Color Your World

July 30, 2010 – 10:00 am

As a new devo­tee to the Pantone color match­ing sys­tem, I was extremely excited to learn that there is now a Pantone Hotel. Yes, that’s right – a hotel ded­i­cated entirely to Pantone and their colors.

The hotel is located in Brussels, so if you’ve been itch­ing to get to Belgium for some waf­fles, there’s no bet­ter time to go (or place to stay). Rooms are dec­o­rated in 7 dif­fer­ent color palettes: Earthy/Rich (478 C), Daring/Fiery (200 C), Vibrant/Intense (137 C), Cheerful/Warm (1215 C), Captivating/Esteemed/Silky (238 C), Fresh/Eager (353 C), Tranquil/Aquatic/Exhilarating (298 C).

Pantone col­ored every detail of the hotel, down to the last drop. Enjoy cock­tails with col­ors to fit your mood: Pink Champagne 12 – 1107, Lemon Drop 12 – 0736 and Daiquiri Green 12 – 0435. The hotel also boasts the most com­pre­hen­sive col­lec­tion of Pantone merchandise.

You can even ride a Pantone bike around the city.

The Lobby

The façade of the building

The Yellow Room

Click on each image for photo credit.

By Alex | Posted in Art & Design, Travel | Comments (0)

Branding Island Getaways

July 26, 2010 – 8:00 am

With all this 90+ degree weather we’ve been hav­ing, I’m dream­ing (more than usual) of island get­aways and sit­ting on the edge of the surf cool­ing off with a frosty bev­er­age in hand. Luckily, I’m slip­ping away for a long week­end to Puerto Rico in a few weeks. In doing a lit­tle research, I noticed that the Puerto Rico logo was rel­a­tively sim­ple com­pared to oth­ers I remem­bered. Since tourism is such an impor­tant indus­try for so many islands, I was curi­ous to see how other islands brand themselves.

Please note, I’m focus­ing on the con­cepts as a whole ver­sus the exe­cu­tion itself, and these are just my ini­tial reac­tions to each. I linked to all the web­sites too, to see how the brands sync up on the dig­i­tal side.

As you can see, the logo that I found on the Visit Puerto Rico site is rel­a­tively sim­ple. I was unable to find it in too many other places (hence the poor image qual­ity), but they use a cus­tom type­face through­out the rest of the brand.

The Hawaii logo is tex­tured, trop­i­cal and col­or­ful, which is a good rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the Hawaiian islands them­selves. However, I’m not sure I like the style that much; it feels a lit­tle early 90s to me.

The Bermuda shorts seem like a pretty obvi­ous choice for the mark on this logo, but it has an upscale but breezy feel, which is about right.

St. John is one of my absolute favorite places in the entire world. I’m not so sure about the mul­ti­col­ored man on stilts jug­gling stars (see web­site for ani­ma­tion), but the USVI logo cer­tainly has an island flair to it.

One part of me is totally charmed by the obvi­ously fun-loving Cayman Islands pirate tur­tle with a peg leg and sword. The other part of me des­per­ately wants some­one to redo this logo and bust “Sir Turtle” out of the 80s. (That’s his offi­cial name accord­ing to Kim, a long­time Cayman resident.)

I think the Bahamas logo and iden­tity sys­tem by Duffy Partners is prob­a­bly the most suc­cess­ful island iden­tity out there. Everywhere you go in the Bahamas, you see this logo rep­re­sented – brand loy­alty is def­i­nitely not an issue for them. The con­cept is really strong – it mim­ics the actual islands them­selves but isn’t so lit­eral that it just feels like a draw­ing of islands. The pat­terns and col­ors are used effec­tively through­out dif­fer­ent ele­ments such as the web­site, brochures and even in ani­ma­tion. Brand New fea­tured this iden­tity as “One of the Most Relevant Identities of the Decade” and I agree whole­heart­edly. Be sure to check out the TV com­mer­cial here.

