32 printmag.com I Mad This Jus t f Y u: A Bif Hist y f D sig, 1999–2009 By ColIn BerrY / I ust ati by non-ForMAT
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I Mad This Just f Yu:
A Bif Histy f Dsig,
1999–2009B y C o l I n B e r r Y / I u s t a t i b y n o n - F o r M A T
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no ct ob er 2 00 9
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it wAS A DECADE of CoNtrADiCtioNS:
Authentic self-expression and self-
absorbed foolishness coexisted, rebellion
and well-honed skill established an un-
easy harmony, and both the individual
and collective instincts ourished. The
era showcased personal empowerment
along with the wisdom of crowds. In fact,the prevailing design trend of the 2000s
was no trend at all—anything goes, ev-
erything went. White was hip before
black was back, orange was in, then
green. Like a reworks display, memes
ignited and exploded with a ash and
bang, while others are still pinwheeling.
Still others have vanished in a trail of
smoke and ash. What began as the I/me/
mine decade has emerged as an us—a
we—during ten years of what felt, some-
times, like cognitive dissonance.These ten-year increments aren’t pre-
cise measurements, of course, and in
hindsight the 2000s arrived a little early.
In 1998, Apple rolled out its egg-shaped
iMac, a computer so personal it came in 12
different avors. The iBook followed, and
by 2001 the personal-pronoun juggernaut
was rolling: iPod, iTunes, dozens of i-apps
built into Apple’s OS X and, starting in
2007, the iPhone. “My” appeared on mil-
lions of web pages, including MySpace,
My Yahoo, myAOL. And in 2005, threefriends in California launched the rst
successful online video-sharing site,
YouTube. It was like the old joke: But hey,
enough about me, let’s talk about you—what
do you think of me?
In 2007, a Pew Research Center report,
“Portrait of Generation Next,” identied
today’s 18-to-25-year-olds as the “Look at
Me” generation, upgraded from the 1970s
“me generation” with the added expo-
sure that vanity media and the internetfoster. Marketers have called it “personal-
ization.” The belief that we’ve become
masters of our technology, rather than
slaves to it, has empowered us: 10,000
songs in your pocket . The millions of i-apps
and my-pages reiterate the customization
that younger folks demand.
The aesthetics of the decade reected
this shift to the personal with a revival of
something that required no technology
at all—hand-drawn illustration, with eachunique line displaying the creative DNA
of its maker. The trend appears to have
begun around 1999, with the titles for The
Virgin Suicides and Freaks and Geeks—Geoff
McFetridge’s homage to Pablo Ferro, and
to teen art made with a ballpoint pen—
and with Stefan Sagmeister, whose image
for a Detroit AIGA lecture poster pictured
the New York designer with the event’s
details carved into his chest and arms.
The hand-drawn look spread quickly,
turning up on the cover and pages of
Flaunt ; in lm titles for Napoleon Dynamite ,
Juno, and Nick and Nora’s Infinite Playlist ;
and on the book jacket for Everything Is
Illuminated . Before long, it could be found
on corporate reports, Bank of America
ATM screens, Microsoft ads, television
promos, and Popeye’s commercials.
The belief that we’ve
become masters of our technology,rather than slaves to it,has empowered a “Look at Me”
generation.
riGHt Apple iPod ad-
vertisement. Created by
TBWA\Chiat\Day.
-
BELow Packaging for the
iPod. Created by
Apple Design Studio.
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no ct ob er 2 00 9
Much of the obsession could be pegged
as a backlash to the oft-cited “clean” de-
sign of the 1990s, when designers rst
began adjusting to life inside the monito
The mark of the hand, by contrast, looke
fresh. You can doodle on a napkin over
coffee with a friend. Blogging on Design
Observer in 2004, Michael Bierut notedhow, “in an age where computer-genera
ed this and special effects that are within
the reach of anyone who can afford a cop
of Final Cut Pro, it takes real restraint, no
to mention condence, to stick with a
simple idea simply executed”—by hand
Nothing characterized this condent
spirit better than the McSweeney’s mini-
empire. Dave Eggers’s prolic publishin
house and The Believer magazine merged
creative individuality with elaborate
craft—letterpress typography, die-cuts,elegant cloth covers—while giving expo
sure to authors like Neal Pollack and Lyd
Davis and the nger to anyone crowing
about the End of Print. Issue 16 of the
McSweeney’s quarterly came with its own
pocket comb; another comprised eight
small books nestled together in a box.
