Creative round-up September 2022
It’s been a busy month on the design and branding news front and here’s a selection of items and happenings that have caught the eyes of the Ingenious team over the last few weeks…
A new era for the monarchy and design
The royal family has had a significant impact on the design industry and it will be interesting to watch the changes under King Charles III. Bank notes, coins and stamps will all be redesigned in due course, and Royal Warrants that adorn the packaging of many products may also change when they come up for renewal. Any new post boxes will carry the cypher CR rather than ER and the Royal Standard flag (which was draped over the Queen’s coffin) could also be redesigned, along with police helmets and passports.
The Queen endorsed and was the patron of many art institutions over her 70-year reign, her support raising the profile of them all. The Royal College of Art gained the Royal Charter in 1967 and went on to become hugely influential in the fields of industrial and graphic design and the visual arts. King Charles is well known for being vocal on many issues including urban design and architecture, preservation of the environment and for his charitable work with young people through The Prince’s Trust. It will be fascinating to see if his influence affects the design realm going forward.
London Design Festival
London Design Festival celebrates and promotes London as the design capital of the world and this year saw its 20th anniversary, which ran from 17-25 September with over 300 exhibitions, installations and events running in 12 design districts across the capital.
Since its launch in 2003, the annual festival has played a key role in the growth of the design industry bolstering London’s position as a global destination for business, culture and tourism and has contributed to the UK’s reputation as a creative powerhouse.
As part of the festival, the Victoria & Albert Museum hosted a range of thought-provoking contemporary installations, events, workshops and talks around the theme of Transformation.
John Lewis new slogan & ad
Look out for the latest John Lewis ad and new slogan which was released this month.
‘For All Life’s Moments’ replaces the old ‘Never Knowingly Undersold’ motto and is launched with an emotive ad created by Adam&EveDBB, where a father takes his new-born daughter home from hospital and their relationship grows over the years until he drops her off for her first day at school.
The marketing message is that the moments that matter to us, matter to John Lewis too. According to new customer director Claire Pointon, ‘For All Life’s Moments is not a slogan; it’s an end line communicating to a customer what we stand for’ and is also ‘important internally so that we’re very clear on the moments we want to win at, and the products, services and experiences that connect to those moments’.
Clever and stylish as always, what do you think of the retailer’s new direction?
Guide to Iceland
A new travel website makes it easy to plan the perfect bespoke trip to Iceland. If you fancy bathing in the Blue Lagoon, checking out the Northern Lights and trekking across ice flows, you can access the best Icelandic travel services using this single, clean, uncluttered interface. Designed by Kjartan Trauner, the site offers the same booking process for all services, is highly visual with strong imagery by top photographers and clean, clear typography – Google‘s Open Sans font boosting the site’s speed. The final result is so simple and straightforward it makes it appear that it didn’t involve much work when the opposite is true says Trauner, quoting Steve Jobs: ‘Simple can be harder than complex’!
Forest Crayons
Two thirds of Japan is covered in trees which need to be harvested and replanted to maintain forest health, but declining import costs have resulted in little incentive to use the country’s wood, resulting in them being left unmaintained with increased risk of disasters such as landslides.
As part of a programme supported by Japan’s Forestry Agency, design studio Playfool have created a unique use for the wood to motivate upkeep of the forests and inspire an appreciation of trees for future generations. Forest Crayons are an innovative use for the wood that transform trees into a beautiful palette of natural-coloured crayons. There is a vast spectrum of hues that exist in the forest, with distinct colours determined not only by the species of tree but the conditions in which it grows. These lovely crayons are currently being refined for manufacture next year.
Shaun the Sheep comes to Brighton
Shaun the Sheep has been unveiled as star of Brighton & Hove’s autumn 2023 art installation, ‘Shaun by the Sea’. 50 sculptures of Shaun will pop up across the city in a year’s time in a creative community project supporting local charity Martlets. DJ and Martlet’s ambassador Norman Cook, aka Fat Boy Slim, launched the first sculpture, ‘Regency Shaun’ created by local artist Sarah Arnett at the Royal Pavilion this month.
Designers from animation studio Aardman, which created Shaun the Sheep, are working with the charity on the sculpture trail in association with Wild in Art, who partnered with Martlets on two previous art adventures in 2016 and 2018. The last installation saw 50 snails across the city and raised over £230,000 when they were auctioned at the end of the exhibition.
Es Devlin Come Home Again
We love this illuminated cathedral-like sculpture by artist and stage designer Es Devlin, which is currently on view outside London’s Tate Modern. Echoing St Paul’s Cathedral on the opposite bank of the River Thames, the sculpture is illustrated with Devlin’s pencil drawings of 243 flora and fauna species on London’s priority conservation list and aims to highlight the importance of protecting these endangered species by drawing public attention to them.
On until 1 October.