry chat and gets everyone talking about mega-budgets and celebrity brand collabs. But let’s be honest: Are these ads even as great as they once were?

Having been at “industry” Super Bowl parties for the past decade or more, I can assure you it’s not my opinion alone that fewer creative risks have been taken in recent years relying on believed-to-be-proven formulas, often using the same voices who have been directing these spectacle spots for the past decade. Why? Because they seem like the “safe choice.” Many of these ads are good, don’t get me wrong, but are they great?

There’s something we all know: we should be making more great work.

These formulas have become tired and expected, and by using the same directors, the spots generated are frequently obvious and, even worse, predictable. Some get it right; the folks at Highdive come to mind, and my synapses also fire to CeraVe (from Ogilvy and Tim & Eric) and even Tubi out of Mischief.

To go way back, those wonderful Tide ads directed by Traktor and Saatchi & Saatchi are the best semi-recent examples where delight, surprise, craft, cleverness, and inventiveness ruled the day. But I digress. Super Bowl rant aside, we can’t overlook the 529 million viewing minutes achieved by Ted Lasso’s final episode alone. Essentially, the best of what we make should be seen and celebrated on the Super Bowl and streamers alike, but candidly, there’s something we all know: we should be making more great work.

It’s not just streaming viewing figures (quantity) that should be luring brands to strive for creative excellence; it’s also the distinct mindset (quality) of those tuning in. Take Euphoria, a show that’s authentic, raw, and emotive and delivers a viewing experience that resonates at the core. Audiences of shows this good are in a state of heightened emotion, receptive in a way they arguably never have been before.

Epic cinema ads like we used to see would feel very at home on streamers; here are a few other ways to kick-start progress:

Push for greater transparency from streamers: Nielsen has started reporting streaming figures much as it does for linear TV. Additionally, in December, Netflix released a report that shared global hours viewed for nearly its entire library over a six-month period, its most comprehensive breakdown of viewership yet. The writers’ strike has also helped to galvanize change and transparency. Let’s build on this momentum by continuing the push for greater clarity around reporting.

Create narratives: Let’s tap into episodic advertising’s storytelling potential. Consider sequential campaigns that take viewers on an emotional journey they’ll want to invest in.

Don’t go for the safe choice: Invest in pushing the boundaries of creative work; as a rule of thumb, don’t create anything for streamers (or anywhere else) that you wouldn’t be proud to air on linear TV or even during the Super Bowl. Push harder conceptually and take more risks.

Embrace thematic alignment: Some posit that if advertising is high enough quality, it risks disrupting the program itself. Advertisers should rise to this challenge, creating ads so well-made that they enhance the viewing experience. Matching ad themes to the content will tap audiences’ unique emotional state when watching beloved shows.

Brands and beyond: Considering public service announcement films (PSAs), let’s tie them into the content of shows to reach the audiences who need to see them with relevant, targeted, unskippable films. Fentanyl’s rise, for example, is a monstrous and disastrous issue in the US and abroad. A PSA-esque ad for Narcan during Euphoria would save lives.

If we align as an industry to address the mismatch in quality between the majority of ads on streaming platforms and the incredible shows they house, we’ll start a virtuous cycle of more channels, more opportunities, and, in turn, continuously better creative work. We’ll also push back the perceived threats of AI, for example.

In this golden age of TV, it’s time to take cues from the cream of episodic content and create adverts that get people talking, not muting.

Images created by Sibling Rivalry.

The post We’re in a Golden Age of TV: Ad Makers Need to Step Up Too appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The company recently reached another important milestone by expanding its mental health services. Ginger, a licensed medical provider group with a nationwide network of psychiatrists, therapists, and behavioral health coaches, has rebranded to Headspace Care and will operate under the brand umbrella.

With broader offerings beyond meditation and breathing exercises, Headspace has also initiated a brand refresh. The rebranding effort was a collaboration between in-house teams and Italic Studio, with Colophon Foundry creating a new custom typeface called a “Headspace-ified version” of their Aperçu typeface. This font was chosen for its ability to transition from a playful to a clinical voice, aligning with Headspace’s expansion into diverse health markets.

The new typeface reflects the brand’s ethos, balancing playfulness with functionality and incorporating curves reminiscent of the Headspace smile. The brand’s illustrative and animated identity remains prominent, now featuring a more comprehensive range of facial expressions to convey various emotions.

The updated color palette retains the signature orange while introducing complementary colors to represent a range of human emotions. The design team addressed accessibility considerations to ensure optimal contrast and color combinations. These vibrant colors contrast with the conventional blues and greys in the mental healthcare space, making Headspace visually distinctive and uplifting.

In mental healthcare, strong brand engagement is the first step to generating better outcomes and reducing costs. Expanding the Headspace brand across our full portfolio of content, programs, and services is a powerful catalyst to reduce stigma and guide our members towards a lifelong journey of better mental health.

Christine Evans, president of Headspace

Headspace’s ongoing evolution and expansion aims to meet the escalating demand for mental health support. Among the notable brand enhancements are:

Streamlined Care Experience: Ginger app users can seamlessly transition to the Headspace Care app, offering a reimagined platform for coaching, therapy, and psychiatry support.

New Therapeutic Content: Headspace will introduce guided programs focusing on sleep improvement and stress management, grounded in evidence-based practices such as cognitive behavioral therapy and mindfulness. These programs join the existing library of mindfulness and meditation content.

Unified App Experience: As of January 2024, Headspace offers corporate clients and members access to a comprehensive suite of mental health resources within a single app. This integrated approach encompasses mindfulness resources, coaching, therapy, psychiatry, and work-life services, ensuring holistic support tailored to individual needs.

Leslie Witt, Headspace’s Chief Product and Design Officer, underscores the company’s commitment to simplifying access to mental healthcare. By providing continuity and personalization of care, Headspace aims to alleviate the burden often associated with navigating the fragmented mental health landscape.

“So much of our mental healthcare system is siloed and episodic, leaving those seeking help with the added challenge of figuring out the type of care they need, what providers are available, let alone where they can turn for everyday support,” said Witt. “Our goal is to alleviate that burden by creating a seamless, highly personalized spectrum of care – with care concierge services available 24/7 – so people can access in-the-moment mental health care that’s tailored to them no matter where they are on their journey, or how acute their needs.”

The changes are presented visually in a way that stays true to the brand’s identity — an excellent example of how personal services can become more professional while remaining true to their essence. The idea that a brand can make solving real problems feel comfortable and approachable shines through; Headspace hopes this approach “can help destigmatise seeking care by making talking about mental health feel approachable and normalised.” As Headspace reimagines mental healthcare, the expanded offerings and a refreshed brand signal a new era of accessibility and empowerment in the quest for lifelong mental well-being.

Imagery courtesy of Headspace: Headspace rebrand, design support by Italic Studio, custom typeface by Colophon Type Foundry, brand guidelines by Order developed on Standards (Copyright © Headspace, 2024)

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The straightforward solution seems to be a new website. Tangible engagement metrics on Google Analytics make it easier to persuade leadership to set aside funds to fix your primary channel for marketing and communications.

But, what if the root of the problem lies deeper, in the very essence of your organization’s brand?

Deciding what to invest in first should be based on the root cause of your symptoms. With several hundred projects under our belt over the last few decades, we can tell you that many nonprofits that think they have a website problem, actually have a branding problem.

Where Do Common Website Problems Stem From?

When there’s uncertainty about the organization’s direction and focus, it becomes incredibly difficult to make decisions about content organization, taxonomy, navigation, calls to action and the user experience as a whole.

Let’s zero in on one example. Web navigation is all about guiding your audience to the most essential information they need to access. If you are an org with 30 issue areas or 15 programs, showing all that in your navigation will make visitors’ eyes glaze over with decision paralysis. You have to prioritize or you risk losing people. Your choices will tell a clearer and more strategic story about your organization. But arriving at these choices is hard work.

Many website problems are rooted in strategic brand work to clarify the organization’s story and objectives.

Questions like “Who are our audiences? What is the ultimate story or impression we want them to walk away with? What are the three most important aspects of our work and approach that we want them to know?” are really brand questions that follow questions like “What makes us different from our peers? What value do we uniquely bring to this work?”

Starting your work by answering brand questions is how you make sure your website’s content strategy and user experience effectively support your organization’s mission and engage your audience.

While it’s still a little harder for nonprofits to justify investing in branding — with some still seeing “branding” as a bad word — without a solid brand strategy foundation, website projects are bound to be slow, frustrating, and expensive because no one is well equipped to make important decisions.

So you think you need a new website, but you probably need a brand. How can you uncover what you really need?

Brand-First Approach: Aligning Identity with Strategy

Being 100% real here, more often than not, clients who come to us wanting to focus on their website, with a light brand refresh attached, don’t have a solid brand strategy footing.

Think about it this way — trying to rebuild your website in these conditions is akin to asking an architect and construction firm to make you a building when you don’t yet know what the building is trying to accomplish, who it’s going to be used by, and how you want them to feel when they’re using it. Sounds like a waste of precious real estate and money, right?

If this is where your organization is, do yourself a favor, shift your resources towards building strategic alignment so you can make sure the brand authentically represents your organization. Engage your team members so they can voice ideas, understand the brand’s rationale, and its relation to the strategic plan. This will make all decisions about your website much more straightforward.

Digital-First Approach: Refreshing the Verbal and/or Visual Identity

If you have a solid brand strategy foundation, a digital redesign is a great opportunity to update your verbal identity, which might feel jargony or stale, and your visual identity, which might feel outdated or limited. A sharper verbal identity can make your brand more accessible, and a flexible, well documented design system will enable your team to communicate quickly and efficiently. These updates will all help your brand identity be an authentic reflection of your brand strategy. But the key here is that you’re refreshing your brand, not transforming it — you’re optimizing your brand identity to better reflect your strategy, not building your entire brand strategy.

There are a few important things to keep in mind when taking this approach. First, while the UX and technical implementation are a key priority for these kinds of projects, it’s important to not treat the branding part of the project as an afterthought when it comes to budget and time — make sure you give it the energy it requires and that you carve out time to have discussions about how design decisions align to the promise and personality of your organization. You should also be aware that, even though you might have a solid brand strategy in place, the concrete nature of content strategy work often reveals gaps in the clarity of your positioning which you might need to solve for.