Others pushed this handmade aes-
thetic further, creating ornate, elaborate
ligreed illustrations, letterforms, and
vector drawings. “Deanne Cheuk’s art
direction of Tokion fueled the whole fauxBaroque era,” says Jon Forss, half of
Non-Format, the studio known for its or
namental work (and the creators of this
issue’s cover and the artwork on p. 33).
Perhaps the most recognizable repre-
sentative of the trend was Marian Bantje
the Canadian self-described “lapsed
graphic designer” whose meticulous han
can evoke Islamic calligraphy, tree roots,
or Irish lace with equal grace. Organic
and jubilant, Bantjes’s art caught the pu
lic’s attention in 2004 with custom
lettering and illustrations for Details.
“The pendulum of art and design has al-
ways swung between austerity and
ostentation,” Bantjes says. “We’d been in
austerity for a while, and for whatever
reason, people found ornamentation
beautiful again.” Whether it was a reac-
from top
AIGA Detroit poster,
1999. Designer:
Stefan Sagmeister.
-
Cover of Flaunt magazine,
2003. Illustration by
Vault49.
-
Still image from The Virgin
Suicides title sequence,
1999. Designer:Geoff McFetridge.
-
Still image from Fox
Searchlight Studio’s Juno
title sequence, 2007.
Created by Shadowplay
Studio.
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36 printmag.com
tion to the digitally obsessed 1980s and
’90s, or a renewed fascination with or-
ganic forms, or another sign of the high
value placed on individuality, ornamen-
tation became a cosmopolitan signier,
manifest in London (Si Scott), New York
(Mario Hugo), Paris (M/M Studio), and
countless design and cultural centers.Other graphic forms evolved as well:
Grafti characters morphed into toys;
book jackets sprouted fur and spikes.
(Die Gestalten Verlag’s book Tactile: High
Touch Visuals captured the moment.)
Type turned sculptural. Quebec’s Paprika
and Berlin’s HO RT studios created elabo-
rate 3-D fonts, and Oded Ezer, an Israeli
typographer known for fashioning
an entire biology based on Hebrew and
Roman alphabets, turned type into
gures of bugs and animals.Some trends were complementary.
Sans serifs and scripts dominated again,
while old classics were retrotted to
mend mistakes in earlier digital versions,
notes Paul Shaw, a New York–based cal-
ligrapher and typographer and Print
contributing editor. Many designers
found a strong market in commissioned
fonts, which became as ubiquitous
as business cards. Cornel Windlin, co-
founder of the Swiss foundry Lineto,
points out how, after a decade of digitaldemocracy, type design reverted to
the realm of the expert: “Type is again
the domain of the ultra-specialist, a
master whose isolation is both technolog-
ical and aesthetic.”
Without a doubt, the most notable
typeface of the past ten years was Hoeer
and Frere-Jones’ Gotham, inspired by
New York’s Port Authority Terminal
signage and designed in 2000 as an ex-
clusive sans for GQ. Quintessentially
American, Gotham went public in 2004
to become one of the world’s most popu-
lar fonts, exuding a candor that nods
to the hardworking 1930s and a positive
future. The presidential campaign for
Barack Obama adopted Gotham as its au-
thorized font. “Originally, we were using
Gill Sans, but it appears stylistically
from top
Illustration for Details,
2004. Designer: Marian
Bantjes.
-
Poster for Theatre de
Lorient, 2007. Design rm:
M/M Paris.
-
Type treatment, 2008.
Designer: Alex Trochut.
