Pentagram by Kate Ross
Pentagram originated in London in 1972. Their main goal, like many design companies, was collaboration, but with a fresh outlook. Pentagram is known for being a firm of equals. Their system is known as a “flat” organization. There are no executive officers, no CEOs or CFOs; each of the 17 partner-designers shares an equal standing within the company. They have equal incomes and they each own an equal portion of the firm. This is so different than any other companies that I know of. It is a completely different and fresh outlook on running an agency and in my opinion, is one of the reasons why Pentagram is so successful. The London company soon expanded, resulting in four other offices: New York in 1978, San Francisco in 1988, Austin in 1994, and Berlin in 2002.
Pentagram is also known for periodically inviting new members to join, whom are seen as being just as equal as the members that have been there for longer. This renews the firm, keeping their ideas fresh and unique. Theo Crosby, one of the founding partners, explains how Pentagram’s structure was inspired from working on his exhibition This is Tomorrow. He states, “It was my experience at a loose, horizontal organization of equals. We have brought it…to a kind of practical and efficient reality at Pentagram.” Each member establishes their own relationship with clients depending on what their specialty is. The designers work together, but they are independent all at the same time, making for an amazing team.
Pentagram does work in graphic design, identity, architecture, interiors, and products. They have designed packaging and products for Tesco, Boots, Swatch, Tiffany & Co, Dell, Netgear, Nike, and Timex. They have also created identities for Citibank, United Airlines, and Saks Avenue. Their identity for the Co-operative brand in the UK won them the silver award from the Design Business Association. Pentagram also does architectural work for the Harley Davidson museum, Citibank interiors, Clear Channel buildings in London, as well as various private residences, restaurants, and exhibitions. Pentagram also does pro bono work for non-profit organizations and has recently done work for the One Laptop Per Child. On February 12, 2008, they were awarded the “DNA” award for incorporating pro bono services into business culture by the President’s Council on Service and Civic Participation.
Offering a broad range of design services around the world, Pentagram calls themselves an “international network of first class collaborators.” They do everything at Pentagram, from creating a logo and a symbol for a company, to designing their packaging, to redesigning their environment, to creating their website, and the list goes on. Some of their pieces in their online portfolio are things that we have been working on in Visual Communications. It is really amazing to see a well-established company doing work that we are doing in an undergraduate class. From designing book covers to logos to shopping bags, we are doing it all this year and it is really great to see similar work from such a well-known and successful design firm like Pentagram.
Logotype for New York headquarters of the American Institute of Architects.
Proposed European Solidarity Center in Gdansk, Poland
Book covers for Serif Books, a London-based independent publishing house
Brand Identity and packaging for Saks Avenue
National Magazine Award-winning design of the urban weekly.
Interior of NYC office
David LaChapelle by Kelsey Plantas
David LaChapelle first trained as a fine artist at the North Carolina School of the Arts. After moving to New York, he enrolled at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts. While he was still in high school, Andy Warhol hired him to shoot for Interview Magazine.
LaChapelle has photographed an endless list of celebrities. He’s photographed Tupac, Kanye West, Lady Gaga, Elton John, Madonna, Eminem, Lance Armstrong, Elizabeth Taylor, Jeff Koons, Muhammad Ali, Hilary Clinton, etc.
LaChapelle has been the subject of exhibitions in commercial galleries and leading public institutions worldwide. He was recently ranked among the top 10 most important people in photography in the world by American Photo. LaChapelle’s images have appeared in and on the covers of French Vogue, Vanity Fair, GQ, and i-D.
More recently, LaChapelle has expanded his work to music videos, theatrical events, and documentary film-making. The music video for “It’s My Life” by Gwen Stefani won best pop video at the 2004 MTV Music Video Awards, for which LaChapelle won MPVA’s Director of the year award. LaChapelle’s work shows all facets of pop culture today, and is inspired by everything from art history to street culture.
Elton John’s Red Piano tour was designed by LaChapelle. The show reflected Elton John’s interest in art and photography. It also reflected Elton John’s career in a fun way. The stage was filled with oversize objects such as fruits, bright and colorful lights, and the red piano. LaChapelle also made full use of the 120 ft screen that was the backdrop.
Just a few of David LaChapelle’s works:
Rolling Stone Lady Gaga
Elton John
Madonna
Paul Rand, by: Paula Sosin
Paul (Rosenbaum) Rand, was born August 15, 1914. He was born an Orthodox Jew and as the creation of images that can be worshiped as idols was forbidden, his story takes on a new perspective, considering who he would soon become.
He was educated at the Pratt Institute, Parsons The New School for Design, the Arts League, and then began teaching at Yale University.
He became one of the originators of the Swiss style of graphic design and designed posters and corporate identities such as IBM, ABC.