Your Approach Should Inform Your Choice of Creative Agency Partner

Food for thought: most agencies in the social impact space are optimized for a digital-first approach to branding. Many agencies that sell digital-first branding as their primary service do so because that’s what many organizations have been comfortable buying over the last decade or so. This approach works if conditions are right, but if it isn’t what your organization actually needs, it’s not a shortcut.

Make sure that if your organization needs a brand-first approach, that you’re working with a brand-first creative agency equipped to facilitate a deeply collaborative brand strategy process with your team.

Evaluating Your Organization’s Needs

The choice between a brand-first and digital-first approach is not a one-size-fits-all decision. Both approaches, whether leading with a more in-depth branding process that sets you up for your website redesign, or leading with a website redesign that incorporates a brand refresh, require significant investment. You want to make sure you’re thoughtful in choosing the right path — the path that best aligns with your organization’s current needs and future goals.

Determining the right approach requires a reality check. Ask yourself: Is your brand clear and resonant to our staff and stakeholders? Are you able to articulate what makes you unique and indispensable to your cause?

By carefully assessing your brand’s current state and understanding the implications of each approach, you can make sure you’re using your organization’s money and time effectively and setting yourself up for success.

This essay is by Deroy Peraza, Partner at Hyperakt, a purpose-driven design and innovation studio that elevates human dignity and ignites curiosity. Originally posted in their newsletter, Insights by Hyperakt.

Header illustration by Merit Myers.

The post Do You Have a Website Problem or a Branding Problem? appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

My heritage is a rich, vibrant tapestry woven from the traditions of the Pueblo people of the Southwest and the Nahua/Mexica of Mexico. It’s an identity steeped in pride and longing, a strong fabric of interconnection and reciprocity that also bears the scars of displacement and detribalization. 

As an adult, I’ve embarked on a journey to reconnect to these roots, unearthing the treasures buried within my heritage. I’ve found solace and renewal in embracing community, the sacredness of ceremony, the rhythm of language, the pages of literature, and the passion for activism.

That’s why I felt instantly inspired and excited when I was invited to participate in a project designed to amplify Indigenous-owned businesses on Google Maps and Google Search. This wasn’t just another campaign; it represented an opportunity to help Indigenous business owners share their heritage and foster deeper connections between the businesses and their consumers. I had the honor of crafting Google’s Indigenous-owned attribute icon and associated launch materials, and little did I know then that the experience would ultimately inspire a personal project dedicated to commemorating Indigenous Peoples’ Day. It immediately felt empowering, allowing me to delve into the complexities of my cultural background and fully embrace my identity as an Indigenous designer.

As creatives and strategists, we can create something far beyond design when we work with a respect-first mindset and a genuine desire to listen and learn.

Together with Kevin Coochwytewa, a talented Seattle-based designer of Isleta Pueblo and Hopi heritage, we collaboratively explored the depths of Indigenous motifs across Turtle Island—from East Coast wampum belts to West Coast basketry and everything in between. The final product draws inspiration from the medicine wheel, whose four-quadrant design embodies balance and the interconnected cycle of life, with nuances paying homage to the diverse traditions of different Indigenous groups. The circular motif symbolizes the intricate web that binds all living things and, in this context, highlights the vital connections between Indigenous businesses and their communities.

Throughout the process, I was reminded of design anthropologist Dori Tunstall’s poignant words in this interview at the Jacobs Institute: “We’re accountable to those outside of ourselves in how we derive inspiration from the cultures of others but also our own. We don’t have permission sometimes to just mine, extract from our own cultural practices and backgrounds either. There’s an ethical dialogue that needs to happen with that.”

In creating this icon, we kept others in mind. Our work was not about appropriating or borrowing for aesthetic ends; it was about understanding the core essence of symbols, seeking permission, and engaging in genuine dialogue with community members to bring it to life. We actively listened to the concerns of local equity and Google Aboriginal & Indigenous Network leadership, valuing and incorporating their feedback with respect and empathy—a testament to the importance of intentional representation in shaping inclusive campaigns.

As creatives and strategists, we can create something far beyond design when we work with a respect-first mindset and a genuine desire to listen and learn. We build bridges of understanding, pave the way for healing, and, ultimately, weave a future where authentic representation and decolonization are not mere metaphors or ideas.

Images provided by author.

The post Designing for Understanding & Healing, While Promoting Indigenous Business appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I work in a very competitive landscape of legal and financial services, and the articulation of brand identity through user interfaces (UI) is a critical strategic endeavor. Firms are increasingly aware of the necessity to distinguish themselves, fostering recognition and trust amidst a sea of competitors. Yet, the integration of logo branding into UIs, a seemingly direct route to achieving this distinction, merits a deeper strategic contemplation. Drawing on the principles of strategic thinking and branding, this exploration seeks to illuminate the nuanced interplay between brand visibility and user experience (UX) optimization.

The Principle of Strategic Distraction

Central to the philosophy of user-centered design is the imperative to streamline user objectives with utmost precision. Clients engaging with digital platforms in search of legal or financial counsel are driven by specific needs—be it advice, information, or transactional services. An interface that prioritizes branding to the point of distraction undermines the very essence of user-centricity. It is a strategic misstep, diverting focus from the firm’s core value proposition: the delivery of expert, reliable service.

Clarity Over Complexity

The elegance of simplicity in UI design cannot be overstated, especially within sectors that deal with inherently complex subject matter. An overabundance of branding elements risks cluttering the digital experience, obfuscating the information or services sought by users. Strategic branding, therefore, must favor clarity. It should enhance, rather than encumber, the user’s journey—a reflection of a firm’s commitment to accessibility and ease of use.

Elevating the User Experience

The pursuit of an enhanced user experience is a multifaceted endeavor, encompassing aesthetics, functionality, and intuitiveness. A branding strategy that overlooks these dimensions for the sake of visibility is counterproductive. It risks alienating users, potentially eroding the trust and credibility firms strive to build. In contrast, a nuanced approach to branding—one that respects the user’s need for a frictionless experience—can significantly amplify engagement and loyalty.

Avoiding the Pitfalls of Brand Fatigue

In the realm of branding, consistency is key. However, when translated too liberally into UI design, it can lead to an over-saturation of brand elements, culminating in brand fatigue. Users, overwhelmed by repetitive branding messages, may grow indifferent. Strategic restraint is advisable, focusing on the placement of branding elements at pivotal interaction points rather than ubiquitous presence. This strategy ensures brand reinforcement without compromising the user’s engagement with content.

The Imperative of Accessibility

Accessibility stands as a cornerstone of inclusive design, ensuring that digital platforms cater to the broadest possible audience, including individuals with disabilities. Excessive branding, particularly when it impedes navigability or comprehension, directly contravenes this imperative. A strategic approach to UI design, therefore, must prioritize accessibility, aligning with both ethical standards and broader market reach aspirations.

Strategic Branding as a Catalyst for Engagement

The integration of branding within UI necessitates a strategic balance, leveraging brand elements to foster a cohesive experience without detracting from usability. Employing brand colors, typography, and imagery judiciously can subtly enhance brand identity, supporting rather than overshadowing the user’s journey. This approach aligns with the strategic branding ethos, where the focus shifts from mere visibility to creating meaningful engagements.

The intersection of branding and UI design in professional services is a terrain ripe with strategic implications. As firms navigate this landscape, the challenge lies in harnessing the power of branding to reinforce identity and trust without compromising on the sanctity of the user experience. Embracing a strategic, user-centric approach to branding in UI design not only positions firms as leaders in their domain but also epitomizes their commitment to service excellence and client satisfaction.

In charting the course for strategic branding in digital interfaces, endeavor to transcend the conventional, and foster brand engagements that resonate deeply with clients, thereby cementing our place as vanguards of innovation and trust in the professional services sector.

This post was originally published on Lynda’s LinkedIn newsletter, Marketing without Jargon. Lynda leads a team at Decker Design that focuses on helping law firms build differentiated brands.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash.

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The rebranding of Extreme Reach to XR signifies more than a name change; it represents a bold reach into the future. XR partnered with brand studio Athletics to create an identity embodying purposeful momentum and enlightened performance driven by insight. The new identity reflects a modernist aesthetic infused with imagination, drawing inspiration from diverse sources, including fashion, skincare, film culture, and research consultancies.

XR’s distinctive logomark, centered around the letter “X,” is the nucleus of the rebrand. The mark symbolizes versatility and intelligence. It breathes through subtle animations, adding a dynamic element that mirrors XR’s forward-thinking ethos. Including a transitional asset incorporating the entire Extreme Reach wordmark ensures continuity during the brand transition.

The approach to color is highly differentiated, evoking warmth and boldness. With its analog, tactile feel, the color palette instantly distinguishes XR. In photography, the accentuated blur captures the essence of motion and dynamism, reinforcing XR’s commitment to progress and forward momentum.

The expanded visual system utilizes dynamic, generative patterns composed of language and letterforms to create a variety of motifs and textures. XR has developed a custom tool that generates on-brand patterns with minimal input to ensure consistency and scalability, empowering its team to scale the brand efficiently.

The supergraphic, featuring enlarged letterforms from the logomark’s “X,” is a versatile framing device. Beyond its aesthetic appeal, the supergraphic plays a crucial role in building equity and recognition for XR’s newly abbreviated brand name, reinforcing its identity across various touchpoints.

Video, UI, and animation are integral to XR’s storytelling strategy, illustrating the entire production process from ideation to outcome. Graphic elements overlaid on video provide insightful annotation, highlighting XR’s understanding of the industry and its role in facilitating seamless implementation.

XR’s rebrand marks a significant milestone in its journey. With its forward-thinking identity and cutting-edge technology, XR is poised to continue shaping the future of entertainment, driving productions forward with insights and creativity. 

Another groovy project done by Athletics was their recent rebranding of the Seattle Sounders.

The post Extreme Reach Unveils Forward-Thinking Rebrand by Athletics appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Originally founded in Paris, Stereolabs emerged as an AI vision company with its sights set on equipping robots with human-like perception. With their cutting-edge cameras and software development kits (SDK), Stereolabs has empowered over 200,000 developers and 1,000 companies to harness the power of 3D vision in robotics.

However, despite their technological prowess and widespread adoption, Stereolabs found themselves constrained by an awareness issue. Their success in developing hardware, particularly the renowned ZED camera, led many to perceive them solely as a camera company, overshadowing their equally impressive software offerings.