-
Art for Tokion magazine,
2005. Designer: Deanne
Cheuk.
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no ct ob er 2 00 9
aloof,” says Scott Thomas, Obama for
America’s design director of new media.
“Gotham was attractive but unassuming;
it appeared blue-collar yet dressed up
well. It was the perfect choice.”
Extra-large type families with sans and
serif versions also became commonplace.
Work in Progress’s Galeere—as used in Self Service magazine—and House
Industry’s Chalet married mod and mod-
ern with sexy curves and strong lines;
Typotheque’s History nailed the era’s ob-
session with layering in a design inspired
by the evolution of typography. In France,
Jean-François Porchez re-drew Sabon into
Sabon Next, giving it leaner lines and a
postmillennial attitude. There were disas-
ters (Canada Type’s Ronaldson), but
overall, designers such as Chester Jenkins,
Christian Schwartz, Matthew Carter, and
the creative entrepreneurs at Dalton
Maag and Font Bureau have set new stan-
dards for type design.
The decade also marked the moment
typography entered the cultural vernacu-
lar, best illustrated by a 2007 episode
of Wheel of Fortune, which included the
following banter between Pat Sajak andVanna White about type:
Sajak: “What font do you use on your
computer?”
White: “I use Arial and Geneva.”
Sajak: “Really! Anything else?”
White: “Helvetica!”
Even Vanna White loves Helvetica.
Are these the fruits of desktop publishing?
Is everyone a designer now? Actually,
yes. Among the most signicant develop-
ments in the past decade is the rise of
rst-rate software, which put design in
Cradle to Cradle:Remaking theWay We Make Thingsby wlla mcDnugh
and mchael Baunga(nh pess)
A DECADE OF DESIGN BOOKS
America (The Book):A Citizen’s Guide toDemocracy Inactionby Jn Sea and
he es The Daily
Show . Desgne: paula
Sche/penaga
(gd cel publsh
D.I.Y.: Design ItYourself by Ellen Lun
(pe
aheul pess)
Handwritten:Expressive Letteringin the Digital Ageby Seven Helle
and mk ilc
(thes & Huds)
Altitude:Contemporary SwissGraphic DesignEded by rbe
Klanen, Nclas
Buqun, and Claudamaes. Cve desgn:
Sabna Gll
(De gesle Vel)
Tactile: High
Touch VisualsEded by rbe
Klanen, Sven
Ehann, and Hahas
Hübne. Cve desgn:
pxelgaen
(De gesle Vel)
ABOVE McSweeney’s
Issue 16 (with comb),
2005. Designer:
Eli Horowitz.
-
LEft Photo from
the Berlin exhibition
“Naturschauspiele: Nor-
wegian Graphic Design
Powered by Nature,”
2008. Design rm:Yokoland.
2004
2002
2006
2007
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38 printmag.com
the hands of the people. The successor to
PageMaker, InDesign rst appeared in
1999. Four years later, it came bundled
with Photoshop and Illustrator in Adobe’s
Creative Suite, a one-two-three punch
that sent Quark to the ropes. “It took until
2002 or 2003, but with its 1.5 version,
InDesign killed Quark,” says Armin Vit,co-founder and principal of the blog
Under Consideration. InDesign was also
the rst desktop-publishing application to
support OpenType, the cross-platform
font le format co-developed by Adobe
and Microsoft.
Something similar was happening
online. Typophile and Speak Up had be-
gun to create a locus where designers
could argue th e virtues of Daniel Eatock’s
Big Brother logo or commiserate over the
deaths of Alan Fletcher or Shigeo Fukuda.Like a neighborhood bar, the blogs were a
catalyst for conversation, where Paula
Scher and Paul from Schenectady could
weigh in with equal time, if not equal
authority. “All of a sudden we could talk
back, be part of the discussion,” Vit says.
“It created a sense of community that had
never happened before.”