By 1951, he had completed his first career as a media promotion designer for the Esquire-Coronet and an extraordinary designer for Apparel Arts and Directions. In those years, he accumulated an array of magazine covers and was featured regularly in exhibitions for the Art Directors Club, Four years before soaring into his second life-time career, he published a book, Thoughts on Design. The book had nearly one hundred reproductions of only some of his designs as well as some of the best diction, though written on graphic design. Thoughts on Design promoted him as the ‘designer of influence from Zurich to Tokyo,’ giving him the international reputation he was bound to achieve. For his second career, he began as an art director doing advertising design at the William Weintraub agency. There he was recognized as one of the ten best art directors by the Museum of Modern Art and the same year awarded by the Art Directors Club with a gold medal for his Morse Code advertisement addressed to David Sarnoff of RCA:
His third career in cooperate identification began in 1954. Many of his original corporate identities are still in use today or even similar copies of his designs are currently in the media, which confirms his successful triumphs as an artist, not just of his time, but ahead of his time as well.
Once he started at his own Weston studio, he had already established a renowned name for his trademarks. The designer could be identified by his use of bright color, graphic forms and typography. He somehow knowingly had the artistic touch to naturally be able to catch the viewers’ eye, which was the advertiser’s dream so everybody wanted in.
He ended up with a collection of advertisements for: Airwick, American Broadcasting Company, Ancient Age Whiskey, The Architectural Forum, Bab-O, Bell for Adano, Jacqueline Cochran, CIO Chorus….and the list goes on for companies from A-Z.
The American graphic design artist, most commonly known for his corporate logos died of cancer November 26th, in 1946. By the time he died, he had produced books and articles, advertisements, collateral, editorial, identity, packaging, posters, and other miscellaneous items such as clock designs, lunch boxes, mugs, pins, and the list goes on…
The artist and businessman knew how to think conceptually in order to arrive at the most simplest solution. He created works that could be identified upon the first second of viewing the work, while at the same time giving the viewer something new to think about. The work he provided to the media and our society was some of the most ground-breaking graphic design creations and writings. It set him apart from previous artists as he provided the revolutionary distinguished foundation that society called for at the time.
As a designer going in the visual communications field, I look at his work and see that what sets him apart from other artists of his time and even today, not only the simplicity but also the graphic forms used in his work are vital to any advertisements and cooperate logos. Few have the ability he did, to create such well-remembered icons that provide a visual for the companies that are so prominent in our society today. I admire the fact that his designs look so easy to come up with, yet they are still so innovative that there is no question they were designed by nobody other than Paul Rand.
http://www.paul-rand.com/about.shtml http://www.areaofdesign.com/americanicons/rand.htm
Jake Chessum// Leah Thibodeau
After Jake Chessum finished his foundation year at the Central School of Art and Design, he was sure that he wanted to be a photographer. However, the school didn’t offer any photography classes, only about technique and theory. He had been collecting photography books and magazines since he was about 16, so he figured that graphic design was the best way to succeed.
He then transferred to Saint Martin’s School of Art. For the first two years, he struggled. He never finished any projects. To make matters worse, he had a very talented group of peers alongside him (Graham Wood and Stephen Sorrel), which made him look like he was in the completely wrong field of study. So for the end of his second year, he began focusing more on photography instead of design and typography. Still, Chessum was never around when final projects were due at critiques.
Luckily, Chessum was getting noticed other places. In his third year at Saint Martins, The Face magazine gave him a job to shoot their cover. The art director, Phil Bicker, did a small section about Chessem as the graduate to watch. This led to several commissions from all sorts of magazines. He shot for The Independent, The Saturday Times, The Guardian, and Neutrogena. However, he was taking every job that came his way, which was holding back his career.
That’s when he took a step back. He was completely ignorant of his working environment. He never had an assistant, a studio, written an invoice, or edited down his shots before sending them in to his employer. He decided that he needed to change in a big way. He would no longer compromise too much for a shot; it was important to have a style or vision.
On a shoot, he tries to establish some sort of connection with his subject. With this, everyone can relax a little bit, which makes a photograph so much easier to get. This was trying when he shot a series called “The Look Book” for the New York Magazine and had to persuade New Yorkers to stop and pose for a two page spread.
For aspiring photographers, Chessum says, “Don’t try to take pictures that you think are going to get you a job. Take pictures that you want to look at, and can talk about enthusiastically. There’s no point in trying to emulate the work of other photographers. A good photo editor will see straight through it. It’s a cut-throat business with a ludicrous amount of competition. Be enthusiastic. Always.”
