
Some tight work by Leeds based Qubik Design.
AisleOne. A visual journal on design, photography, film, music and culture.

Some tight work by Leeds based Qubik Design.

Former Art Director of Monocle magazine, Ken Leung, has received a lot of attention recently on his new consultancy called Modern Publicity. And rightfully so, his work for Monocle is stunning. But personally I find the identity work for Vanity Fair to be the best piece in the portfolio.
Ken sent me some background on the project:
As a background to the project, I was commissioned by Graydon Carter at Vanity Fair to propose a redesign for the magazine – the brief was left open to see what I would come back with.
Given such an amazing opportunity, I envisioned the project as not just a magazine redesign but a complete brand relaunch, also proposing an accompanying corporate identity programme. I wanted the stationery to feel timeless, intelligent and reflective of the magazine’s heritage, whilst also being fresh and modern in it’s use of colour.
I think Ken accomplished exactly that. The identity has a timeless and sophisticated look, at the same time feels modern and minimal. Love it.

This exceptional Flickr set of vintage ads contains a few Knoll ads from the 50s and 60s that are utterly perfect.

Bauen+Wohnen / Building+Home / Construction+Habitation was a Swiss architectural magazine that existed from. Richard Paul Lohse was responsible for the design from 1947-1956, and in 1952 he designed a special version for the German market that featured his trademark overlay style.
A recurring theme that I’m beginning to notice with classic Swiss Style design is the use of color to identify each magazine issue. Helmut Schmid also did it with his redesign of Die Neue Gesellschaft, and we’ve seem to have lost this simple, but beautiful approach to visual identity. You really don’t see this type of thinking with mainstream publications today. Instead, you’re bombarded with headline-cluttered covers that confuse you instead of inviting you. There are exceptions, though.
Anyway, this collection designed by Lohse is breathtaking and upon seeing these covers I’ve immediately begun the hunt to find them. Joe Kral has uploaded his collection to his Flickr Page and you can get more info on the magazine here and here.

The always inspiring Craig Oldham has created a small booklet titled 10 Penneth that spawned off of a lecture series he gave to graphic design students. The booklet is a series of short essays that help students become better graphic designers and better understand the profession.
The design aesthetic doesn’t fall in line with what usually gets posted here, but I think the principles behind it are the same. The execution is beautiful in my opinion, minimal and visually interesting.
I personally love any project that educates students on graphic design, especially when they’re free! That’s right, Craig will send you a free copy of the booklet as long as you cover a small postal fee. Just shoot him an email.

The stuff that gets added to Blank’s Flickr page always leaves me amazed. I have no idea where they get all this vintage work from. They’ve recently updated their page with a ton of posters by Hans Neuburg, Herbert W. Kapitzki, Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann, many of them I’ve never seen before.