A design-it-yourself ethic had taken
over. Blurb and Lulu thrived even as th e
commercial book industry fell apart;
99designs.com churned out cheap logosand checked the blood pressure of estab-
lished designers. Made up of newly
empowered individuals, this design
r.I.P.—
the e f
u f bus-
ess qukeed
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No.64
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RICKVALICENTI/KENNETH FITZGERALD MR.KEEDY /ANDREW BLAUVELT
KALINIKITAS& DENISE GONZALESCRISP& LOUISE SANDHAUS JESSICAHELFAND& WILLIAM DRENTTEL /SHAWNWOLFE
THE READERSRESPOND
j
“ T K T K T K ”
76
special year-end issue
70hoursofmusic,pickedbyyour favoritestars!Plus,metallica’sdrummer cheatsdeath,50centinthestudioWitheminemandpink’slovelinesinside:tenfreesonGs
B r i T ne y s p e a r s Ma d o nna C h r i s T i na a g u i l e r a r i h a nna B e y o n C e p a r a M o r e J u s T i nT i MB e r l a K e J a y -Z M.i .a .Ma r i a h Wh i T e s T r i p e s g r e e nd a y r a d i o h e a d u 2 d a f T p u nK My C h e Mi C a l r o Ma n C e p e T e We nT Z l i l Wa y ne B i g g i e
B r i T n e y s p e a r s M a d o n n a C h r i s T i n a a g u i l e r a r i h a n n a B e y o n C e p a r a M o r e J u s T i n T i M B e r l a K e J a y - Z M a r i a h W h i T e s T r i p e s g r e e n d a y r a d i o h e a d u 2 d a f T p u n K M y C h e M i C a l r o M a n C e p e T e W e n T Z l i l W a y n e B i g g i e s M a l l sBriTney spears Madonna ChrisTina aguilera rihanna BeyonCe paraMore JusTin TiMBerlaKe Jay-Z M.i.a. Mariah WhiTe sTripes green day radio-
B r i T n e y s p e a r s M a d o n n a C h r i s T i n a a g u i l e r a r i h a n n a B e y o n C e p a r a M o r e J u s T i n T i M B e r l a K e J a y - Z M . i . a . M a r i a h W h i T e s T r i p e s g r e e n d a y r a d i o -
d e c e m b e r 2 0 0 8 / J a n u a r y 2 0 0 9
from top
Promotional postcard for
the exhibition “Everybody
Dance Now: 20 Years
of Dancing in Print,”
designed by Abbott Miller
using the History type-
face, which was created
by Peter Bilak in 2002.
-
Obama’s “Hope” logo
uses the Gotham type-face, designed by
Hoefler & Frere-Jones.
-
Helvetica documentary
“Meet the Cast” poster,
2007. Design rm:
Experimental Jetset.
Blender 1994–2009
The Face 1980–2004
Radar 2005; 2007–2008
Speak1995–2001
Emigre1984–2005
proletariat could be seen in the rise of
such divergent tools as Google Maps,
iPhone apps, and the suddenly ubiqui-
tous Wacom tablet.
While these advances allowed ama-
teurs to look more professional, designprofessionals evolved one step ahead
of extinction. Information design took a
quantum leap, led by The New York Times
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no ct ob er 2 00 9
and Good magazine, and inspired wun-
derkinds such as Nicholas Felton, who
chronicled his travels, activities, and oth-
er nonvital statistics (“Michael J. Fox
sightings: one”) in his annual Feltron
Report. Jonathan Harris’s We Feel Fine
and Jonathan Feinberg’s Wordle retooled
the ways we gathered, organized, viewed,and processed information online.