Irving Penn by Brooke Boothe
A photographer whom was known for his portrait photography and fashion photography. His art began to flourish for the post World War II photographs, feminine chic, and glamour images. Within his realm of photography as an art he was on of the first photographers to capture an image in front of a simple colored backdrop. He allowed for his photography to be technologically sound as well as the composition. In fact, many photographers mimicked Penn’s artistic style including Piccasso, Duchamp, O’Keeffe and many more. Penn started his fashion photography with Vogue magazine and then started his own photography studio in 1953.
Penn was very passionate about his new form with Vogue magazine which began in 1943, and he even married his favorite fashion model Lisa Fonssagrives. Penn’s photograph, “Woman with Roses” began his peak with vogue magazine and set a standard for other photographers to set the bar for elegant and aesthically pleasting fashion photographs in the 1940’s and 1950’s. When working with Vogue magazine Penn collaborated with the influential art directors Alexey Brodovitch and Alexander Liberman. With Brodovitch, Penn was an unpaid design assistant of the summers of 1937 and 1938 at Harper’s Bazaar which was the most provocative magazine of its day. Liberman on the other hand is how Penn began his career with Vogue.
Penn was not only a genius behind the camera but was also intelligent within the dark room. To make his prints seem more dynamic he experimented in the darkroom to temper with his prints and make them more elegant. He would bleach some of his nude prints especially females to make their skin appear harsh and flawless which would make them appear more, “sexually charged.” Penn would also experiment with the process of platinum prints instead of silver because the platinum would makes the photographs seem more velvet to make them seem more high quality. The issue with platinum printing is that the time of preparation and control needs to be exactly precise for a quality print.
“The grace, wit, and inventiveness of his pattern-making, the lively and surprising elegance of his line, and his sensitivity to the character, the idiosyncratic humors, of light make Penn’s pictures, even the slighter ones, a pleasure for our eyes.”
- John Szarkowski (Museum Director)
-Irving Penn
Bradbury Thompson is originally from Topeka, Kansas. Though he is known as an ingenious designer he has a degree in economics, which he accredits to helping him communicate to mass cultures better. Thompson taught at Yale’s School of Art and Architecture with a concentration on type and its importance in an array of situations. He has also written many periodicals and headed many magazines in more than one language, checking for both the content and how it is presented.
His design work is mostly renowned for the use of typography in integration with bold colors and unexpected imagery. Thompson’s most infamous piece was his monalphabet, also known and alphabet 26, where he capitalized some letter while left others in lowercase so the letters became more intuitive and easier to learn as a child. In his version of the alphabet the letters are sans serif and the capitals are just bigger versions of the lower case letters. 
The colors of the monalphabet each stand for different things. The black letters are those that he kept the same. The blue are those he thought were better as lower case and the green were the letters that are virtually the same in upper and lower case.
A spread Thompson did for Westvaco Magazine, of which he did many spreads for. Westvaco was published by West Virginia Pulp and Paper Company, and was revered for many publishing many breakthrough designs.
All if the above were spreads Thompson did for Westvaco. They all use simple colors and elements to create dynamic images. Thompson used the basic elements of design to extremes and created an infamous and outstanding style.
By Jenn Contois
Shynola by Chelsea Ness
Shynola consists of four artist, Gideon Baws, Jason Groves, Chris Harding, and Richard Kenworthy who got together at the College of Art and Design in Maidstone, Kent. After they graduated the moved to London and worked independently. It wasn’t long before these four were back together collaborating as Shynola. A college film they made gained a lot of recognition “The Littlest Robo” (http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xch6y_thelittlestroboshortfilm_animals). It wasn’t long before this foursome was noticed by the music world for their unusual and creative work. Their work was so well perceived they were able to make a smooth transition into the advertising world in addition to their work on music videos.
On the Director’s Bureau ‘s website you can see a large amount of Shynolas work:
http://www.thedirectorsbureau.com/reels.php?director_id=22&reel_type_id=1
Music Videos:
Beck “E-Pro”
Junior/Senior “Move Your Feet”
Radiohead “Pyramid Song”
Athlete “You’ve Got The Style”
Advertising:
Nike Footlocker “Schoola Ya Again”
SONY PS2 Frequency “worms”
After watching these videos you can see how different their work is. There is a large variation of styles and techniques used in all of these videos.