Recognizing the need for a strategic rebranding, Stereolabs partnered with Pentagram to reshape its narrative. The focus shifted from being perceived as a mere provider of cameras to a visionary company offering comprehensive solutions for robotic perception. The new narrative emphasizes Stereolabs’ mission to empower robots with advanced perception capabilities, transcending the limitations of traditional robotics.

Pentagram crafted a dynamic visual identity integrating IRL and digital environments to complement this narrative shift. At the heart of this identity lies a multidimensional spark symbolizing the capture of vision in a digital context. This symbol is a unifying element across Stereolabs’ ecosystem, reinforcing the company’s commitment to precision and innovation.

Moreover, Pentagram developed a comprehensive modular diagram language to illustrate the simplicity and effectiveness of Stereolabs’ ecosystem. These diagrams highlight the ease with which developers can integrate Stereolabs’ hardware and software solutions, thereby unlocking the full potential of autonomous robots.

In addition to the visual identity, Pentagram meticulously designed a color palette and type system that align with Stereolabs’ positioning. Each element of the design system, from the technical icons to the choice of fonts, reflects Stereolabs’ dedication to precision and clarity in conveying complex information.

Key Highlights of Stereolabs’ New Visual Identity:

Dynamic Symbol: The multidimensional star-shaped symbol captures vision in a digital context, seamlessly transforming across various applications, showcasing Stereolabs’ commitment to intelligent robotics.

Modular Diagram Language: Designed to effectively communicate how Stereolabs’ product family can be configured into tailored solutions, illustrating the user-friendly and flexible nature of the ecosystem.

Technical Icons: Distinct icons convey the readiness and robustness of Stereolabs’ technology, serving as visual cues for key features.

Precision through Perception Design Language: Simple and direct visual design underpinned by a technical grid layer, emphasizing accuracy, reliability, and attention to detail.

Color Palette: Each hue in the palette aligns with the ‘eyes’ and ‘brains’ narrative, with Signal Green (SL-Lime) serving as the DNA of the Stereolabs brand.

Type System: Utilising Neubau’s NB Akademie™, a grotesque style with a mechanical tone, ensuring precision and clarity in conveying complex information.

The result of this collaboration is not merely a cosmetic makeover but a strategic realignment of Stereolabs’ brand identity. By conveying their role as both the “eyes” and “brain” of robotics, Stereolabs is poised to lead the next wave of innovation in autonomous systems.

With this new brand identity, Stereolabs is well-positioned to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape of robotics and continue pushing the boundaries of what is possible. As they embark on this exciting journey, Stereolabs reaffirms its commitment to shaping a future where robots possess unparalleled perception and intelligence.

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Invariably, many healthcare brands opt for safe, uninspired creative (think upbeat or defiant people of a certain age at a farmer’s market or a yoga class). But why should the healthcare sector, with its profound impact on our everyday health and well-being, settle for anything less than beautiful, ground-breaking design that has the potential to make a meaningful and measurable impact?

Central to the issue: the perception that legal and regulatory boundaries stifle creativity. This fear of taking informed risks restrains creative leaders and clients, leading to repetitive, homogeneous branding and campaigns. How frequently do we encounter functional yet bland pharmaceutical brands or clichéd depictions such as lifestyle campaigns of smiling couples on a beach or families playing sports in the park to advertise medication?

The conventional approach may drive sales but lacks originality and fails to forge a lasting, trusted connection between the consumer and the brand. We can and should be doing better. Effective communication through thoughtful, human-centric design demands a unique and uncharted approach to creative challenges.

Constraints As Catalysts For Creativity

Our creative organizations are responsible for cutting through and redefining the space in which we communicate on behalf of our clients. Rather than seeing these legal and regulatory constraints as limiting, we should ask: How can we embrace them? What possibilities do they present?

Embracing the space within the constraints is a possibilities mindset rather than a prohibitory one. It means seeing guidelines as a prompt for unconventional thinking and unparalleled creativity.

An example of this that stands the test of time is the original Zoloft campaign. Existing within rigid constraints didn’t stop the creative team from creating work that was (and is) differentiated, powerful, simple, beautiful, and resonant. They used straightforward, playful animation to explain what Zoloft did in the brain rather than just focusing on the generic outcomes for patients. This campaign broke through at a time when mental health communications were a clutter of safe, repetitive, and easily ‘approvable’ work. In a sea of trite sameness, Zoloft came along and explained the solution, respecting the viewers’ intelligence. Ultimately, working within legal constraints should always be seen as our opportunity to find new and innovative ways of creating work that is both memorable and effective.

Be Fearless, But Know The Boundaries

A profound understanding of regulations and constraints is the first step to cultivating genuine ground-breaking creativity.

How far we can push creatively varies from client to client. But first, we must show that we have a proper understanding of where the hard and fast boundaries are and that we understand their purpose.

How can we embrace the constraints? What possibilities do the boundaries present?

Society of Valued Minds: Authenticity Breeds Connection

In today’s content-saturated environment, authenticity is more important than ever in building connections and trust. Amid the proliferation of content, misinformation looms large, and authenticity is instrumental in genuinely connecting with your audience. It is mission-critical to cultivate an understanding of “the science behind the sell.” Yes, the science! Your audience wants to know more and are perfectly capable of understanding more.

When working on the Society of Valued Minds, a social media initiative committed to helping destigmatize the conversation around mental illness, our boundary was that we couldn’t mention any therapeutic or drug treatments. So, our challenge became: how do we find ways of helping people and offering support without explicitly pointing to any specific treatment?

We needed a genuine way to transcend the boundary while respecting our audience.

To do that, we allowed the people who were part of our campaign to tell their stories, creating a micro-influencer-led community. This approach with real people created an openness and the space for conversation that ultimately helped make mental illness support feel uncomplicated and accessible. We combined their stories with playful typography, bold color, and eye-catching animations, creating an approachable design system that was relevant and engaging for our specific audience.

Pushing for that authentic conversation with an audience based on real experiences helps people connect to a brand and each other through emotional resonance and authenticity. It shows that the healthcare industry’s constraints should be the exact thing that motivates creative innovation, allowing creatives to craft supremely designed campaigns that resonate and revolutionize.

This guest post was written by Gino Carolini, creative director at healthcare creative agency minds + assembly. He has over two decades of experience shaping and crafting 360º brand stories and experiences for a wide range of clients. Having spent most of his career in general consumer advertising, he joined healthcare with a diverse portfolio and category experience spanning cpg to luxury hospitality.

The post Vitality Through Design: Healthcare Needs Us To Balance Compliance With Creativity appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I recently spoke to YuJune Park, a designer, speaker, and educator with deep expertise in creating hybrid physical-digital experiences in the cultural heritage sector, to get her thoughts on this renaissance and what the future holds.

Park co-founded Synoptic Office, an award-winning design consultancy that partners globally with leading cultural, civic, and business organizations. Fast Company, the Webbys, Design Week, the Art Director’s Club, and the American Institute of Graphic Arts have all honored the studio’s work. Park is also an Associate Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design. In 2022, Creative Review selected Park for their Creative Leaders 50 list, celebrating global leaders advancing their field.

Below is our conversation, (edited for clarity and length).

Why are experiences and interactivity critical in engaging audiences with history?

The study of history can often be perceived as something distant or irrelevant to daily life. Digital experiences, when done well, have the potential to make history more accessible and immediate. They can immerse audiences in historical narratives through multi-sensory engagement by breaking barriers between the past and present, connecting singular narratives to broader ideas, and moving outward from there to other sources of knowledge. Ultimately, the past shapes the conditions of the present. How can we situate ourselves within the history of ideas?  

The best educational digital experiences can promote active learning over passive consumption by interweaving content and interaction, past and present, and singular narratives to broader themes and perspectives. They help you see and experience a new perspective, challenging points of view and prompting you to reflect on how you see the world and where you sit in the history of ideas.

The Brooklyn Public Library: The Book of HOV

The Brooklyn Public Library recently put on an amazing exhibition on Jay Z. The exhibition website was an incredible piece of design that featured a mix audio rendered in beautiful ways. The exhibition lead to a huge surge in new library memberships.

In what formats are we seeing digital interactivity expressed? 

It is an extraordinarily exciting time to work at the intersection of education, arts, and digital design. We are seeing cultural institutions creating hybrid, digital, and physical experiences. They are truly becoming borderless institutions, opening up access to knowledge to the broadest possible audience.

Digital interactivity is being expressed through online exhibitions and virtual museums, digital installations/exhibits, AR, VR, websites, apps, and games—all with the goal of digital storytelling. These products enable the audience to physically experience art and history—whether it’s a historical artifact, painting, or piece of music—and learn more about the context of the work through multimedia experiences. They invite audiences to engage deeply with the work, experience it, and learn more about its origin and the ideas it represents.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Unframed & Replica

The Met has also been doing some interesting work with The Met Unframed, a virtual space offering immersive access to digital galleries and augmented realities of iconic Met masterpieces.

The Met Replica is an initiative that allows you to scan the physical artwork in the museum and then it comes to life on your phone through AI.

Following the news of V&A’s launch of an interactive website for adolescents, Mused, and the National History Museum’s major installation plans for interactive exhibitions aimed at 8-14-year-olds, why are we seeing organizations target younger audiences this way? 

A museum’s mission is to share the transformative power of knowledge about the human condition and the world to the widest possible audience—through art, history, science, music, and more—in a way that invites us to see anew. However, many teens might perceive these institutions to be stodgy and unwelcoming. Or worse, many may feel as if they do not belong. Layer those perceptions on top of other factors: The first is that Generation Alpha is digitally native; the second is that the Internet is flooded with questionable sources of knowledge, and many sites are unsafe or do not meet the broadest accessibility standards.

Amid that perfect storm lies an opportunity. Digitally engaging websites such as the V&A’s Mused can invite the broadest possible audience—there is no need to travel or pay an admission fee—to interact with “5,000 years of human creativity across the V&A collection.” By interweaving contemporary culture with history, teens can explore the human condition and new perspectives enabled by engagement with the arts. 

Digital experiences can be utilized in and outside of the classroom. They also have the potential to transform passive learning into active learning through prompts, questions, and spaces for writing and reflection that can often lead to a deeper understanding of content. Digital exhibitions and discovery sites can also create personalized learning journeys and meet all kinds of learners (visual, auditory, read/write, or kinesthetic) where they are and support learning differences by meeting robust accessibility standards. 

From your experience as Associate Professor of Communication Design at Parsons School of Design, what makes digital interactivity appealing and accessible to younger audiences? 