Processing, Ben Fry and Casey Reas’s
open-source programming language,
allowed designers to code their own
motion- and image-based digital sketch-
es. It was embraced by Los Angeles-based
production house Motion Theory, which
used the software in its inventive
“Hands” advertisements for HP. Other
designers used Processing to make
music videos for R.E.M., Radiohead,
and Modest Mouse.Meanwhile, version 5.5 of Adobe’s
After Effects gave pixel-pushers what
InDesign had delivered to graphic de-
signers—autonomy. Just ten years ago,
says Justin Cone, editor and founder
of the blog Motionographer, “motion
graphics” was still lumped in with post-
production. But after 2000, an explosion
in independent studios—the best being
MK12 in the U.S., Shynola in the U.K.,
and Lobo in Brazil—began pushing the
camera into 3-D space for ads, title
sequences, games, and animation. Theevolution of alternate-reality games
(ARGs), for example, can be reduced to a
single contrast: Microsoft’s hokey The
Beast (2001)—considered the best in its
day—versus E A’s immersive Dante’s
Inferno (2009).
Yet the special-effects world had its
contradictions as well. Among lmmak-
ers, Michel Gondry’s low-tech music
videos, commercials, and movies stand
alone for their dreamlike avor and
innovative design. (For proof, cue up theWhite Stripes’ “Fell In Love with a Girl”
or S teriogram’s “Walkie Talkie Man.”)
“Gondry’s vision of the naive, creative
soul, lost in a handmade analog wonder-
land, has come to exemplify a certain
emo-DIY aesthetic. I see it everywhere,”
says Jim Hanas, a former editor at
Adcritic.com. Adds Justin Cone: “The
last ten years in motion design have
been about the rise of the individual.”
Not everyone spent the 2000s staring
at a computer screen. In the music worl
designer Julian House co-founded theGhost Box label with edgy graphics and
font styles, and Kim Hiorthøy’s music
packaging for Rune Grammofon showed
endless invention. In Paris, Laurent Fétis
did a little bit of everyting—beautiful
posters for Beck, elegant art books, and
unsettling furniture. Out on the streets,
stencil art—Banksy was unmasked!—
and guerrilla sticker campaigns like
Bodhi Oser’s “Fuck” and Ji Lee’s “Bubble
Project” took up where the ’90s poster
king Shepard Fairey left off. And theOBEY giant himself went platinum, de
signing the “Hope” poster and eventuall
donating it to the Smithsonian.
Branding and advertising got smarter
with Apple leading the way. “Ten years
EdwardJohnston
ontwerperAkzidenz
EmilRudolfWeiss
Henryv.d. VeldeFredericGoudy
MorrisFuller Benton
MoholyNagy
EricGill
ElLissitzky
StanleyMorison
Sjoerdde Roos
Oliver Simon
JosefAlbers
HerbertBayer
John Heartfield
PaulRenner
Bruce Rogers
KurtSchwitters
PietZwart
GerardKiljanPaulSchuitema
A.M. Cassandre
Jan van Krimpen
H.N. Werkman
Dick Elffers
Vordemberge Gildewart
BrunoMunari
Imre Reiner
HelmutSalden Jan Tschichold
MaxBill
MaxCaflisch
WillemSandberg
OttoTreumann
SaulBass
PietCossee Anthony Froshaug
SemHartz
CharlesJongejans
MartKempers
RichardPaulLohse
HansMardersteigHarryN.Siermann