By Nehal | Posted in Art & Design, Travel | Comments (0)

Design+Travel Posters = Warm Fuzzies

July 20, 2010 – 12:06 pm

It may be easy to gather from my pre­vi­ous post that I’m a bit of a poster fanatic. In fact, I’m run­ning out of wall space. While pok­ing around the inter­net try­ing to find inspi­ra­tion for this post, I took a break to see what fun new things were in The Heads of State web­store, and saw these.

In their effort to con­tribute to the oil spill in the Gulf, the tal­ented (and very beardy) Jason Kernevich and Dusty Summers who make up The Heads of State have put together a series of lim­ited edi­tion travel posters. Half of each sale goes towards the Gulf cleanup, so along with your poster, you get a side order of the “warm fuzzies.” Not a bad deal for $30.

The posters are a won­der­ful nod to the tourism adverts of yes­ter­year, com­bined with the rec­og­niz­able look and feel from The Heads of State. So, whether you’re West coast, East coast, or a newly trans­planted Lebron fan, there is a poster for you. I ordered my New York City poster over the week­end… now I just have to find a space on my wall to hang it.

For all you Lebron fans… (Photo cour­tesy of The Heads of State)

If you’re into the desert… (Photo cour­tesy of The Heads of State)

And for all of our fel­low New Yorkers, Lady Liberty. (Photo cour­tesy of The Heads of State)

By Kim | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (0)

Boarding Pass/Fail

July 13, 2010 – 10:25 am

Designer Tyler Thompson took it upon him­self to tackle a redesign of some­thing mil­lions of peo­ple use–the board­ing pass. It is one of those every­day items that is com­pletely over­looked in terms of design and func­tion­al­ity. They’re usu­ally unat­trac­tive and often incred­i­bly confusing.

Here is the actual board­ing pass he used as a start­ing point:

And here is the redesign:

Clean, leg­i­ble and styl­ish. Now, how amaz­ing would it be if all board­ing passes were as beau­ti­ful and highly func­tional as these?

It’s unlikely we’ll ever get to this point, as it would require a mas­sive update to the sys­tems used to cre­ate these passes. But Tyler’s design still proves that there is a ton of room for improve­ment and even tak­ing a few small steps would help.

By Courtney | Posted in Art & Design, Travel | Comments (0)

Read These Maps

June 16, 2010 – 4:04 pm

I’ve never been a big geog­ra­phy buff. That giant mul­ti­col­ored US map from ele­men­tary school still gives me anx­i­ety, mostly because I couldn’t (… can’t) tell the dif­fer­ence between all those square states out West. But recently I came across a cou­ple of really well-designed maps that caught my eye.

I love the mod­ern but also slightly 70s feel of the map designs from These Are Things. The bright col­ors and large type would prob­a­bly help me actu­ally remem­ber those Western states. Apparently the design­ers are cur­rently work­ing on a new set of posters, so I’ll be on the look­out for those!

I noticed Ork Posters a while back and I was pleased to see when I vis­ited their site that they have expanded well beyond the Manhattan map that I liked in the first place.

At first glance these are fun look­ing posters using type, but if you look closely it really is a par­tic­u­larly impres­sive act of skilled typog­ra­phy, get­ting all those details and tiny neigh­bor­hoods accu­rately. The designs are also avail­able in a vari­ety of col­ors so you can pick what works best with your décor.

This is only a sam­pling of their work – other cities include Philadelphia, Seattle, and Chicago. They’ve even ven­tured into anatomy with a map of the human brain! Be sure to visit the site to look at these at a larger size so you can appre­ci­ate all the detail.

By Nehal | Posted in Art & Design, Travel | Comments (0)

Summer in the City

June 16, 2010 – 11:59 am

Hi! My name is Alex and I’m intern­ing at Leibowitz for the sum­mer. Like a lot of my col­leagues, I am a Communications Design major at Syracuse University. I’m from north­ern New Jersey and while I’ve been to the city numer­ous times, it’s my first time liv­ing here. I just got back from a semes­ter abroad in London, so I was quite anx­ious to be back to city liv­ing! So far, so good — I’ve been learn­ing the lay­out of the city and how to get from here to there.