Teen audiences are already digitally fluent. They are used to hybrid learning experiences. The best digital learning experiences utilize immersive multimedia and prompts to encourage deeper engagement with ideas. That being said, I do not believe digital interactivity is a panacea for all challenges in education. The value of in-person experiences, peer-to-peer, and community building in the classroom is critical. In an ideal world, these digital experiences work hand-in-hand with in-person learning. In a few years, it’s possible to imagine a world where students will have an AI-powered learning assistant to supplement in-person classroom education.

The New York Public Library: Insta Novels

This was not a history-focused project, but a few years ago, Mother New York did an amazing project for the New York Public Library where they put entire novels into Instagram stories. They essentially hacked Instagram stories to become a digital bookshelf. Here is a great video about the project.

Why is it so crucial for young people, in particular, to connect with art, design, and ideas from history? How does design play a vital role in making these things accessible and memorable?

Engaging with the history of ideas is essential to understanding contemporary culture. The ideas we dialogue with today have precedent—they are born from and are in dialogue with historic ideas and the past’s social, cultural, and economic conditions. We must engage with these ideas to better understand ourselves and the world we live in today. Design is pivotal in transforming data into knowledge, increasing engagement, deepening understanding of content, and making learning more accessible and equitable. 

The 90s are back! (Particularly our enjoyment of technology). How has this impacted museums’ transition into the digital space? The elephant in the room is, of course, AI. How are you thinking about deploying fast-evolving AI technology in the exhibition space?

We should realize that the methods and technologies like machine learning and image recognition that are part of AI have been with us for some time. They have already been deployed behind the scenes in a variety of different ways. We should never lose sight of the fact that exhibitions are about curation and storytelling and that any technology, from static wall text to AI, serves those goals. Because AI excels in working with large amounts of data, the technology opens up opportunities for visitors to peel back the layers of an exhibition and engage more dynamically in the information that is summarized and surfaced in an exhibition.

Online Collaboration+ Tool, Figjam

Design studio Figma is using AI in thoughtful ways for Figjam, a creative notetaking, organising, designing platform, which is actively used in a lot of classrooms.

Speaking of fast-evolving, any advice for organizations, institutions, and brands on future-proofing their interfaces against rapid technological change?

While interfaces change quickly, there is a lot that institutions can do to future-proof their content and data, which are at the heart of every organization. Future-proofing means adopting a technology stack that separates data, business logic, and presentation from each other. All technologies will need to be upgraded and replaced eventually, but it is about maximizing their lifespan and allowing these updates to occur over time. 

Legacy brands and museums can be slow to change and adopt new ways of seeing and doing. What misconceptions do organizations have about creating meaningful, impactful, and long-lasting experiences, and how do you help them overcome these?

The most common misconception we see is that all the digital work has to come out as one big bang. That can feel very overwhelming. We often advocate for an incremental approach that allows the organization to grow alongside its digital properties. 

If you had a crystal ball, what would it reveal about the next five to ten years of digital interactivity? What’s your biggest hope based on what you know of our growing capabilities?

If we take history as precedent, predicting the future of interactivity is tough. For instance, who knew that the Internet (first confined to the desktop screen) would be a key driver for mobile computing and, by extension, the interfaces we interact with daily? In this vein, we think generative AI will have a similar but bigger transformative impact.

Banner image from The Met Unframed.

The post A New Age of Interacting with History: The Future is Borderless appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

In fall, I returned freshly tanned to the U.S. and began showing my portfolio before landing a position with the seminal multi-disciplinary design firm, Chermayeff & Geismar Associates. A year later, I seized an opportunity to work on the 1976 Olympics in Montreal and moved to Canada to join the Euro modernist firm Gottschalk + Ash Intl. By any measure, this was an auspicious career beginning.

I eventually co-founded The Carbone Smolan Agency with designer Leslie Smolan. CSA had a successful 40-year run before we closed our doors in 2019 to merge with the Chicago agency 50,000feet.

Today’s design students would be baffled (if not amused) by the laborious design-making process from decades past. The change is perhaps nowhere more significant than in typography. Selecting fonts and using type is a common activity enjoyed by the public every day. However, early in my career, the typographic arts involved unionized artisans, molten lead, clanking machines, and ink. Working with type required meticulous specifications, measured in agates and picas, and waiting hours, if not days, before receiving paper repro proofs that were cut and pasted to “mechanical boards” with lots of hot wax. Yes, it was downright medieval!

I’m not the least bit nostalgic for these days, and you can decide if the technical democratization of design today is a good thing. But this article is about the future, so I’ll leave the further tales of bygone days for another time.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “the best thing about the future is that it comes one day at a time.” That may have been true in the19th century, but in the velocity of the present, predicting future events is an all-consuming activity. Society is so focused on the future that the present seems increasingly irrelevant, from political campaigns that precede elections by 18 months to exploring the potential for human existence on Mars.

To help me speculate about the future of design, I invited a charming chatbot to share impressions of the profession decades from now. I’ll call her Pythia.

In her unedited response, she touches on a range of topics that are like a classic S.W.O.T. analysis of a possible future for designers:

“Design has come a long way in the past 50 years, from traditional sketches and blueprints to digital rendering and virtual reality. But what does the future hold for the field of design? In the next 50 years, we can expect a rapid evolution in technology, materials, and human needs, which will undoubtedly shape how designers approach their work.

Designers will need to be adaptable and creative in their approach, utilizing new technologies and materials to create sustainable and user-centric designs. By doing so, they will be able to create innovative and impactful designs that can stand the test of time.

One of the key advantages of generative A.I. is its ability to automate many of the tasks traditionally performed by designers. For example, generative A.I. can quickly generate large numbers of designs, allowing designers to focus on refining and improving the designs rather than creating them from scratch. This could result in a more efficient design process, but it could also mean that designers are required to spend less time on individual projects.

In addition to this, the rise of generative A.I. also raises concerns about the role of designers in the creative process. With generative A.I. capable of generating designs autonomously, there is a risk that designers will become less central to the design process. This could result in designers being relegated to more administrative or supervisory roles, rather than being involved in the creative process itself.

Another potential impact of generative A.I. on designer job security is its ability to create designs that are cheaper and faster to produce. This could make it more difficult for designers to compete on price, particularly for simpler design projects. However, designers will still need to work on more complex and specialized tasks, which require a human touch and creative insight.

Despite these potential concerns, it’s important to note that the rise of generative A.I. and other technological advancements also creates new opportunities for designers. For example, designers can use generative A.I. to create designs that were previously impossible to produce manually, or to automate repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more creative and strategic work.”

An increasingly popular, unattributed quote floating around the internet offers an assessment of the new frontier of design and AI’s potential threat to the profession: “Generative A.I. will not replace you; someone using generative A.I. will.”

After my discussion with Pythia, I wondered how a future designer equipped with new technology might respond to a brief I received from a client several years ago.

In 2018 the Brooklyn Youth Chorus, a world-class institution whose credentials include collaborations with David Byrne and Beyoncé, asked our agency to help them create a new brand identity. They specifically wanted an image that felt progressive, non-traditional, and reflected the experimental reputation of the chorus. Our recommended solution used symbols of pulsing sound waves to depict the features of a child’s face. We chose the gender-neutral name “Sam” for the logo.

When I asked the popular generative A.I. program Midjourney to create a logo for the same group in 2073, it offered these suggestions minutes later:

Clearly, these examples do not indicate future results and, in fact, look quite dated. But the computing power used here demonstrates an evolution of design tools that will shape words and images for our world.

Whatever the future of the design profession, I hope the net result is some form of BEAUTILITY. This term was coined by industrial designer Tucker Viemeister, and I’ve always embraced it as a simple standard of achievement.

In my long career, I’ve experienced remarkable advancements in the design profession, from the analog, to the digital, to what now appears beyond the virtual, as anyone can generate incredibly rich, seductive images with a key stroke. I just pray that future design clients and arbiters of taste will not be easily swayed by the shallow pyrotechnics of tech. As for me, I still like to draw with charcoal and consider a day well spent when I’m scrubbing paint from under my fingernails before dinner.

Next month: “Politically Speaking”

Ken Carbone is an artist, designer, and Co-Founder of the Carbone Smolan Agency, a design company he built with Leslie Smolan over 40 years ago. He is the author of Dialog: What Makes a Great Design Partnership, a visiting lecturer at numerous design schools, and TED X speaker. A recipient of the 2012 AIGA medal, he is currently a Senior Advisor to the Chicago-based strategic branding firm 50,000feet.

The post Ken Carbone’s Wonderlust: The Future of Design — A 50-Year Perspective appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I have mixed feelings about this statement. I do value the importance of copyright (unlike some people who feel that it only serves corporate interests and should be abolished). I have threatened to sue on three occasions and been compensated in all three instances. Two of those were clear and direct lifts of particular images, but one of them was merely a infringement of style, which my lawyer enumerated in 13 points. He expected that they would tell us to “fuck off back to Canada” (his exact words), but much to our surprise they paid up and destroyed remaining copies of the offending item.

We were surprised because “style” is not copyrightable in the US (where the infringement took place). Someone has to actually, demonstrably lift your image or unique part of your image for you to have a copyright infringement. But when they do it it makes me hopping mad.

There is a—sadly abandoned—Facebook group called “Copy/Anticopy” which I absolutely loved. In it they would post two or more images of design side-by-side and ask the question “Similarity, Copy or Not Copy?” And those few of us following would weigh in. The comparisons were fascinating. As I pointed out in some of the posts, other options to the question were “homage” and “parody.” Some were posters that used the same image—but that image might have been stock. I found the question endlessly fascinating. The group is still there, so take a look.

All this to say that unless your image has been specifically lifted and regurgitated (alterations and interpretations may or may not protect you: search “Shepard Fairey vs. Associated Press”), you are not protected by copyright—online outrage and accusations notwithstanding.

However, in tiny Canada:

Canadian copyright law takes its cue from a 2004 decision of the Supreme Court: CCH Canada Ltd. v. Law Society of Upper Canada. In it, the high court defined an “original work” in terms of effort — as a product of “an exercise of skill and judgment.” That exercise of skill and judgment, wrote then Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, “must not be so trivial that it could be characterized as a purely mechanical exercise.” 