Henryk Tomaszewski
Alexander Verberne
Pieter Wetselaar
Jan Bons
Hermann Zapf
ChrisBrand WimCrouwel
Quentin Fiore
Adrian Frutiger
HerbLubalin
MaxMiedinger
Josef-Müller Brockmann
EmilRuder
Pieter Brattinga
Alan Fletcher
Alber Kapr
DavidKindersley
Ruari McLean
GerritNoordzij
pentagram
PaulRand
Jurriaan Schrofer
Anton Stankowski
Jan Vermeulen
HansPeter Willberg
OtlAicher
AnthonBeeke
JaapDrupsteen
BobGill Milton Glaser
OotjeOxenaar
SwipStolk
Jan van ToornPierre Bernard
H. R.Bosshard hard werken
MichaelHarvey
Walter Nikkels
JamieReid
PietSchreuders
GerardUnger
Wolfgang Weingart
wild plakken
RuediBaur
Neville Brody
JostHochuli
MaxKisman
Hans-Rudolph Lutz
BrunoMonguzzi
Peter Saville
studio dumbar
Erik van Blokland& Justvan Rossum
DavidCarson
EdwardFella
Dan Friedman
PietGerards
Mieke Gerritsen
Tibor Kalman
Robin Kinross
Rudyvan der Lans
SuzannaLicko
Martin Majoor
RobertNakata
nes pas plier
LexReitsma
PaulaScher
FredSmeijers
ErikSpiekermann
Tessav.d. Waals
Jonathan Barnbrook
IrmaBoom
PaulElliman
fuel
grappa blotto
P. ScottMakela
Bruce Mau
RoelofMulderoctavo
tomato
CornelWindlin
2 x 4
75b
Jopvan Bennekom
bureau ThomasBuxó
elektrosmog
experimental jetset
goldenmasters
goodwill
gtf
m&m
mooren & vd velden
north
Roger Willems
LEGENDA / LEGENDINDEX / INDEX
O n t w e r p / D e s i g n
D a n i e l G r o s s / J o r i s M a l t h a / w w w . c a t a l o g t r e e . n e t / A r n h e m 2 0 0 2
K M
+ A M
A M
A M +
W B
één persoonone person
één persoonone person
drie personenthree persons
drie personenthree persons
twee personentwo persons
belang voor het vak importance to the profession
AM = Armand Mevis
KM =Karel Martens
WB = Wigger Bierma
persoonlijk belangpersonal intrest
ALLK M
K M + W B
W B
ALLE
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
1 2 3 4 5 6 7
2 x 4 [ H4]75b [ H4]OtlAicher [ D5]
Josef Albers [ E5]o n tw e rp er A k zi d en z [ G4]
J on at h an B a r nb r oo k [ E3]Saul Bass [ B6]RuediBaur [ D2]HerbertBayer [ E5]
Anthon Beeke [ D4] Jo p va n B en ne ko m [ H4] MorrisFuller Benton [ F4]P ie rr e B er na rd [ E4]
Max Bill [ C5] van Blokland/van Rossum [ C2] Jan Bons [ A4]Irma Boom [ F3]Ha nsRud o lfBosshard [ E3]Chris Brand [ A4]P ie te r B ra tt in ga [ B3]N evi lle Br ody [ E2]bureau [ H4]
Thomas Buxó [ H4]
MaxCaflisch [ C5]DavidCarson [ C1]
A.M. Cassandre [ D6]PietCossee [ B6]
Wi mCro uwe l [ A3]
JaapDrupsteen [ D4]studio dumbar [ C2]
elektrosmog [ H4]Dick Elffers [ C7]PaulElliman [ F3]experimental jetset [ H4]
Edward Fella [ B1]Quentin Fiore [ A3]
Alan Fletcher [ C3]Dan Friedman [ C1]
AnthonyFroshaug [ B6] Adrian Frutiger [ B3]fuel [ F3]
Piet Gerards [ C1] Mieke Gerritsen [ C1] Vo rd emberge Gild ewa rt [ C7]Bob Gill [ D4]Eric Gill [ F5]
Milton Glaser [ D4]golden masters [ H5]goodwill [ H5]F re de ri cG ou dy [ F5]grappa blotto [ F4]gtf [ H5]
hard werken [ E4]SemHartz [ B6]
Mi ch ae lH ar ve y [ E3] Jo hn H ea rt fi el d [ E5] Jost Hochuli [ D2]
EdwardJohnston [ G4]C ha rl es J on ge ja ns [ B5]
Tibor Kalman [ D1] AlbertKapr [ C3] Ma rt Ke mper s [ B5]GerardKiljan [ E7]D av id Ki nd er sl ey [ C3]R obi n Ki nr oss [ D1]