My favorite video that originally sprang my interest in Shynolas work is
Coldplay “Strawberry Swing”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYtk1Z0UUuE
Shynola’s website:
tim walker/
/ange davies
interview link. http://www.showstudio.com/project/infashion/films/36330
london based photographer tim walker seems to visit another world every time he composes a vision for his next shoot. his compelling images force the viewer to travel with him, to this world of pure perception, a world rich, alive, and full with the ability to evoke or re-voke the childhood fantasies and dreams we let escape us.
his talent serves as a vehicle of mystery, beauty and depth which takes us down a path into the emotions, the imagination, and the spirit from which his creativity generates.
he creates visions in which sublime and ineffable feelings have been accompanied by an experience of luminosity, as they move into the aesthetic, the dramatic, the comic, and the symbolic world of reality and the imagination as one.
his elaborate sets are the canvas into which he paints each narrative with the wonder and curiosity that has set him apart from most other photographers at least in my mind.
tim’s interest in photgraphy began during work experience at condé nast where he set up the Cecil Beaton archive. after graduating from exeter art college, he worked as a freelance photographic assistant before working as richard avedon’s assistant in new york.
his career as a photographer was launched when he came third in the independent young photographer of the year award. after coming in third, walker went on to contribute to high-profile magazines including Vogue, W and Harper‘s Bazaar as well as shotting advertising campaigns for clients including barneys, comme des garcons, gap and yohji yamamoto.
Dave McKean by owen
Only being able to read quick, self-authored biographies found at the end of comics would tell a lot about what Dave McKean is like, without telling you much about him. For instance: “Dave McKean’s favorite toy was a woolen fish. It was called Fish. These days his favorite game is trying to get color copiers to do things they were never intended for, nor ever dreamed of doing,” “Spawned a goblin and is wary of sheep,” or “Buy him a margarita and he’ll tell you why cats smile.” To top it off:
“This photograph, found in the Hanussen collection, appears at a hasty first glance to be a portrait of a bearded man in a hat, his coat glittering with five brass buttons. A second, and more careful look reveals that this is simply an illusion: we are looking from above at a snowy landscape: the ‘coat’ is a river, the ‘buttons’ stepping stones, the ‘face’ an island, and a fallen tree, the ‘hat’ a small body of water in the distance. Photographic illusions of this kind were popular with our forefathers; to our more sophisticated eyes, however, the deception is transparent, and once we see it for what it is, we are unable to see the face that once we thought we saw. The seagull in the foreground is extremely blurred, due to the lengthy exposures Victorian photography demanded.”
Dave McKean seems to specialize at reinterpreting. He studied illustration and design at Berkshire College of Art and Design, and returned a year and half after receiving his degree to teach audio/visuals. He works primarily with mixed media, often blending photography, painting, and digital manipulation to otherworldly results. McKean is best known for his comic work with Neil Gaiman, but has extended his talents to album artwork, book covers, cook book illustration, and his own deck of tarot cards. 
McKean stays fully invested in the work he does. Grant Morrison, a prominent comic book author, approached McKean with a manuscript for a Batman graphic novel called Arkham Asylum. McKean read over the script and replied that he would illustrate it, but only if Morrison wrote out the parts with Batman’s sidekick, Robin. Morrison rewrote it. 
Being trained as a designer, McKean became picky about things early on. In one interview, he described being terribly disappointed with how his illustrations were being handled with type, and he began asking to do it all himself.
Most importantly, McKean is honest. He’s spoken out against lazy practices found in comic design, and he has spoken with contempt about lack of concept in illustration. He continues to push boundaries in film and video, with work like Mirror Mask and Luna.
Heads Of State by Melissa Walters
Heads of State is a design studio lead by two designers, Jason Kernevich and Dustin Summers, who have been working together for about 7 years now. They both graduated from Tyler School of Art’s design program. They have a very simplistic and graphic style that sets them apart from others. They have collaborativly won awards from Communication Arts, American Illustration, Print Magazine, Graphis and the Society of Illustrators. They have recentely opened office in New York City headed by Jason, along with their original office in Seattle headed by Dustin.
Some of their major clients include The New York Times, United Airlines, Starbucks, Esquire, American Express, Nickelodeon, Capital Records, Virgin Mobile and the list goes on and on.
They design posters that have bold colors, strong unique typography and bright colors. The poster below fits into a series of three that was designed for a magazine article on living a modern philosophical life. The main focus of the poster is the typography in my opinion. Blocking out the negatives in the type gives it new look, its bold, strong and makes a statement.
One project that really stuck out on their page was a packaging project that was a completely hypothetical assignment from Print magazine…what would legalized marijuana packaging look like? They created simple logos and design for the joints, with splashes of color to represent the different kinds offered. 
Each different ‘flavor’ that was invented refers to common illegal weed-buying experiences and qualities that one might experience. “Possibly Oregano” “Uptown Schwag” “Vermont Ski Trip” “Stems and Seeds” “Downtown Skunk” “Sayonara Glaucoma”
I really like the simplicity of their techniques and how they handled the mediums they work in. Its very real and has great texture to it. They found the most simplistic way to say what they wanted, using the smallest amount of information they could, very clever. These guys are very up and coming and have a lot to offer the world of design.