—

CBA / ABC National: “The legal status of generative AI”

Super interesting! However, from the same source:

But because Canada is a little fish in a big copyright pond, said Lebrun, many decisions about the legal status of generative AI may be settled abroad. “The principal problem facing any artist in this situation is jurisdiction,” he said. “This isn’t happening in Quebec. It’s happening in California, mostly. This is an international issue. It’s international data.”

From time to time someone would contact me to say that so-and-so had copied my work. I’d take a look and see something ornamental and say, “I don’t own ornament.” Or maybe it would be something that showed some influence, but so what? I have been influenced by those who came before me—we all know that’s how it works.

So when we look at other people’s work are we stealing something from them? What if we search for pictures of horses to figure out just what that hind leg looks like from a certain angle? What if we search #hotrod and use what we find as references to make our own drawings of hotrods? Is any of that theft?

Because that’s what AI is doing. And in fact, because it’s looking at and learning from absolutely everything, your (yes your) influence on it is far less than on the person who specifically looks at your images for “inspiration,” or whatever.

Meanwhile, currently, images made with AI are not copyrightable. Copyright (in the US, anyway) applies only to images “made by humans.” I’m sure this will be challenged in the near future, but the law changes very slowly and technology moves very fast. But I’m fine with this; I think that’s fair for now until things get more sorted out. As mentioned in my previous post, I personally don’t feel authorship in the images I made, although I do feel ownership.

Turbulent waters

I’ve covered the basic usage of Midjourney, but it, and other AI image programs, have the ability to specifically request images “in the style of” an artist or photographer. Aside from the fact that style is not copyrightable, this does seem concerning—until you try it. I have tried it, and my dear designer/illustrator friends … it has no idea who you are. I have tried some of the most famous names in Illustration, and it doesn’t even give a hint of knowing who the fuck I’m after. As for myself? Oh, people have tried…

Again, it hasn’t got a clue. I’ve got maybe 500 images out there among billions. An artist has to have a massive level of fame (word-recognition by the masses) for this to affect them—if indeed it does. Below are a couple of experiments I made:

Both of these are astonishing. They really had me wondering how close they were to actual paintings (except the bottom two “Hockney”s) but via online searches I could find nothing with the same compositions, although plenty, in both cases, with similar elements. The AI is extremely good at representing paintings by incredibly famous artists within the subject matter that is common to their work, but I wondered how transferable that imitation was to a subject not associated with the artist.

It would appear it has no idea how David Hockney might paint a rabbit:

It’s an idiot! This is because it has no actual intelligence—it is riffing off of many thousands of artworks on the internet by those artists. But when presented with something they never made, it’s unable to apply any technique whatsoever to a new subject. It has no idea that Rockwell is associated with sweetness, innocence, and a particular era. So basic to a human, incomprehensible to it. And this aspect of understanding is not going to improve in the near future, possibly the distant future, or maybe never.

Nevertheless, an unscrupulous person might generate a Hockney (or Rockwell, Koons, Hirst …) similarities and put them on pillows or some shit and sell them. But the AI didn’t do that, the human did. That same human would think nothing of taking images from the internet and selling them on pillows. And guess what—here they are. AI won’t change bad behavior by humans.

Things get murkier the deeper you go

I was disturbed, however, to discover that you can point Midjourney to an online image in the prompt to include it in the algorithm. I do actually think this should not be legal, despite the less-than-stellar results, because it shows intent to copy. That’s an important point and comes up in this legal case against Jeff Koons.

However, I wanted to test it out, so I used some of my own work on the internet to include in a prompt.

While the first two examples are vaguely me-ish in a way that I might recognize if I saw them in the wild, they are no more concerning than any human-created messes that I have seen based on or influenced by my work. As for the third example, there’s barely any relationship. Only the 2nd version might give me pause, but otherwise, have at ’er.

While I maintain that AI is not going to improve in “intelligence” any time soon, this type of copying directly from an image will improve, and that really is something worth fighting/lobbying against.

But aside from that I think Illustrators and artists have little to worry about on the copyright front, unless your work looks like this.

In which case you should have been worried a long, long time ago, and not due to AI, but due to humans.

Meanwhile

If you’re seriously worried about your copyright, you might want to take a look at what you agree to when you use Facebook, Instagram or any number of other online platforms. Meta’s (FB, Insta) current policy is:

We do not claim ownership of your content, but you grant us a license to use it. Nothing is changing about your rights in your content. We do not claim ownership of your content that you post on or through the Service and you are free to share your content with anyone else, wherever you want. However, we need certain legal permissions from you (known as a “license”) to provide the Service. When you share, post, or upload content that is covered by intellectual property rights (like photos or videos) on or in connection with our Service, you hereby grant to us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide license to host, use, distribute, modify, run, copy, publicly perform or display, translate, and create derivative works of your content (consistent with your privacy and application settings). This license will end when your content is deleted from our systems. You can delete content individually or all at once by deleting your account. [Emphasis mine.]

—

Copyrightlaws.com, “Instagram and Copyright — What Are the Terms of Use?”

And you might want to think twice about complaining about it all on social media while using animated gifs from movies etc. to express your feelings.

But there’s still lots worry about

Will people use AI instead of artists? Yes, and they already have. Ad agency BSSP used AI generated images for the fall 2022 production of The Nutcracker for the San Francisco Ballet. And I’m sure there are many more.

I think a lot of artists’ work will be lost to AI. Not from the likes of The New Yorker, or anywhere that has intelligent (there’s that word again), sensitive Art Directors—but we all know that kind of work is few and far between. So while I honestly don’t believe that an AD who would otherwise use, say, Anita Kunz, will instead try to get an Anita-Kunz-like-image out of AI (good fucking luck!), the types of people who just need something that they would have previously got from stock imagery, or stolen from the internet, will. Plus unimaginative, shit ADs.

David Holz, the founder of Midjourney, says:

Right now, our professional users are using the platform for concepting. The hardest part of [a commercial art project] is often at the beginning, when the stakeholder doesn’t know what they want and has to see some ideas to react to.

Oh my god. The day will come soon, if it hasn’t already, when you—yes you—will be presented with some piece of half-baked “concept art” generated in AI with the instructions “like this, sortof, only happier, with more “pop”, and no warrior king, and you-know—in your style.” This guy shows us how horrible it will be.

Some of us have the luxury of telling such people to fuck off. Others don’t. Welcome to the 1990s of graphic design when young designers had to take “direction” from people who just learned how to use InDesign, and people with two months of night classes in design were “stealing our jobs.”

In the immortal words of Michael Bierut, “Do good work.”

David Holz, again, says:

I think that some people will try to cut artists out. They will try to make something similar at a lower cost, and I think they will fail in the market. I think the market will go towards higher quality, more creativity, and vastly more sophisticated, diverse and deep content. And the people who actually are able to use like the artists and use the tools to do that are the ones who are going to win.

I hope he’s right, and in certain areas AI cannot and never (in our lifetimes and, I bet, before the power grid goes down and we all have to live on nuts and berries) will be able to compete. It will never be able to read a story, understand its nuances and come up with a compelling image for it (although it could “read” a story and pick out repeating words like “girl, house, mother” and make some cliche out of that); and it will never have humor or wit (Christoph Niemann can totes relax).

But its use will impact you and other artists, and especially photographers, like stock photography and illustration did. I predict we will also see a big jump in the next year or two while everyone tries out the novelty of it.

But as someone who has used it obsessively over the past two weeks, I can tell you that it’s not as easy as people like to say it is, and I think ADs will tire of spending hours trying to get that “concept image” and revert to just telling you what they want.

Regarding Contests

So far, the Society of Illustrators New York, American Illustration, Communication Arts, Spectrum Fantastic Art, 3×3, Creative Quarterly, Society of Illustrators Los Angeles, World Illustration Awards, Applied Arts Awards and the AIGA have all stated that they will not allow AI images into their competitions, and for the moment, I support that, and think that’s fair.

I do believe, however, that AI like Midjourney, etc. are tools, and that creative people will find ways to use those tools in interesting and creative ways, and that these boundaries will become blurred.

For now, I believe that AI generated images should be clearly stated as such, wherever they are used, even if put in other photos or whatever. For the record, I also believe that digitally altered photos should also be stated as such. Much of the furor comes down to honesty. People should not claim work as their own that they did not make or that they stole from someone else, whatever the method, and such behaviour should not be tolerated.

If you want to understand more about AI, please read this article about the difference between AI and babies.

For more about US copyright and AI, you can watch/listen to this annoying video.

That article about Canadian law (“The Legal Status of Generative AI”) is super interesting, and is here.

Next, in Part 3, Edel Rodriguez and I will talk about all of this.

This essay was originally published on Marian’s blog, Marian Bantjes is Writing Again. You can keep up with her work here, or look through her archives on Substack.

Header image generated in Midjourney by Marian Bantjes, including the prompt “in the style of Albrecht Dürer.”

The post The Copyright and Impact of AI appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

The Colours of Africa, an online digital exhibition of work by 60 African artists from the continent’s 54 countries, is based upon the idea of a kaleidoscope where each artist’s contribution is represented by a facet of color. In its non-linear, non-hierarchical structure, no one comes first or last. Creatives from a wide range of disciplines (architecture, painting, ceramics, writing, engineering, and the performing arts) were invited to select a color and create an original piece of art that would represent their country as well as express on a personal level what it means to be African.

The interface’s randomized navigation tool gives each visitor a unique path through the art and gives all the contributors an equal chance to be seen. There is a pleasing element of surprise for the viewer as they click around the color wheel, exploring the art in a playful and serendipitous way.

The project was designed by typographer/designer Noel Pretorius and his partner, digital strategist Elin Sjöberg, in collaboration with Google Arts and Culture and Design Indaba. “The concept came from the idea of seeing the world through a number of different lenses or viewpoints and how these stories together create a larger tale of the multifaceted continent of Africa,” Sjöberg said.

The project began in 2020, at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. “We used the idea of the randomized kaleidoscope to break away from the strictly linear existence we all experienced during the pandemic,” Pretorius said. “You’d get up in the morning, get a cup of coffee, get onto Zoom…it was a very linear way of being. We were looking for a way to do something in the digital world that was inspired by physical art, yet would provide a new experience every time.”

The interface’s visual appeal is enhanced by the letterforms of Movement, Pretorius’ African dance-inspired variable typeface that mirrors the triangular shapes of the kaleidoscope’s rays.