MaxKisman [ D1] Jan van Krimpen [ D6]
R ud y va n d er L an s [ E1]S uzann aLi ck o [ E1]
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
J
K
L
El Lissitzky [ E5]RichardPaulLohse [ B5]HerbLubalin [ A3]H an s -R ud o lp h L ut z [ D1]
m&m [ H5] Martin Majoor [ E1]P. Sc ot t Ma ke la [ F4]HansMardersteig [ B5]Bruce Mau [ G4]RuariMcLean [ C3]
MaxMiedinger [ B3]B ru no Mo ng uz zi [ D1]mooren & vd velden [ I5]StanleyMorison [ E4]RoelofMulder [ G3]Bru no Munar i [ C7]
JosefMüller-Brockmann [ B2]
Moholy Nagy [ F5]Rob er tN ak at a [ E1]nes pas plier [ E1]
Wa lt er Ni kk el s [ D3]
GerritNoordzij [ C3]north [ I5]
octavo [ G4]Ootje Oxenaar [ D4]
pentagram [ C3]
Paul Rand [ C4] Jamie Reid [ D3]Imre Reiner [ C6]Lex Reitsma [ E2]PaulRenner [ D5]Bru ce Ro ger s [ D5]S jo er dD e R oo s [ D4]EmilRuder [ B3]
HelmutSalden [ C6] WillemSandberg [ C6]Peter Saville [ C2]PaulaScher [ E2]P ie tS ch re ud er s [ D2]
Jurriaan Schrofer [ C4]P au lS ch ui te ma [ D7]K ur tS ch wi tt er s [ E6]HarryN. Sierman [ B5]Oliver Simon [ D5]Fr ed Sme ij er s [ E2]Erik Spiekermann [ E2]
An to n S ta nk ow sk i [ C5]SwipStolk [ D4]
Henryk To ma sz ewski [ B4]tomato [ G4]
Jan van Toorn [ E4]OttoTreumann [ B6]
Ja n Ts ch ic ho ld [ C6]
GerardUnger [ D3]
Henryv.d. Velde [ G4] Alexander Verberne [ B4] Jan Vermeulen [ C5]
Te ss av dW aa ls [ E3] Wo l fg a ng W ei n ga r t [ D3]E mi l Ru do lf W ei ss [ G4]H.N. Werkman [ D7]Pieter Wetselaar [ A4]wild plakken [ E2]HansPeter Willberg [ D5]R og er W il le ms [ I5]CornelWindlin [ H4]
Her mann Zapf [ A4]Piet Zwart [ E6]
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typopath 1.0
LEFT
Mental Map of the Werk-
plaats Typography, 2002.
Design rm Catalogtree.
ABoVE
The Feltron 2008 Atlas.
Designer: Nicholas Felton.
8/8/2019 Design in Decade 99-09
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/design-in-decade-99-09 9/10
40 printmag.com
LEft
Street art in Berlin by Blu.
-
BELOW
Street art in London
by Banksy.
-
BOTTOM
Poster for Barack Obama,
2008. Designer:
Shepard Fairey.
ago, there was scarcely a white package
to be found, for fear of getting lost on
shelves or looking generic,” says Christine
Mau, a branding expert at Kimberly-
Clark. What changed? “Mac. Its simple
aesthetic set it apart and set the stage
for white packaging,” Mau says. Deborah
Adler’s Target Rx bottle received near-
universal praise, while other projects that
were battered by public opinion man-
aged to survive: FutureBrand’s retooling
of Paul Rand’s UPS logo; Wolff Olins’s
emblem for the 2012 London Olympics;
Arnell Group’s new mark for Pepsi.
Crispin Porter + Bogusky made cool
campaigns for some of the decade’s best-
known brands: Mini Cooper’s “Let’s
Motor,” IKEA’s “Unböring,” and Burger
King’s “Subservient Chicken.” In 2008,
CP+B took its biggest risk, a $300 million
gamble with Microsoft to counter Apple’s
“Mac vs. PC” campaign. Whether or notthe “I’m a PC” catchphrase can be taken
off the Things You Would Never Admit To
list remains to be seen.