I started at Leibowitz last week and have already learned some valu­able InDesign short­cuts (thanks Dana!) and about using a loop to see how col­ors were printed. Although I’ve had past “design” intern­ships, this is my first at a design firm and it’s really great get­ting to see how they function.

Some more about me: I love all things design, espe­cially archi­tec­ture (Frank Lloyd Wright & Frank Gehry are among my favorites). I love to travel and have dri­ven cross coun­try 3 times (it’s a life goal to get to all 50 states). I’m also an ani­mal lover — I have 6 dogs, 3 horses, and now 4 baby goats (all at one house except for one dog!).

I can already tell that this sum­mer will be a great learn­ing expe­ri­ence for me. I am anx­ious to see what else awaits me!

By Alex | Posted in Leibowitz | Comments (0)

D Maps

June 10, 2010 – 10:52 am

Being from Michigan, par­tic­u­larly out­side of Detroit, I always have an inter­est in what is going on in that area. Detroit itself is a van­ish­ing city; with the American car mar­ket tank­ing, the city has lost the major­ity of its pop­u­la­tion and jobs, and crime is up and tourism is down. A friend recently told me about an arti­cle in segdDE­SIGN (Society for Environmental Graphic Design’s pub­li­ca­tion) that focused on the new maps being used to describe Detroit and its imme­di­ate sur­round­ing area. So I did lit­tle research and learned about the D Brand. The D Brand is the rebrand­ing of Detroit as a tourist spot by Applied Storytelling and the basis of the brand are the D Maps. There is a lot of his­tor­i­cal pres­ence left in Detroit, as well as a music scene and a sports cul­ture, but due to a nonex­is­tent pub­lic tran­sit sys­tem, lack of fund­ing, and a poor pub­lic image the American pub­lic does not see Detroit as an entic­ing place to visit. Applied Storytelling addressed some of the main issues, one being the vast metrop­o­lis that makes up the city. Due to urban sprawl, many of the tourist loca­tions are spread out. Applied Storytelling wanted to sim­plify the city in a way that did not over­whelm vis­i­tors and could be some­thing that would remain an evolv­ing tool for the city. Using col­or­ful cir­cles and clean graph­ics based off maps such as the London Underground and the New York City sub­way map they were able to high­light attrac­tions in spe­cific tourist des­ti­na­tion dis­tricts in a series of maps. In the upper left hand cor­ner of each map is an icon that shows where that spe­cific dis­trict is located within the city as a whole.

And from the D Maps (the project’s key deliv­er­able) grew the D Brand. The city itself still has a long way to go before it can become the iconic city and attrac­tion it once was, but the D Maps and cor­re­spond­ing brand are the right steps in rebuild­ing the city. To learn more about the D Brand, check out the brand story and devel­op­ment here. To see more down­load the D Brand guide­lines and addi­tional maps.

By Claudia | Posted in Art & Design, Current Events, Ideas, Travel | Comments (1)

Sweet Maps

June 7, 2010 – 10:24 am

This blog post goes out to all of my fel­low his­tory buffs.

I love fun ways of dis­play­ing data and infor­ma­tion, and while research­ing this month’s blog topic, Information Graphics, I found a trea­sure trove of cool visual time­line maps on History Shots.

Each map dis­plays its data in a way that is aes­thet­i­cally pleas­ing and frankly, pretty darn fun. There’s a lit­tle some­thing for every­one in their web store, whether you’re into music or space travel.