Google Arts and Culture reached out to partner with Design Indaba as a way to include African art in its online collection of work from large institutions around the world. Design Indaba’s Ravi Naidoo and Priyah Pillay in turn reached out to Pretorius, who’d spoken at the 2019 Design Indaba conference. Their collaboration was inspired by his 2008 project Them-and-Us, which paired 20 European and 20 African visual artists, designers, illustrators and photographers to address the broad themes of tolerance and intolerance.

 “Them-and-Us was a labor of love,” Pretorius said. “Where that project came short was that although we wanted to curate work from all over Africa, it was so hard to reach artists in remote areas that most of the contributors ended up being from South Africa.”

This required the team to get creative. “For Colours, Ravi and the team at Design Indaba had already done the hard work of sourcing amazing talent from the entire continent!” Pretorius continued. “It was more or less two years from start to finish. Additionally, each artist was paid $500, so everyone who contributed was commissioned.”

To find artists in smaller countries where Design Indaba didn’t already have a footprint, such as Guinea-Bissou, they interviewed creatives who already had a history with the organizations and asked them for new leads. Many of these artists are entirely self-taught, as their countries don’t have art institutions or design schools.

“Colours of Africa is deeply rooted in exalting African design and creativity, and finding artists across the continent who exemplify these qualities was paramount to the selection process,” Pillay said on curating the exhibit. The Design Indaba team made sure the show’s perspectives covered a wide range of the gender spectrum and were careful not to edit any individual point of view.

“We offered creative guidance, but did not censor or steer the artists’ messages,” she continued. “Choosing narratives aligned to the intent of the project was an important part of the selection process. We also paid close attention to diversity and inclusivity, making sure we gave underrepresented groups a fair chance to participate.”

“To be African today is to have a very particular position in a world in which your culture and your identity is undermined, undervalued and considered to be unimportant,” Gabonese photographer Yannis Davy Guibinga said in a statement for the show’s site. “Being African is knowing that, despite the world’s misconceptions, you have a deep understanding of your story, your heritage, the wealth of your culture and the strength and pride of your ancestors.”

Pillay agreed. “Truthfully, I do think Africa is often overlooked as a creative powerhouse,” she said. “It’s been a slow burn for art and design but things are definitely heating up. We are not reliant on outsiders telling our stories; we have the means and platforms to share them in first person with the world. African artists are trending on Spotify globally, we have fashion designers featured at international fashion weeks, we have directors staking their claim at the Academy Awards, and the list goes on.”

The innovative design and inclusive structure of Colours of Africa presents the art world with a complex, eye-opening experience of what it means to be African, shaped directly by the artists who live there. The project radiates a feeling of love and pride in heritage as it illuminates a range of vivid cultural narratives.

The post Kaleidoscope of Culture: The Radiant Art of ‘Colours of Africa’ appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Visitors virtually respond to prompts displayed on screens throughout the space by communicating their wishes as an image or text message. Each wish is a secret between the sender and the fountain, creating animated waves of colors across the bench and screens. To everyone else, the wish just looks like a light show traveling across the space’s furniture and walls, visually translating the essence of water after a coin hits the surface of a wishing well.

By leaning into what humans are connected to most (their phones) to create an interactive exhibit, SOSO has proven that even the most personal exhibits can build a community-inspired space.

Regent Properties is a real estate developer based in Los Angeles committed to creating dynamic and beautiful properties out of contrarian, out-of-favor, complex, or distressed assets. When reviving 1 Columbia Place, the developer aimed to attract newcomers and generate social media buzz by creating a “surprise and delight” moment for visitors. Regent turned to creative studio SOSO to create Wish Fountain, a nature-inspired, technology-infused interactive installation that transforms visitors’ wishes sent via SMS into a colorful, water-like light show across a ripple-shaped wooden bench and wall-mounted screens. 

Inspired by San Diego’s natural environment and ocean landscape, Wish Fountain conveys the undulating surface of the water after a coin hits the surface of a wishing well. Visitors share their wishes via SMS to a posted phone number, as an image or text, in response to a prompt displayed on the screens. The wishes then are transformed into a light show rippling across the installation. 

Each wish is a secret between the initiator and the fountain, resulting in a unique and captivating animation of colors across the bench and screens. To keep the prompts timely, the building owner has access to a cloud-based Content Management System, allowing them to update the wish prompts to reflect current events, holidays, or important local themes.  

The cloud server powering Wish Fountain draws from online visual sources to decipher the content of each visitor’s text. Then, the installation changes its colors and display inspired by the wish, resulting in reflective and distinctive displays of each visitor’s thoughts and feelings. The building manager can update the prompt for the Wish Fountain so new and returning guests can have new experiences each time they visit 1 Columbia Place. 

Wish Fountain connects people, builds community, and reflects San Diego’s pulse. The installation is visible to all entrances and levels of the building, inviting anyone to view and participate with their own wishes. Not only does it give onlookers the ability to impact their environments and a sense of respite, but it also serves as a new social gathering space to share their wonder. Regent’s commitment to creating unique, fun, and dynamic environments was the perfect catalyst for these immersive experiences. 

Wish Fountain is a part of a series of unique digital artworks for Regent Properties that build community, give visitors a canvas to impact the space, and reflect on local San Diego culture. SOSO worked hand in hand with Tecture on fabrication and installation, Digital Ambiance on LED/electrical engineering, and Performant Advanced Manufacturing on wiring and electrical installation for Wish Fountain. 

The post This Interactive Exhibit in San Diego Uses Tech to Channel the Power of a Wishing Well appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

I trolled around for a while, trying to find an AI-generated garden “good enough” to show as an example. I finally settled on an alien landscape credited to Bryan Price on NightCafe.studio. With it came a 25%-off-my-first-month offer. Ah yes, another income-generator for someone who is not me, i.e. for NightCafé and all the similar sites that are popping up.

Traditional illustrators are up in arms. On Thursday, December 22, the Society of Illustrators posted this message on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

In less than 24 hours, this collaborative post by the award winning duo of Society of Illustrators President Tim O’Brien and illustrator Edel Rodriguez had more than 8,500 likes on Instagram, 16.2k likes, and 3,280 reposts on Twitter.

For more than 30 years, O’Brien has been painting meticulous oil portraits of famous people, from his hero Muhammed Ali to Elon Musk, and many have been featured on the cover of TIME. He and his colleagues are insisting that illustrations for publication must be created by real, thinking humans who interact with real clients and use real artists’ tools. “The sudden availability of artificially designed images creates a moral challenge to the illustration community and to the broader design community,” O’Brien said. “We are at the critical point at which illustrators and designers must value human interaction and reject the output of AI image generators. The inclusion of a credit highlighting an AI generator should bring on a sense of shame.”

O’Brien went on to note that athletes are subject to drug tests for trying to enhance their performance artificially, and those who fail are punished. “Humans can run faster, jump higher, and perform better using synthetic means, [but] we as humans are interested in what a human alone can do. That’s what makes us human.”

Illustrator Victor Juhasz, best known for caricatures that have graced the pages of Rolling Stone, TIME, Newsweek, and many other publications, takes the argument a big step farther. “The current craze for AI-generated ‘art’ is a symptom of a disease,” he said.

Juhasz did not mince words. “The temptation to take the fast, easy way rather than put in hard work is enormous. Contemporary society thrives on celebrity, fame and notoriety, and much of it has nothing to do with honest craftsmanship. It’s about the con and getting away with it.”

Other notable illustrators like Anita Kunz, known for her New Yorker covers and feminist responses to classic art have spoken out on how much they hate seeing their work scraped into databases. Karla Ortiz, a painter, printmaker, and concept artist at Marvel Studios, has been especially vocal on social media, posting impassioned arguments against the commercial use of AI art and spearheading a GoFundMe campaign to hire a lobbyist to make the voices of artists heard.

At the present moment, the creative heads of magazines sound largely uninterested in AI. Michael Mrak, the creative director of Scientific American, a science publication with over 10 million subscribers, “[sees] no reason to replace real artists with AI-generated anything.”

“AI can generate interesting and elaborate imagery, but there are many problems from a legal and moral point of view,” he continued. “AI-generated art cannot be copyrighted and therefore has potential legal issues attached to it, a principal one being that it uses art from across the internet to make the final image. That, and the fact that it scraped or pulled copyrighted art into its learning algorithm.”

Art director and designer Alexander Isley treasures his one-on-one collaborations with artists. “I have never used AI-generated artwork, and have no interest in doing so, unless it’s in the context of how odious it is,” he said. “From all I’ve seen and read, machine-generated artwork is based on modifying, remixing, or adding to real artists’ existing work without acknowledgment or compensation. With commissioned artwork, sketches and revisions are often required. How does this process work with AI-generated images? I can’t deny that the results can be interesting to look at, but it’s a fun parlor trick.”

While art directors might not see AI as a threat, the competitive aspect of design complicates matters. Will AI-generated art be eligible to win contests and grants?

“The short answer is yes,” was the initial answer from Patrick Coyne, editor/designer of Communication Arts, one of the world’s most important design publications. “We always tell jurors to select work based on the quality of the idea and the execution. We celebrate compelling imagery regardless of how it was created.”

Managing Editor Michael Coyne noted that Communication Arts had already featured a few campaigns that used AI-generated art “because they were interesting or appropriate applications for AI as an artistic tool rather than a medium on its own.” He cited an ad campaign by Dentsu Creative Portugal for Jardim Sonoro, an electronic music festival held in a national park near Lisbon, is an example. According to the agency’s creative directors, the challenge was to blend the musicians’ portraits with natural elements. “We learned that AI is a great tool,” they commented. “We are still at its beginning and will certainly see significant developments that will dazzle us all. But it won’t replace anyone. It needs someone to guide the creative process.” They added, “Novelty and discomfort often lead to great work.”

However, a few days later, the Communication Arts‘ team’s stance evolved. “We’ve been approached by several illustrators upset over our position regarding accepting entries for the Illustration Annual produced with text-to-image AI software,” Patrick Coyne wrote via email. “While I still see the long-term potential for AI-assisted creative exploration, I better understand the position that illustrators and photographers are currently facing with copyright infringement and the unauthorized use of their work to ‘train’ the current crop of text-to-image AI software. Consequently, we are reversing our position and will not be accepting AI text-to-image generated submissions in our Illustration competition.”