By late 2008, however, it was harder to
pay attention to all this. A truly global
recession revealed wide cracks in the
economy, in the health of American retail,
and in any remaining delusions that
mindless consumption and environmen-
tal irresponsibility have any place in
21st-century design. “Sustainability” had
become such a potent buzzword that
companies became susceptible to green -
washing by the middle of the decade.
“The ‘eco’ prex fol-lowed a path similar
to the ‘dot-com’ sufx,” says Brian
Dougherty, co-founder of Celery Design in
Berkeley, California. “What started out as
a meaningful differentiator lost its poten-
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8/8/2019 Design in Decade 99-09
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no ct ob er 2 00 9
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cy as everyone applied it to everything.” A
fundamental transformation is under-
way, however, and designers are now
considering green issues as an integral
part of the brief.
Values-based branding has moved
from fringe to mainstream: Dow’s
“Human Element,” GE’s “Ecomagina-tion,” BP’s “Beyond Petroleum,” and
Gap’s “RED” campaign bathe their pitch-
es in an inclusive, collective aura. Let’s
build a smarter planet . “It’s all brand-
building,” says Dougherty. “Folks like
Patagonia and Ben & Jerry’s pioneered it,
and it’s made the leap to megacorpora-
tions.” Corporate sustainability reports
are displacing prot reports; Walmart is
poised to become one of the greenest com-
panies in the world. The corporate logo,
as the Times pointed out earlier this year,
reects a newly conversational and neigh-
borly tone. Civility is afoot. The cynical
may view this as desperation—a way to
lure business during the credit crunch—but it’s possible to see something bigger
happening. Design can either adapt or
perish. (And possibly thrive: Method, the
hip green cleaning line launched in 2000,
now boasts a $40 million market share.)
The mark for Repower America, Al
Gore’s clean-energy initiative, part of his
Alliance for Climate Protection, demon-
strates this recent marriage of good
design and collective juju. Created by th
Martin Agency and the eponymous
branding rm started by Brian Collins,
the logo reverses the omnipresent “Me”
to create a “we”—“me” is a part of
“we”—and grounds the omnipotent pro
noun on a bed of spring green. It’s ahelpful illustration of a n ew kind of
thinking in design: an emerging cultura
conscience. Even its name is empowered
“In the early aughts, I used the word
‘amplify’ a lot—‘amplify brand values,’
‘amplify meaning,’ ” says Brian Collins,
his company’s chairman and CCO.
“But that sounded a lot like screaming,
when what I wanted to do was resonate.
‘Resonate’ implies listening as well as
speaking, inviting other people into the
dialogue. It’s a different value.” This kinof resonant thinking can also be seen in
the rise of Good , where subscriptions hav
skyrocketed, and in Walmart’s Packagin
Scorecard, with which suppliers can eval
uate themselves relative to the comp-
etition based on green metrics.
“Many designers have troubled con-
sciences,” says Print columnist and desig
critic Rick Poynor. “There’s been a great
deal of discussion around the world in th
last decade about where design’s respon
sibilities lie. That can only be a goodthing. At this point, we can do without
spinners of false dreams.”
Designers are reacting to this. The
vanity and self-centeredness that seemed
to characterize the early part of the de-
cade now appear to be transforming into
self-awareness, at least in nascent form.
Designers are beginning to envision an
era in which good design can serve every
one, not just i, Me, or Mine.
Where to go from here? Where else?
Onward. Upward. Forward. Into the
teens. More surprises are in store, certain
ly, but for now, for everyone, we have all
the technology, tools and—if we keep
ourselves in check—the awareness neces
sary to create all the beautiful things this
ever-shrinking, fragile planet and its in-
habitants really need.
CLoCKwiSE from topCover of Good ’s “The
Water Issue,” 2009.
Design rm: Open.
-
Target ClearRx system,
2004. Designer: Deborah
Adler.
-
Logo for the Alliance for
Climate Protection, 2008.
Design rm: Collins:.
-
Cover of Wired , June
2008. Creative director:
Scott Dadich; design
director: Wyatt Mitchell.