Univers : catalogues

We were commissioned to create the official catalogs for all the plays staged by the National Theatre of Greece in 2019. We implemented the visual identity system we developed for the client’s entire communications campaign for the season, which involved a playful use of typography and photography. The challenge was to create a uniform visual style across all booklets, despite the aesthetic differences among plays. An anniversary box set containing three individual catalogs was created for the summer season’s largest production.

The objective was to design a refined catalog promoting the new Home Société concept to Torontonians. The catalog had to strongly reflect the distinct brand identity, introducing Home Société into the Toronto landscape. The elements developed convey diversity and the balance between luxury and modernity. A range of other elements adhering to the brand identity were created alongside the catalog. These included social media avatars, static and animated visuals for web campaigns, color posters, store signage, billboards, and promotional material for the store’s 2019 opening. The catalog was printed for mass mailing and distributed in newspapers and mailboxes.

Letterpress Workers International is an annual meeting that has turned into a real community. The catalog describes the common attitude of the participants—and for this reason, it works on two complementary levels. One is the narration of the event, digitally designed and printed in offset, while the second is designed and printed in letterpress.

This catalog represents the members of the 2019 Emerging Writers Group, a biannual program that supports new playwrights at The Public Theater.

The graphic design of the campaign and catalog began with the title and subtitle of the exhibition, Changing Attitudes. One “blueprint” was conceived that contains the total design of the campaign, which can be deconstructed and reformed by recycling its parts, keeping the same ratios. The implications of using a Riso duplicator, with its limitation of two colors and folding and cutting the material, led to a process-based design methodology. The material and the design are used as a changing platform that can be divided or contracted and expanded. The publication contains sketches of the laureates’ projects and gives insight into their (changing) attitudes toward design and thinking processes. This insight is provided alongside the final exhibited projects, so the visitors’ perspective on the work can be changed, too, as they move through the exhibition and the book from one point to the other. As an extra contextual and narrative layer, augmented reality is applied.

Taking cues from early web interface aesthetics and the infinite scroll on the web, the catalog features texts set in Arial and Times New Roman, two of the internet’s most prevalent and (in)famous typefaces, that run across the margin of the page. The eye-catching neon green used on the cover is a nod to our shared cultural nostalgia. Both the catalog and the show, which launched in January 2019 at the New Museum, feature works and writings from Cory Arcangel, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paper Rad, Jon Rafman, Bunny Rogers, Seth Price, Petra Cortright, Kari Altmann, Martine Syms, Devin Kenny, Cécile B. Evans, and many more.