Hobbyists have a different relationship to the software. Daniel Rocha of São Paulo is an active contributor to Facebook’s “AI Art Universe” group, and one of the many thousands of people who make AI art for fun. “I use [Mage’s Standard Diffusion program] daily, many times a day,” he said. “I click ‘enter’ on a prompt many, many times, until I get something good or see that I need to change it because something is not nice. I’ve generated more than 22,000 pictures, but that’s not at all time-consuming, since all I have to do is click, click, click.”

Oddly enough, Rocha works in Brazil’s patent and trademark office, where he analyzes the registrability of trademarks. However, “that has nothing to do with what I do on Mage,” he clarified. “I think it is an extremely useful tool for artists. They can use it to fill in details or compose a complex scene extremely fast.”

Stable Diffusion can be trained to fit an author’s style, which allows them to make grandiose scenes in a short time, in their own style. “An amateur like me can reproduce the work of a skilled artist, art that could surpass in quality and inspiration the Sistine Chapel ceiling,” Rocha continued. “That took years for Michelangelo to make, and [similar work] can now be completed in a few days or weeks. Right now, the artists are too scared, but I think they will come around soon.”

Since I have family members who like to play with DALL-E, we decided to try it ourselves. I went in wondering if I could re-create one of the world’s most iconic posters, Milton Glaser’s 1966 “Dylan.” When I used Mage, the results were dismal. Apparently, the Mage database doesn’t have the stuff. We had no luck on DALL-E either (“does not follow our content policy”), but got meh results with Midjourney, where we typed “/imagine the famous 1966 Milton Glaser Bob Dylan poster” and got:

The curly hair must have gotten scraped in, along with some old album covers. And possibly black-and-white portraits to which the photographer owns the copyright. Then we tried: “/imagine the famous 1966 Milton Glaser Bob Dylan poster, but for Lady Gaga” and got:

The whole process took about three minutes. Fortunately— for now, at least— AI isn’t giving Milton Glaser’s brilliant work any serious competition.

To get clarity on where AI stands in regards to legality, I reached out to Martin Schwimmer, a partner at top-rated New York intellectual property law firm LeasonEllis. In his opinion, text-to-image AI models “present novel [new, unexplored] legal issues, including the extent to which the creator of the repository of images makes use of images that were previously displayed on the internet, and to what extent can an AI model look at an image and derive ‘rules’ about that image.” While that language is a little murky to me, it sounds like the lawyers are working on it.

However, Schwimmer didn’t agree that all AI repositories consist of ‘scraped’ images without regard to copyright. For example, he said, a repository named Laion consists not of images, but links to images, which apparently makes a legal difference.

As to who owns the so-called final product, Schwimmer said that he views AI models as one more tool that helps users generate content. “The copyright analysis will be comparable to the analysis we use today when artists use the various illustration tools, graphics editors, paint programs, and other digital art tools: Is the work sufficiently original when divorced from the accompanying tools?”

For now, that will be the last word.

The post How Worried Should Creative Professionals Be About Artificial Intelligence? appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

Magazzino Italian Art launches a new digital platform that allows the Cold Spring-based museum and research center to make its resources available across the globe. The platform, designed in partnership with New York-based strategic design consultancy, Synoptic Office, gives Magazzino Italian Art borderless capabilities to achieve its ambitious goals for connecting people around the world through contemporary Italian art and culture.

“We are proud and excited to unveil a digital platform which celebrates and elevates Italian art and culture for people across the globe. The Magazzino mission has always been to offer accessible and compelling exhibitions and resources. Bringing that mission to life in the digital sphere, and creating an experience which transcends borders, is both a necessary and natural next step.”

A living center of culture

Located in Cold Spring, New York, Magazzino Italian Art is a museum and research center dedicated to advancing scholarship and public appreciation of postwar and contemporary Italian art in the United States. The nonprofit museum offers free admission to the public and serves as an advocate for Italian artists as it celebrates the range of their creative practices from Arte Povera to the present. Through its curatorial, scholarly, and public initiatives, Magazzino explores the impact and enduring resonances of Italian art on a global level.

Meaning “warehouse” in Italian, Magazzino was co-founded by Nancy Olnick and Giorgio Spanu. The 20,000 square-foot museum opened its doors in 2017, creating a new cultural hub and community resource within the Hudson Valley.

Following a period of immense growth for the museum, Olnick and Spanu aspired to develop an expansive digital strategy that would make Magazzino more accessible for audiences outside of Cold Spring, whilst continuing to support the crucial work done on-site. Synoptic Office, having helped clients like Carnegie Hall, Julliard, and Artstor curate compelling and culturally resonant digital platforms, made for the perfect partner to bring Olnick and Spanu’s vision to life through design.

“Magazzino Italian Art is a living center of culture, and our task was to create a natural expansion of that outside of physical place. The ambition is for the Magazzino to be a truly borderless cultural institution,” says YuJune Park, Co-founder of Synoptic Office.

Park’s Co-founder, Caspar Lam, adds: “What we’ve given Magazzino is a digital hub to help them fulfill that ambition – one that reflects and grows directly from the strong roots they’ve built on site so that the important work the organization champions can engage audiences around the world.”

Timeless, strong, confident

The new Magazzino Italian Art platform builds on the graphic identity created by Waterhouse Cifeuntes, continuing the use of timeless typefaces, including Plak Magazzino, a font inspired by Alighiero Boetti’s Manifesto, a striking composition that lists the names of 16 Italian artists flanked by mysterious symbols.  

The site utilizes a strong and confident grid that brings uniformity to the design, as well as incredible flexibility. “Each section of the site serves as a pedestal to Arte Povera, a movement that transcends boundaries and simple thematic definitions,” explains Synoptic Office’s Park.

The color palette is inspired by Magazzino’s physical building. The concrete and glass—shades of pale gray and white—serve as a backdrop to the vibrant array of art within. All design elements reflect Magazzino’s desire to elevate the organization’s digital presence from touch point to immersive destination. 

To increase accessibility, Synoptic Office led a reorganization of Magazzino’s online content, simplifying topline navigation into three actionable items: Learn, Watch, Visit – creating a seamless experience for audiences, whether they plan on engaging with what the Magazzino has to offer online or in person.

Synoptic’s Lam says: “This new platform will allow Magazzino Italian Art to strengthen its movement in service of Italian art and culture, and bring what it does best on site – host cinematic screenings, exhibit incredible work, provide bespoke experiences, tell powerful stories, and connect people through Italian art – to the global stage.”

The post You Don’t Have to Go to New York to Enjoy Magazzino Italian Art’s Archives appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

UK beverage company innocent and London design studio ShopTalk provide an excellent example of where to step in with their new digital platform The Big Rewild. This charming, intuitive app not only provides concise information about innocent’s sustainability efforts, but invites consumers to take part. Green tones and leafy design emphasize the project’s passion for nature, while games, easter eggs, and witty illustrations add a sense of play and optimism. This fun, accessible educational hub shows how brands can hold themselves accountable and empower consumers at the same time.

ShopTalk designs digital platform as part of innocent’s new campaign: the Big Rewild

London-based design and brand studio ShopTalk has partnered with innocent to create a digital platform as part of the Big Rewild, innocent’s new campaign inviting drinkers to support rewilding efforts.

ShopTalk created a digital hub which forms an integral part of the digital toolkit for innocent’s campaign content – from core information on carbon reduction plans to rewilding inspiration and activities. The interactive site sits alongside innocent’s digital strategy, limited edition pack and OOH advertising to bring together the campaign and drive strong awareness and support for the rewilding initiatives that innocent is enacting within its business and beyond.

ShopTalk’s design is built to delight and engage people, with an emphasis on assets that encourage interaction and participation – first online and then in the community. One stand-out element is the “Spin the bottle” game, which prompts users to spin an innocent orange juice bottle to receive a random challenge that inspires them to take an action toward rewilding and saving the planet.

The design overall captures the attitude of the Big Rewild project – leaning into green tones, natural textures, and interactive elements. Quizzes, maps, interactive easter eggs, and a dynamic counter that tracks the trees planted in orchards as part of the campaign infuse innocent’s recognisable playful-yet-informative positioning into the platform for a brand experience that’s both inspiring and reinforcing.

James Wood, Creative Director and co-founder of ShopTalk says: “We were brought on to develop the digital platform which demanded translation of incredibly complex material into a playful, easy-to-understand user experience. The Big Rewild hub is designed to inform and inspire people to learn more about innocent’s rewilding projects and get involved in the campaign. We’re proud to have partnered once again with innocent and helped them bring the Big Rewild to life.”

This campaign comes off the back of ShopTalk’s recent redesign of innocent’s website with the brand’s commitment to reducing its carbon emissions in mind. The resulting addition of a “green switch” allows site visitors to opt into an energy saving version of the website – an effective way to reduce the site’s overall carbon footprint.

The Big Rewild, as well as innocent’s new website, are now live.

The post This New Platform by a Beverage Brand Invites You to Help Them Rewild appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

—Hans Hoffman

Technology experts claim that the acceptance and growth of any new technology is a slow progression. It’s a slow income time, placid and shallow at first, slowly growing until the degree of acceptance surges, suddenly becoming a wave that floods everything in its path. The internet grew out of military communication concerns, and blossomed from small utilitarian protocols into the complex living organism that now dominates culture and commerce. Today, we are walking in the shallows of artificial intelligence technologies, and small waves are gently lapping at our ankles. However, those who understand AI know that the tsunami is on its way. At the very least, the changes resulting from AI will be fully enveloping for designers and creators. If we don’t understand or learn how to manage the AI that is currently being incorporated into communications and creative tools, it could undermine humanity’s role in controlling in creativity as we know it.

Artificial intelligence is more than just complex mathematics— it is a process of securing information, turning it into optimized data, and using algorithms to find the best prediction. That best solution is then used to effect some desired result, guiding the car to a desired destination, and navigating the next turn safely. Choosing the best background for an image may involve turning a 2D image into a realistic 3D rendering and, in the process, turning a mere snapshot into a false reality. These are the obvious, open, and sometimes notorious uses for AI; it is the hidden or more subtle uses of the technology that create its seductive powers. The AI chip in your mobile device guides you on your walk, chooses the best images to post, and tells marketers what ads to show you. Social media apps determine who, or what, will be interesting based upon your purchases, browsing histories, and past interactions. All these functions ride on top of artificial intelligence engines. But AI is not limited to social media technologies— they are just the low hanging fruit for AI creators. The real magic is evident in computationally complex apps, such as applications commonly used by designers.