Take a look at a few of my favorites below:

If you were into the space race, or wanted to be an astro­naut grow­ing up:

The his­tory of major ball­parks is avail­able for your favorite sports junkie:

The ENTIRE geneal­ogy of Rock n’ Roll, from the very beginning:

And for all of you out there who love sea crea­tures, there is a chart dis­play­ing where you can find out where the whales are partying:

By Kim | Posted in Art & Design | Comments (0)

Storm King

May 24, 2010 – 9:46 am

I’ve been liv­ing in NYC for quite some time and I’m embar­rassed to say there are a num­ber of places I’ve yet to visit — this list includes Storm King. From the web­site: “Widely known as one of the world’s out­stand­ing sculp­ture parks, Storm King Art Center is located approx­i­mately one hour north of New York City, in New York’s Hudson Valley. Storm King’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion of sculp­ture, dat­ing from 1945 to the present, includes works by many of the twen­ti­eth century’s most influ­en­tial artists, inte­grated into a pris­tine, 500-acre land­scape of rolling hills, fields, and woodlands.”

The out­door museum, which opened in 1960, is a lit­tle over an hour out of the city, and is sup­pos­edly a breath­tak­ing look at art from around the globe. It includes works by such vision­ar­ies as Isamu Noguchi (also respon­si­ble for the Noguchi Gardens in Queens, another spot on my list), Richard Serra, and David Smith, whose col­lec­tion inspired the open­ing of the park in the first place.

The per­ma­nent col­lec­tion is impres­sive enough, but this year they are cel­e­brat­ing their 50th anniver­sary and they have asked ten artists to cre­ate a new work or select one to loan to the sculp­ture park. I hope to get there this sum­mer so I don’t miss any­thing! A few works below:

Kenneth Snelson
Free Ride Home, 1974

Isamu Noguchi
Momo Taro, 1977 – 78

Richard Serra
Schunnemunk Fork, 1990 – 91

David Smith
Three Ovals Soar, 1960

Click on each image to find the orig­i­nal photo source.

By Nehal | Posted in Art & Design, Travel | Comments (0)

The Not So Public Art of Julie Mehretu

May 13, 2010 – 3:19 pm

Source: http://​www​.flickr​.com/​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​s​i​x​t​e​e​n​-​m​i​l​e​s​/​s​e​t​s​/​7​2​1​5​7​6​2​3​8​4​2​8​4​8​5​34/

Way back in 2007, before the finan­cial cri­sis, Goldman Sachs’s com­mis­sioned Ethiopian born artist Julie Mehretu to con­struct a 23′ by 80′ mural in their new steel and plate glass build­ing in lower Manhattan. The now-complete mural has come under a lot of recent con­tro­versy, the obvi­ous being the $5 mil­lion dol­lar com­mis­sion from Goldman Sachs, who played a large role in the crash of 2008. The mural is also sup­posed to be an abstract rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the his­tory and devel­op­ment of cap­i­tal­ism, but Mehretu refuses to actu­ally com­ment on the cur­rent eco­nomic envi­ron­ment or Goldman Sachs’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in the down­turn of the world­wide econ­omy other than: “I don’t see it as an evil insti­tu­tion, but as part of the larger sys­tem that we all par­tic­i­pate in. We’re all a part of it.” Another point of con­tro­versy is the lack of public-ness of this pub­lic art. The wall used for the mural faces plate glass win­dows, but with struc­tural and nat­ural obstruc­tions, as well as glare and reflec­tion, it is hard to actu­ally see the mural.

Source: http://​www​.flickr​.com/​p​h​o​t​o​s​/​s​i​x​t​e​e​n​-​m​i​l​e​s​/​s​e​t​s​/​7​2​1​5​7​6​2​3​8​4​2​8​4​8​5​34/

I per­son­ally have never been a huge fan of abstract art, and in this case I don’t feel much of a con­nec­tion between the growth of cap­i­tal­ism and these bright shapes and col­ors, though I can appre­ci­ate the work and detail that go into such a mas­sive piece of art. I feel like the actual mean­ing of this work is more shared between the artist and Goldman Sachs and holds less value to the public.

To learn more about the artist and her process check out The New Yorker’s pro­file on Mehretu.

By Claudia | Posted in Art & Design, New York City | Comments (0)