Design programs are starting to use AI extensively. They’re most visible in magical completion of the missing parts of an image, smart deletion of unwanted backgrounds, auto color, auto exposure and image sharpening tools we use. Designers and photographers have become extremely reliant on these aides, and in response, the way we design and take photographs has changed. It is a self-reinforcing cycle. Adobe, Google, Apple, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, among others, rely on AI to make their products easier to use. This simplicity of use comes with a complex trade-off. The data and access to information you give to cloud-based app providers is much deeper than most people understand. This access may even extend to data stored on your hard drive, on the cloud, and even on your mobile device. AI is always searching for data and the creators of AI-enhanced technologies are very creative in the way they consume your data. Why? More data makes the reach with consumers deeper; it may make the product better, more seductive and, undoubtedly, it makes the provider more valuable. However, the use of AI has an echo chamber effect— not only does it affect outcomes, it also shapes decisions regarding inputs. What happens when effect shapes the design brief? I believe AI will eventually become a more commonplace tool for making business decisions. When this happens, AI will begin to influence and shape the creative work product. It will start slowly, but at some point, business managers will likely rely on AI to make even more decisions. But as AI gets better, does that make it any more trustworthy?

Business owners want to ensure the process of creating, designing, and marketing products and services is efficient and, above all, results in measurable profits. Shiny new concepts and tools are always welcome, and few are as new and shiny as artificial intelligence. The process of classic design thinking relies on securing information about customers and understanding their needs, followed by ideation, prototyping, testing, and reiteration. Current AI technology is a perfect fit for the first and second part of this process. As the technology improves, the remaining processes will easily be incorporated into AI design processes. The problem with AI in this context is that it must rely on what it learns, and it only learns from the information that is given. Typically, the humans providing this information are not artists or designers. They are low-paid assembly line knowledge workers who make decisions based on a lowest cost basis. Humans then construct the algorithms that tell the computer what data to use. Designers have little to no influence during this process; they just have to live with the results.

Fields that rely on AI tools include transportation, industrial operations, banking, communications, manufacturing, and medicine. But AI is affecting every industry, and design software is not immune to this trend. Adobe states that their new analytics software, Adobe Sensi, is a set of tools will help designers “optimize and scale user experiences” with “real-time intelligence” and help marketers predict customer behavior based on “attributes, differences, and conversion factors.” Stated simply, what Adobe and similar companies are promising is that AI will create shortcuts, like an easy path from design to market success. But designers should remain mindful that creativity, good artwork, and good design are inherently human pursuits. Will these tools create a valid shortcut in the creative process, or hinder its natural progression?

So when, and how, should we use AI to enhance creativity? While it can be a helpful addition to a design toolkit, designers must understand how it can influence creative processes as it becomes prevalent. AI creates the promise of easy answers, or at least, a faster way to get usable solutions. For a product manager or business owner, any tool that makes it easier to understand customers and their desires is a good thing. The problem with AI in design is that, because usable data is difficult and very expensive, tool creators will be tempted to use the same data sets repeatedly. This is dangerous, as the overuse of certain data will inevitably create bias in the algorithms guiding AI. While the information within an AI solution is what creates its magic, it’s also a significant part of its danger. At the very least, resulting designs will soon lose their distinctiveness.

An artist / designer who chooses to work with AI must remain mindful of the fact that it is not one single technology. Facial recognition, gaming, and many creative uses of AI use Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) networks, a type of machine learning that is also used to create deep fakes. To my knowledge, the issue of licensing a person’s image and subjecting the photos to GANs manipulation has not yet been addressed. If a designer is working with GANs technology, the model release should at least identify that the photos may be computer manipulated.

Deep learning is a subset of AI machine learning that incorporates additional neural networks. This technology is usually associated with automation and “teaches” an AI application to make better decisions for performing analytical and physical tasks without human involvement. This technology could also train a design application to use tools in the designer’s own style or manner of working. If these applications are cloud-based and served to your workstation on demand, review the settings to ensure that you are comfortable with the default level of sharing. You may wish to avoid granting excessive access to the information you’ve created while working with the application.

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and their cousin, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) are another subset of machine learning. CNN technology is commonly used for image classification (identifying an object in a picture) or feature recognition (identifying patterns and voices), while RNN is associated with speech recognition tasks. Designers who create work that incorporates image and/or voice recognition, such as UX and UXI, should be aware these technologies require specific methods of input which may affect the final UX experience. Designers will also find that computer processing power will impact the possible implementation of their designs. Designers who create UXI for reinforcement learning systems, such as teaching machines that manage large data sets, must ensure they understand the limitations of the technology. In this case, it’s important to ask questions about the type of user, as well as how the design will be used. Find out if the computing devices and human interfaces have input or graphics display limitations. You can always ensure a better solution by learning about the intended uses for a design that interfaces with AI.

As AI tools become more sophisticated, they will certainly go on to influence choices in prototyping, fonts, color ways, image styles, and design element placement. In sum, design decisions will become based upon data selected by third parties who may or may not be designers. Choices by AI engines will not evince the creativity, imagination, and exploration that all good designers exhibit. All of which leads to the following questions: who is selecting the data? What is their design experience, and what are the criteria for selection or exclusion of information? If there are weaknesses in these choices, they contribute to the bias inherent to the algorithms. If this consideration goes unchecked, AI will corrupt creativity and design. The danger of such shortcuts will result in questionable choices being “baked into” a project, and will be part of many projects when an AI engine is used repeatedly. The results will feel devoid of the search and discovery that form the uniquely human elements of creativity. The wise designer will come to understand that while AI is a design aid, it is not a solution to design problems.

The post Is AI a Wedge Between Designers and Creativity? appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

It’s not easy to make a park feel “vibe-y,” but Smith & Diction has succeeded tremendously.

When we shared our initial branding for this project, the park itself didn’t exist. It was just a lofty dream that maybe—just maybe—Philadelphia could make a cool thing…for once. (Gritty and the Phanatic are the exceptions, they are dope as hell and will kick your ass.) Fast forward a bunch of years, and a lot of drama, including a fun little cease & desist letter from a “partner” organization (that’s a story for another time), and now the Rail Park is a real live place, with giant swings, beautiful art, towering trees, and lots of dogs peeing on stuff. Classic dog move.

We recently launched a new website for the Rail Park, so we thought it was the perfect time to write a̶ ̶l̶i̶t̶t̶l̶e̶ an extremely longwinded case study update on how the brand has evolved and grown over the past few years.

This is the second part in our two part series, so if you want to get the story on the new website, head on over to Part I. I tried my best to keep it all in one post but I don’t know how to edit myself. Smith & Diction at its finest baby.

One design concept I really got into with the brand was this idea of repetition, mimicking how the park sort of spontaneously combusted into existence over a long period of time, if that makes any sense. Once upon a time, a bunch of tree seeds fell off a freight train, eventually the trains stopped running, the trees grew through the seasons, dropping leaves, getting new ones, layer would fall on top of layer, creating soil, repeating for years and years, new seeds would find their way into the soil, they would take root and start the same process over and over again, and soon enough there was a beautiful oasis floating above and below the city.

One of the most unique parts of the park is the gigantic industrial swings at the end. What’s Rittenhouse got? A statue of a goat? Go on and get outta here with the goat and the weird Michael Jackson impersonator trying to make awkward eye contact. They are smooth though I’ll give them that.

We wanted to idolize those swings a bit, so we put them in beautiful, bright fluorescent ink on the cover of the maps so they would be impossible to miss amid the stacks of show flyers, takeout menus, business cards, and whatnot.

Read more at Medium here!

Project Credits
Smith & Diction

The post Smith & Diction Creates an Ever-Evolving Visual Identity For Philadelphia’s Rail Park appeared first on PRINT Magazine.

We mention these pairings to describe something so disparate, so contradictory in nature, that they could never possibly share any traits. And it’s not that any one of these things is inherently bad or lacking in some profound way; they’re just opposites.

You could say the same thing about our new site-wide redesign on PRINT. No knock on what came before, but modernity called, and when you’re running a site FOR designers and creatives, the design and layout has to be as captivating and eye-catching as the published content. Otherwise, what’s the point?

And, yes, we’re extremely biased, but it looks great, and it’s much easier to navigate. We’re still hitting you with the latest in design news and projects from the designers you know and love, and oh, look, there are special sections for the Daily Heller and Debbie Millman’s Design Matters—which, by the way, did you know that PRINT is the only place you can find a transcript of the show?

But we digress. The central problem for anyone undertaking this particular kind of task is that when you shake things up, it not only has to be practical and convenient to use, but it needs to look good. Like, really, really good. In redefining a new era for PRINT, we wanted to tip our cap to the magazine’s legacy, but we also needed to move forward as we embrace the future of the design industry. No, PRINT is no longer a physical thing you can hold in your hands, but having a magazine layout that works in digital was essential.

So, we went to WordPress and Automattic.

“The editors of PRINT came to us in November of 2020 with an initial website that did not measure up to the high aesthetic and quality standards the publication is known for—standards they themselves helped set for the entire industry,” said Christy Nyiri, designer at Automattic. “Additionally, their site was limited in functionality and locked inside an inflexible content platform.”

Accessibility was critical for the redesign, and not just with functionality, but in terms of color and typography, as well as the look and feel of the graphics and images and how they get framed for our audience. Visitors with any level of ability needed to navigate the new PRINT with ease. And yeah, it needed to look pretty. Now, you’ll find:

• A flexible, modular platform that allows for the curation of new content, including content from the PRINT archives.
• Images are displayed uncropped at their original ratio, showcasing the full artistry of the work and encouraging visually dynamic layouts.
• The homepage logo overlaps featured content, subtly nodding to the history of multi-layered print processes.
• The site allows for better content discovery through improved search functionality and content categorization.

Open source WordPress unlocked the site’s potential and restored the ownership of their content to them, while Automattic worked closely with our editors and ownership to craft an experience that would be worthy of our legacy but flexible enough for their future needs.

And what you see here is a very, very different kind of PRINT—one that’s here for the long run.

“For those of us who grew up reading PRINT, a magazine with such a long and influential history, being directly involved in this new phase of its life was an immense and humbling honor,” Christy said.

“The details have never felt more important to perfect! We spared no expense to equip the site with all the tools it needs to flourish as a digital publication—to be as easy to navigate and use as it is delightful to read, watch, and listen to—and to look beautiful while doing so. Frankly, we were all ecstatic to work on it!”

The post How To Get That New PRINT Look appeared first on PRINT Magazine.